If you’re reading this, you’re following Ike and depending in some fashion on the data Hurricane Hunters provide – but did you know the place they call home is none other than Keesler Air Force Base here on the Coast of Mississippi?
I’m certain I knew that and equally certain that for some reason, it did not fully register until Ike – the big one they say that’s going to get bigger.
“It’s a big one, and it’s going to get bigger,” said Lt. Col. Mark Carter, 54, a pilot who has chased storms for 31 years. “It’s off land now, and feeding on the warm water down there while it gets itself back together.”
…Carter, and his fellow Hurricane Hunters of the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron, were finishing a fourth trip across Ike, during a 10-hour, 3,000-mile trek to monitor the storm taking aim at the Texas coast.
The aircraft carved a 210-mile giant “X” pattern through Ike and its eye, just off the western tip of Cuba…
Using high tech equipment aboard the $72 million plane, the crew gathers data on wind speed, barometric pressure and other information for the National Hurricane Center.
Think about it. If you lived on the Coast, the person ahead of you in the checkout line could be a hurricane hunter stopping to pick up a few groceries after a hard day in the sky
I’m going to keep doing this until I get too old or my hearing goes…then I’ll just sit up in Picayune (Miss.) and drink beer and eat barbecue and dream about it.
These guys love their job – and some of these guys are gals, although the term seems inappropriate when the gal is also a Major in the Air Force. Continue reading “Hurricane hunters are some of our homefolks”