Having been to Florida once on vacation and having friends and family who spend time in Florida I try to pay attention to the hurricane season in Florida. I know that air operations can play an important role in tracking many storm events, including hurricanes. I saw this video from Vertical Plus on how Florida is preparing their air operations for the upcoming hurricane season and am sharing the video today.
I have a great deal of respect for those who fly on Hurricane Hunter aircraft into Hurricanes. They do important work to provide good information with the goal of keeping us as safe as possible from hurricanes.
I found a nice article by Matthew Cappuci, a regular contributor to the Washington Post and a Meteorologist with the weather app “MyRadar. He flew on “Kermit”, a NOAA hurricane hunter, on a mission flying through Hurricane Melissa. There were 19 people onboard Kermit, pilots, flight engineers, and researchers. Here is an excerpt from Cappuci’s October 27th article on the Washington Post (this article is a gift that expires in ten days on or about November 8th, for those coming on after November 8th I hope that you will still have free access to this article). Here is an excerpt from Cappuci's article to give you an idea of what it was like on Kermit:
Winds in the eyewall reach ridiculous speeds; over the open ocean, winds were gusting 140 mph or more. Eventually, all the rising air in an eyewall collides with the ceiling of the lower atmosphere; we call that the tropopause. Some of the air bounces against that ceiling, curling downward. It sinks (subsides), warms up and dries out. That punches out an oasis of calm: the eye. …
And then it happened. We emerged from the mist. A fingernail moon hung overhead in the deep twilight. I pressed my face against the glass. My jaw dropped.
I was sitting in the middle of a 10-mile-wide stadium of the gods. On all sides, hulking thunderstorms towered high above me — yet, directly overhead, the stars twinkled. With the faint glow offered by the moon, I could see brushstroke-like striations as the clouds in the eyewall swung around the eye at breakneck speeds. But, for a moment, I was in an oasis of calm.
My prayers are with all those affected by Hurricane Melissa as she struck Cuba and Jamaica, see this report from CBS News for more information.
First Energy is my electric supplier. Thank-you First Energy for helping out with electricity restoration in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.
I am happy that the NJ Forest Fire Service has sent a chainsaw crew to help with Hurricane Helene recovery. The NJ Forest Fire Service honors all of us in New Jersey by helping out with this recovery. Thank-you to the chainsaw crew for helping out.
I am sure that many States are sending emergency workers and first responders to towns and states impacted by Hurricane Helene including but not limited to National Guard troops.
I know that the New York Army National Guard has deployed 17 soldiers and three CH47-Chinook Helicopters to support recovery efforts in North and South Carolina, see this September 29th press release from NY Governor Kathy Hochul for more information. Emergency workers and first responders from the Delaware Valley (Delaware, southern NJ, and southeast Pennsylvania) have been deployed to areas affected by Helene including first responders and utility workers, see this report from CBS news .
I want to share Facebook links from two groups of first responders from New Jersey who have deployed to areas affected by Helene; the New Jersey Office of Emergency Management and the New Jersey State Police Task Force 1. When you see these images, I am sure that they reflect what first responders from other states are doing to help communities affected by Helene.
Thanks to all the emergency workers and first responders including but not limited to Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York for your service. Stay safe.
I do delve into aviation related issues that do not directly relate to wildland firefighting. One example being the important work that Hurricane Hunting aircraft to fly into hurricanes to gather important meteorological and location of tropical storms and hurricanes that are then sent to the National Hurricane Center. As many of you no doubt know from various news sources, Hurricane Beryl made landfall on the Texas Coast early this morning near Matagorda, Texas as a Catagory 1 hurricane, see this CNN report with updates for more information on how Beryl is impacting Texas including but not limited to wide spread power outages, flooding, etc.
I know that hurricane hunters have flown Beryl and have posted many videos over the years (see my posts labeled hurricane hunters). I want to draw your attention to two posts, one from June 3rd 2024 where I shared an NPR report on hurricane hunters including interviews with pilots. The second post is from July 7th, 2021 where I shared some information about hurricane hunter aircraft from NOAA and the US Air Force Reserve as well as a video of a hurricane hunter aircraft flying into a hurricane, the links in that article were still good as I posted this article. I encourage you to take a look at the two articles.
