A new Department of Defense (DOD) report found that the U.S. military bases that housed Afghan evacuees suffered $260 million in damages, with the Air Force saying the damage was "unrepairable."

The DOD inspector general reported last week that the eight bases housing the refugees in Texas, Wisconsin, New Jersey, Virginia, New Mexico and Indiana are asking for repair money after they sustained over a quarter-billion dollars in damage.

Over 17 days, 120,000 evacuees were taken to the U.S. amid the deadly, botched withdrawal that saw Afghanistan fall under Taliban control.

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"A description of the damages from Air Force officials explained that the damage by guests was unrepairable," the Pentagon report reads.

"Air Force officials described tables, chairs, and cots broken by guests and tents and cots ruined by spray paint, human biological matter, and holes," it continues.

"The Air Force described materials as ‘completely depleted, such that no materials remain available for other real world missions,’" it adds.

Some of the damage to the buildings left them unusable for the military until the plumbing and walls are repaired.

"DoD installations reported that facilities and equipment were overused, damaged, and remained in various degrees of disrepair, resulting in a costly maintenance effort," the report reads.

"DoD installations need to restore their facilities and equipment to a condition that enables them to conduct trainings, prepare for future events, and return to normal base operations," it continues.

Some bases requested more money from the DOD than others. Fort Bliss in Texas, which housed 11,472 migrants, only asked for over half a million dollars in repair costs while Fort McCoy in Wisconsin — which housed nearly the same number of refugees — asked for $145.6 million.

The DOD inspector general also raised questions about whether the money was solely being asked for repairs connected to housing evacuees.

In September, amid the system shock from the sheer number of evacuees headed to the U.S. from Afghanistan, the U.S. State Department, working with humanitarian organizations, turned to ordinary Americans to fill the gap. Neighbors, co-workers, faith groups and friends banded together in "sponsor circles" to help Afghans get settled in their communities.

They raised money and found the newcomers homes to rent, enrolled their children in schools, taught them how to open bank accounts and located the nearest mosques and stores selling halal meat.

Now the Biden administration is preparing to turn the experiment into a private-sponsorship program for refugees admitted through the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program and is asking organizations to team up with it to launch a pilot program by the end of 2022.

The move comes amid increasing pressure on President Joe Biden, who vowed in a 2021 executive order to increase opportunities for Americans to resettle refugees and restore the U.S. as the world’s safe haven. The Trump administration decimated the refugee program, which traditionally tasks nine resettlement agencies with placing refugees in communities.

The Associated Press contributed reporting.

Florida's citrus, fruit and vegetable crops appear to have escaped any widespread damage from some of the coldest weather in years, officials with state growers associations said Tuesday.

A cloud cover helped protect citrus trees in areas where the thermometer hovered around or below freezing, though there may be pockets of damage, said Matt Joyner, CEO of Florida Citrus Mutual.

"Indications so far are that the industry fared fairly well," Joyner said in an email. "It appears that we were right on the edge of what could have been a devastating event."

Florida's fruit and vegetable growers also reported no widespread damage to crops, though growers are still assessing the cold weather's impact, said Christina Morton, director of communications for the Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association.

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"Early reports are showing growers were pretty fortunate considering how cold it got and for how long it hung around," Morton said in an email.

Over the weekend, parts of the Florida Panhandle had wind chills that dipped into the single digits, and interior parts of central Florida had temperatures plunging as low as 27 degrees Fahrenheit. At Tampa International Airport, the thermometer dipped below freezing for the first time in almost five years.

Florida is the primary supplier of fresh fruits and vegetables for the rest of the country during the winter, and growers last week harvested as much of their crops as possible ahead of the Arctic blast. In the state’s midsection, where blueberries, strawberries and blackberries are grown, growers used overhead irrigation to spray a protective coat of ice around the fruit.

Florida agriculture already was battered this fall by two hurricanes — Ian and Nicole. Hurricane Ian hit citrus groves hard, as well as the state’s large cattle industry, dairy operations, vegetables like tomatoes and peppers, and even hundreds of thousands of bees essential to many growers.

Citrus is big business in Florida, with more than 375,000 acres in the state devoted to oranges, grapefruit, tangerines and the like for an industry valued at more than $6 billion annually. Most Florida oranges are used to make juice, and this season’s drastically lower harvest, combined with the slam from Ian, will press prices upward and force producers to rely even more heavily on California and imported oranges from Latin America.