Lock Wire Twister

Lock Wire Twister

On Katrina anniversary, finding peace in another hurricane

With the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina looming, the hearts of New Orleanians – those still there and those in exile after the storm – are being forced to confront pain that is normally shuttered away.  This is the first of a series of articles about the aftermath of the storm.

KATRINA DAY, Aug. 29, 2007 - It hardly seems that two years have gone by since Katrina crushed us.

The city is still numb and battered. Our new pioneers work feverishly and defiantly to keep from sliding into a dark whirlpool of melancholy.

The network satellite trucks are back this week, some of the same ones that packed the Canal Street neutral ground in the weeks after the storm. Politicians, from the president on down, have returned to use us as a backdrop for their campaigns.

Once we measured Mardi Gras by the tons of garbage picked up on Ash Wednesday; now we measure recovery in terms of the debris removed, the percentage of population that's returned, the number of permits issued. And the frightening body count from the Post-K street wars.

Two years ago at this hour, I was squatting on the second-floor landing of the Times-Picayune building, eating a small plate of red beans and rice, watching the trees twist and crash outside, and trying to muffle the ear-splitting whistle of wind playing eerie three-note scales as the wind rose and fell.

Back at my desk in the "hurricane bunker," I was surrounded by a perfect storm of Katrina-induced horror. The generator-powered floor fans in the computer-packed room just pushed wilting hot air in our faces. From every mail link on our site, on every forum, pleas were pouring in for help. My scattered staff - along with reinforcements from other Advance Internet web sites - were working nonstop around the clock to post locations of victims in our "Cries for Help" blog, hoping that somehow, rescue teams would get the message.

Former NOLA Managing Editor Cory Haik describes this vividly in a Seattle Times front page story today:

"We were cutting and pasting to beat the water. And when I force myself to think about the faces behind those messages, I still break down." "We were cutting and pasting to beat the water. And when I force myself to think about the faces behind those messages, I still break down."

At some point, in response to mail from a reader in fear for a relative, I posted that I understood . . . my daughter was missing, too. For those who are praying, I said, her name is Sarah. Later that day, networks had picked up her photo as a face of the storm. Some family members first learned of her peril on cable news. Days later, I was on a live call on network news when my daughter was delivered to me in Baton Rouge. The newscaster and I both cried. (Listen to Sarah's story)

A week ago, in preparation for this week's anniversary of Katrina, I found the perfect place to reflect on the storm and it's aftermath, flying with the Hurricane Hunters into the heart of Hurricane Dean.

A WEEK EARLIER, Aug. 21, 2007 . . .

"What's your total weight?" Airman First Class Tabitha Spinks looks at me encouragingly, pen poised over the clipboard, smile as sweet as a Ponchatoula strawberry beignet. I'm flummoxed, but figure that when they're calculating out how many pounds I'm packing onto a plane headed into a hurricane, it's probably best to tell the truth.

"Ah, that'll be a total of give or take two-fifty," I mumble. "One-fifty for me, and a hundred for my gear . . ."

She chokes back a snicker.

"We're not keeping records," she says.

It's about 1430 on Aug. 21, 2007. Some 700 miles south, Hurricane Dean has hammered ashore in the Yucatan Peninsula as a monster Category 5 storm. Four journalists - a two-person team from NOLA, a guy from CNN and a Houston correspondent for Televisa - are ready to board a WC-130J Hurricane Hunter from Keesler AFB (Biloxi) and catch Dean coming off the Yucatan into the Bay of Campeche. We'll be tagging along as the Hurricane Hunters fly repeatedly across the heart of the storm, collecting vital readings used to help the National Hurricane Center develop its forecasts and tracking maps.

In late August, two years after Katrina, it's been a little creepy watching the far-flung bands from Tropical Storm Erin drift overhead, while Dean steamrolls through the Caribbean, picking up strength. Dean is moving at breakneck speed for a hurricane, and there is no chance it will threaten New Orleans. But there are flashbacks to Katrina.

Obviously the best cure for flashbacks is hitching a ride with the Hurricane Hunters and paying the storm a visit.

