A former Air Force base responsible for potentially exposing hundreds of thousands to toxic chemicals is now a desolate wasteland that has remained abandoned in California for 32 years.
Newly resurfaced footage of George Air Force Base shows housing complexes, medical buildings, recreational facilities and other areas abandoned and riddled with debris, graffiti and broken glass with windows shattered, doors broken, ceilings caved in and walls destroyed.
“This place kind of freaks me out a little bit,” the content creator said while tripping over shattered glass. “There was asbestos issues that’s why I’m not going through stuff too in-depth because I don’t want to get asbestos poising.”
The base, which was established during World War II, was decommissioned by the government in 1992 after the Environmental Protection Agency found contaminants released into the soil and leaching into the groundwater, potentially impacting human health and the environment.
Since that time, many of the thousands who resided or worked on the 5,347-acre base, along with those who lived nearby, claim the exposure resulted in a litany of medical issues, from cancer and heart disease to miscarriages and infertility.
“We enlisted or were commissioned in the military to protect the United States,” former airman Frank Vera said in a statement to The Sun in 2022.
“We agreed to sacrifice our bodies or lay down our lives, if necessary, to protect the country we loved. We did not agree to be needlessly poisoned.”
Vera said he was diagnosed with radiation exposure and suffered seizures, emphysema, chronic pain syndrome and other medical problems.
The base, about 50 miles north of San Bernadino, was designated a Superfund site in 1990, leading to its closure two years later, due the water and soil contaminated with 33 hazardous and radioactive chemicals, including jet fuel and trichloroethylene, according to the EPA.
Vera, who manages a Facebook group and website aimed at exposing the former base, said more than 1,500 people who believe their health was put at risk on the base have contacted him, including at least 300 women who reported miscarriages, The Sun reported.
Air force doctors also reportedly urged women to avoid getting pregnant while stationed at the base.
In 2020, at least 51 plaintiffs, including Vera, tried to sue the federal government claiming the hazardous exposure to toxic chemicals led their medical problems, the outlet reported.
A judge later dismissed the suits ruling the federal government has “sovereign immunity” and cannot be sued.
The EPA plans to clean up the contamination at George until at least 2077.