I want to share a video report from CBS17 (Raleigh, Durham, Fayetteville NC) taking you inside one of NOAA's hurricane hunters known as Kermit just before the start of the 2024 hurricane season. I want to thank all the hurricane hunters pilots and crew for the good work you do flying into hurricanes to provide the best possible information on hurricanes and tropical storms.
Direct link to video from CBS17 on YouTube
On Monday night, August 28th, New Jersey Task Force 1, one of 28 Federal Urban FEMA Search and Rescue Teams was deployed to South Carolina to assist in search and rescue efforts as Hurricane Idalia strengthened in the Gulf of Mexico. While they were staged in South Carolina awaiting for operational orders, they engaged in training and planning, see this NJ Advance Media article of August 30th and NBC4 New York (direct link to video embedded above) for more information. I understand that a couple of NJ Task Force 1 crews remain in New Jersey in case they are needed locally.
Recent deployments of New Jersey Task Force 1 are:
I have been following the aftermath of Hurricane Ian more than I usually do because I have some friends who had houses on the Florida gulf coast barrier islands of Fort Myers Beach and Sanibel. All my friends are alive and evacuated while others are winter residents and had not yet gone to their winter homes.
I am always interested in what New Jersey does to help other states in need after disasters. In part because I know for a fact that other states have helped us out be sending utility crews after storms. One example being the Florida electric utility crew that helped to restore power to my neighborhood after Superstorm Sandy the fall of 2012. So I was delighted when I heard from reliable sources, sorry I have no media articles to show you, that New Jersey electric utilities have sent trucks and crews down to Florida to help them restore power. In addition, the New Jersey Red Cross has sent a team down to Florida, see this article from News 12 New Jersey for more information
Just this morning, thanks to the NJ Forest Fire Service Section B10, I saw the following video showing footage of the deployment of New Jersey Task Force 1 to Florida on October 1, 2022. According to their website The New Jersey Task Force 1 is one of 28 FEMA urban search and rescue teams in the country.
Direct link to video from Shane Branin on YouTube
I continue with remembering Hurricane Agnes 50 years later by embedding two videos from WBAL11 in Baltimore. In the first video you will see pictures and recollections from survivors highlighting some of the destruction from Agnes. In the second video you will hear about how weather forecasting has changed in 50 years. But first see the map below where I have circled Havre de Grace and Ellicott City, just two of the towns devastated by flooding from Hurricane Agnes.
Direct link to video from WBAL11 on YouTube
Direct link to video (part 1) from PennLive on YouTube
Direct link to video (part 2) from PennLive on YouTube
The Capital Weather Gang of the Washington Post wrote a nice article about Agnes on June 19th. It is my intention to make a gift of this article for fourteen days from the date of this post, hopefully eliminating the paywall for that period, if you are arriving after July 6th there may be a paywall. If you can, please take the time to read the article. Agnes first made landfall on the Florida panhandle then moved inland up the coast before emerging into the Atlantic off North Carolina where it eventually merged with another weather system. Agnes continued up the east coast making it last landfall on Long Island on June 22, 1972. There was major flooding on many rivers in the Mid-Atlantic, some of those records still stand today. Damages were $3.1 billion, 128 people died and tens of thousands of people homes were severely damaged by flood waters or destroyed.
Please, turn around and do not drown. Pay attention to warnings from your weather service if a hurricane, tropical storm or major rain event is headed your way. Sign up with your local emergency management agency to receive phone calls and text alerts if a significant storm is headed your way and heed their warnings.
The National Weather Service collaborated with other agencies in developing a website commemorating the 50th anniversary of Agnes, including event summaries, pictures, stories from survivors, and flood mitigation after Agnes. There is a lot of good material on the website and I understand that this website will be permanent. You can spend a lot of time on the website, so if you are so inclined you may want to bookmark the page for later viewing. Here is the direct link to the 50th Anniversary of Hurricane Agnes website.
Agnes ravaged the Eastern US in late June 1972. At the time, it was the most destructive tropical cyclone in American history. Rainfall from Agnes caused catastrophic inland flooding, with an immense geographic scale. Access the commemoration site here: https://t.co/YpWpO7Oqqi pic.twitter.com/cy7AwglSZN
— NWS Mount Holly (@NWS_MountHolly) June 22, 2022
When I posted on September 1 about the deployment of NJ Task Force 1 to the gulf coast region, I did not know that the NJ-TF1was demobilized on August 31st to return to NJ to help with the remnants of Ida. I had read in a couple of news articles online that the NJ-TF1 was back in NJ helping with search and rescue and other storm recovery. I finally checked out the NJ Office of Emergency Management Facebook page and found the post about their demobilization.