My last trip with the 53rd Weather Recon Squad was four years ago, flying into then-Tropical Storm Claudette as it emerged from the Yucatan Peninsula, somewhat disorganized with several centers of circulation. Claudette strengthened into a hurricane before striking the Texas coast around Port O'Connor. In 2003, I was struck by the contrast between the partygoers along the casino beach with its bright neon and music - and the somber aircrews flying around the clock across the Gulf of Mexico, back and forth through the storm, and passing the next plane on the way home. Two different worlds.

Now, however, while some casinos are open, disaster is a shared reality. Biloxi, like the rest of the coast, is shredded. Searching for lunch - even fast-food - entails a drive almost to Gulfport. Aboard our flight this evening, a number of crew members remember me from four years ago. Many had flown into Katrina repeatedly as she neared landfall. Maj. Matt Baker, a veteran pilot, flew my Claudette mission. This evening, he's spending much time napping and reading on the way to Dean. While he was flying missions into Katrina, his wife and daughters fled to Alabama. The family lost everything in the Biloxi area, and they were finally due to return to the Mississipi Coast around the two-year anniversary of the storm.

———–

With the weather briefing and mission huddle finished, Airman Tabitha escorts us out to the WC-130J numbered "3508." We clamber aboard and buckle ourselves to the canvas seats attached to the walls. There are delays . . . some equipment not working. Maj. Matt squats beside us to explain. "This plane is just a big computer," he says. "Basically we've got to reboot the plane." The dropsonde operator's station features a computer screen. There's a Windows welcome screen. Reboot is a familiar concept, and not a comforting one. The plane "shuts down" like a giant PC that's gotten a CTRL/ALT/DEL. Then it starts the reboot. More discussion from the crew. Evidently the reboot doesn't work.

Off to the side, I hear one of the pilots say we can't fly into a hurricane without de-icing capability. True dat. Ice seems a remote probability in the choking heat of this August afternoon. Nevertheless, I'm thinking, de-icing capability is a good thing.

In the end, we wait while a tanker loads 25,000 lbs of fuel and prepares the second plane down the line - "3506″ - for takeoff.

We clamber up drop-down steps - wrestling my "hundred pounds" of gear through the small hatch - and move into the cargo area, where we have our choice of red canvas seats. The tail ramp is open, and I joke about hooking up the static line and making a parachute drop. There are no parachutes, of course. Earlier in the day, after we signed waivers absolving the government of liability for our carcasses, MSgt. Randy Bynon, the flight's loadmaster, cheerfully sketched the procedures for an emergency. The checklist involves lots of prayer as you ride the plane down to the storm-tossed ocean, at which time MSgt. Randy will help you into a life raft.

That evidently has never happened, however. Wired.com this July rated Hurricane Hunting as the No. 3 "Best Dangerous Science Job." (The little icon of a plane with its wing ripped off, spinning down into a vortex is a little over the edge.) MSgt. Randy notes that the hurricane-force winds aren't a problem - and says that the bigger, stronger storms can actually provide a steady ride. A C-130 flying 300 mph on a calm day, for instance, is already facing "wind" at double the strength of a major hurricane. What gets you, though, is the turbulence . . . the mismatch of winds and currents.

There's been at least one close call, as a Hurricane Hunter flight - in a P3 aircraft - narrowly escaped disaster during Hurricane Hugo in 1989. An NOAA article describes the scare: That day, one of the P-3's four engines started spitting fire; the plane was caught in a tornadic updraft and spun about. Those aboard feared structural failure, with potential loss of a wing or other essential part. With the P-3's nose pointed downward and just 700 feet above the ocean, the pilot was able to regain control and pull the aircraft up intact to 1,000 feet. An Air Force Reserves C-130, which was also flying the storm, led the crippled craft back through the eyewall to safety.

On this flight, after a tranquil glide over a sunset-painted ocean, we began feeling the turbulence as we descended to 10,000 feet, somewhere north of the Yucatan. Then we began a steady roller-coaster ride, rocking from side to side, dropping suddenly, giving a feeling of weightlessness, then bounding upward, pushing us down into our seats.

Flying through the storm is a bit like sitting on a washing machine on spin cycle with a slightly off-center load, while a shop vac howls next to your ears. Ear plugs are provided. The worst turbulence comes several hours into the flight, as we punch out of the eye into the northeastern eyewall.

