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| Col. Sean Cross, between a video screen showing Hurricane Katrina and a horse sculpture |
Accompanied by slides, videos and a genuine dropsonde, three members of the legendary Hurricane Hunters entertained and informed a crowd of about one hundred visitors at Biloxi’s Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art on Sunday, May 31, 2015 as part of the museum’s retrospective on the Mississippi Gulf Coast’s recovery from 2005’s Hurricane Katrina. The storm chasing 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi moved there in the mid-19703 from Puerto Rico.
The program opened with Lt. Col. Jon Talbot, Chief Meteorologist, describing the mission of Hurricane Hunters.
“We do exactly what pilots are trained not to do—fly into severe weather,” he noted. The information gained from these flights provides forecasters with data on the hurricane which is used to make more accurate forecasts as to strength of winds, potential storm surge and changes in direction. The crews fly WC-130J aircraft specially equipped with digital equipment to collect and transmit data. The sturdy planes are not beefed up structurally for hurricane service; they are already tough birds in their normal configuration.
Talbot explained the 53rd is not large in size compared to other Air Force agencies, but performs a very important task. He shared a great deal of statistical data on Hurricane Katrina, including her ranking as the sixth most intense Atlantic hurricane to date as measured solely by central pressure of 902 millibars (hPa) and the third most intense land-falling hurricane to date (920 millibars (hPa)).
Shots of the interior of the aircraft and views of the eyewall of a hurricane as seen from within the eye gave dramatic testimony to the dangers faced by the fliers. Talbot displayed a dropsonde, a data-collection device dropped by the pilots to parachute into the storm and relay data from the surface.
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| Lt. Col. John Talbot and a dropsonde |
Perhaps the hardest hitting visual came in the form of a time lapse montage entitled “Evolution of a Monster” detailing the growth and path of Katrina between Aug. 24 and Aug. 29, 2015 through satellite imagery.
Major Sean Cross added his first-hand accounts of flying into the storm multiple times over the days they tracked her. What he saw led him to warn family and friends to leave immediately because, he said, the Gulf Coast “is going to be changed forever.” When a friend indicated he would ride out the storm in Biloxi’s Back Bay area, Cross told him to “write your name on your forearm in Magic Marker” so his body could be identified when it was found if he didn’t survive the storm.
Cross stressed the importance of each person who lived through Katrina passing on the stories of the horrors and damage to the next generation so they won’t make the mistake of underestimating an approaching hurricane.
The final speaker, a retired Hurricane Hunter, described the build-up of storm surge prior to the storm’s landfall. He related how the early strength of the storm started a wall of water toward the coastline. Even when the storm weakened, the surge maintained its motion. He labeled Katrina as a “CAT 3 storm that made landfall accompanied by a CAT 5 storm surge.”
Although the Hurricane Hunters program was a one-day special event, the museum has many special events coming up through the duration of the Katrina+10 exhibit. Running from May 21 through September 12, the program includes multi-media presentations by the Miss. Department of Transportation, Miss. Power and Light, the Sun Herald newspaper and WLOX-TV.
Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art
386 Beach Blvd.
Biloxi, Miss.
Originally appeared 05/31/2015 at http://www.examiner.com/article/hurricane-hunters-presentation-headlines-katrina-10-exhibit-at-ooma
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