To the women and men of the NJ-TF1, I am honored by your national service in time of need. As a New Jersey resident, I am very grateful that you are here in New Jersey helping with search and rescue and other storm response after the devastation caused by the remnants of Hurricane Ida on September 1st leaving many areas in central New Jersey with catastrophic flooding. I thank-you for your service as we in New Jersey are working to clean-up and recover from Ida.
The video that I have embedded below is from NJ Advance Media showing flooding in one town, Somerville and Raritan New Jersey. Scenes like this were all to common last week.
FEMA has 28 federal urban search and rescue teams, one of these is New Jersey Task Force 1 In addition to being a federal team they are a State of New Jersey Team operating under the New Jersey State Police. Like many of you, my heart and prayers go out to all on the Gulf Coast affected by Hurricane Ida which has decimated Louisiana and environs. I wanted to find a way to offer my heartfelt prayers, as inadequate as this might be, to all affected by Hurricane Ida.
I think that the best way to express my prayers is to share that the New Jersey Task Force 1 was deployed to the Gulf Coast Region to provide support for ongoing search and rescue efforts on the Gulf Coast. I am honored by your service. You represent New Jersey well, and perhaps you can be an extension of my thoughts and prayers for all affected by Hurricane Ida. From the New Jersey Office of Emergency Facebook post on the deployment of NJTF1 that I share below:
New Jersey Task Force 1 (NJ-TF1) has been activated as part of the National Urban Search & Rescue (US&R) Response System to deploy to assist with the rescue and recovery efforts resulting from soon-to-be Hurricane Ida.
NJ-TF1 is deploying as a Type 3 US&R Team consisting of 45 team members, in 35 technically skilled positions, and 10 ground support personnel. The team will have a full cache of equipment allowing them to be prepared for every type of situation.
NJ-TF1 is deploying to a staging area in the Gulf Coast Region. This will be the team’s ninth deployment as a FEMA US&R Team since 2016. The team has past experience in working in all types of situations, including structural collapse from 9/11, Tropicana Hotel Parking Garage Collapse, multiple hurricanes, Hackensack Parking Garage Collapse and Champlain Towers Collapse.
we have eight helicopters flying from the Coast Guard, two flying from the DEA, two flying from Customs and Border Protection. We also have a number of fixed-wing aircraft that were doing some aerial reconnaissance to see what the impacted areas look like. And as of today, we actually have three Coast Guard ships there. They're helping out. They're serving as support cutters for our aircraft so the aircraft can land there and fuel. And they're doing a number of things. They're sending their boats ashore to do some assessments from land.In the video that I embedded below (here is a direct link to the video from DVIDS), you will hear Petty Officer 3rd Class Jhonkirc, member assisting in the Hurricane Dorian relief efforts being interviewed about thee actual situation on the Abaco area Sept. 5, 2019. The Coast Guard is supporting the Bahamian National Emergency Management Agency and the Royal Bahamian Defense Force, who are leading search and rescue efforts in the Bahamas. The video is by Seaman Erik Villa Rodriguez.
Airmen from the 334th Air Expeditionary Group take off to survey the Florida panhandle, Oct. 11, 2018 from Patrick Air Force Base, Florida, after Hurricane Michael left its mark on the peninsula coast. The 334th AEG is an expeditioary search and rescue unit made up of Reserve Citizen Airmen from the 920th Rescue Wing, PAFB, Florida and the 563rd Rescue Group, Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona. Aircrew took off in two HH60-G Pave Hawk helicopters and an HC-130P/N King aerial refueling aircraft. The 334th AEG is standing by to perform search and rescue if called upon by Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Airmen from the 334th Air Expeditionary Group take off to survey the Florida panhandle, Oct. 11, 2018 from Patrick Air Force Base, Florida, after Hurricane Michael left its mark on the peninsula coast. The 334th AEG is an expeditioary search and rescue unit made up of Reserve Citizen Airmen from the 920th Rescue Wing, PAFB, Florida and the 563rd Rescue Group, Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona. Aircrew took off in two HH60-G Pave Hawk helicopters and an HC-130P/N King aerial refueling aircraft. The 334th AEG is standing by to perform search and rescue if called upon by Federal Emergency Management Agency.