I'm standing behind the weather officer, watching the windspeed move from dead calm back to hurricane strength. My "sea legs" are keeping me steady as the plane bounces. I'm one cool dude. Suddenly the plane jerks upward, as if I'm on an elevator that suddenly leaps ten stories. I collapse straight down into a sitting position. I nonchalantly look about as if nothing has happened. The dropsonde operators and media look at me. I grab a headset and hear the flight desk asking if everyone is all right.

"We've got one down," says MSgt. Randy looking at me. "But he's OK." Guess I'm not fooling anyone.

Measurement of the hurricane is an intriguing process . . . if you're hooked on tracking hurricanes on your refrigerator map, this is your cup of tea. This is where the dropsonde operators and the weather officer do their stuff. In the movie "Twister," the team of storm-chasers race madly around Tornado Alley, trying to position a canister full of sensors into the twister's path. Once they're sucked into the vortex, they send out information vital to studying tornadoes.

The Hurricane Hunter's a bit like that, only the plane flies directly into the storm and shoots an electronics-packed cylinder called a dropsonde out of its belly. As the dropsonde descends by parachute, it spits out streams of data that are relayed to the dropsonde station, then to the weather officer, who translates the numbers into critical information about the storm's severity and path.

There are two boxes of dropsondes strapped in behind the operator's station. Each instrument is encased in pink bubble wrap and a metallic anti-static bag. Tech Sgt. Vincent Burden prepares the first half-dozen cylinders by carefully unwrapping and setting them into slots above the computer screen. The instruments are connected to the computer one at a time for activation and tracking. As the plane approaches the area believed to be the eye of the storm, the dropsonde is placed into the launcher, a five-foot tube pointing up from the floor of the plane. Dropsonde operators load it by pulling handles to "cock" the spring-loaded launcher, inserting the instrument and pushing downward on the handles to lock things into place. Fully locked and loaded, the launcher is ready to lay its first egg.

On one screen, we watch the plane's avatar pushing through familiar color-coded Doppler radar bands. Watch the wind speed, the operators tell us. The wind speed outside shows 89 knots . . . then 60 . . . then 29 . . . then 2 knots . . . almost dead calm. We're in the eye. The dropsonde operator pulls up his launch screen, complete with a click-to-launch button. WHANG! The first drop comes as a shock . . . sounds like someone slamming a cinder block onto the hood of a car. Oh my gawd, I think, we lost a wing!

The jumpiness doesn't leave . . . you know the WHAM! is coming, but you're never quite prepared. Data is now streaming in. I have no clue. But as I stand behind the weather officer, eventually he massages the data into reports I've seen coming from the National Hurricane Center . . . still in techno-gobble, but recognizable as weather data.

————-

The wind speed leaps back into life . . . 4 knots . . . 26 . . . 73 . . . 87 . . . and the plane is buffeted by turbulence as it adjusts to the newly strengthened wind. The long night is just beginning, as the Hurricane Hunter flies in giant triangles covering the entire Bay of Campeche, crossing the eye time and again. WHANG! WHANG! WHANG! The dropsondes continue, while the plane leaps in the up- and down-drafts for about six hours.

At some point, all the media folks and our escort, Airman Tabitha, are sleeping the long watch away. I'm not sleeping. I'm laying on my back, alternately weightless and pressed hard into the red canvas, eyes closed and reliving the desperate days of Katrina and our hard-fought survival. This is the perfect place to remember. Every so often, at least for a moment, we find peace in the center of the storm.

 

 

 

About the Author

Jon Donley is a professional writer, web developer and media consultant, specializing in new models of journalism, community content-building and audience engagement. Jon formed his own company - Dawnsinger LLC - after 30 years in professional journalism, as a reporter, columnist, editor and new media developer.  He was the founding editor-in-chief of NOLA.com, the Advance Internet news and entertainment portal affiliated with the New Orleans Times-Picayune, as well as MardiGras.com. Earlier he founded the web site of the San Antonio Express-News,  MySA.com.  Jon was part of the team of journalists awarded the 2006 Pulitzers for public service and breaking news during Katrina.   Jon is recognized by new media industry groups as an authority on community journalism, online community-building and techniques for covering breaking news events with mobile, multimedia tools.

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