Gulf Storms 2008 and The Search 1945

Since last Wednesday's post and the demise of Hurricane Dolly the Miami Hurricane Center has focused its attention on an area in the Western Caribbean near Honduras and Nicaragua, which turned out to be nothing. And the Atlantic Basin remained quiet until Sunday morning August 3rd when three systems cropped up in the Northern Gulf of Mexico. However, later in the day things began to sort themselves out as one of the systems developed into a Tropical Depression, and was quickly named Edouard. On Monday August 4th the Tropical Depression Edouard was located about 285 miles southeast of Galveston, Texas carrying maximum winds of 55 mph. Tropical storm warnings were posted from the mouth of the Mississippi River westward to San Luis Pass, Texas. Tuesday Edouard was upgraded to Tropical Storm status and made landfall on the upper Texas Coast between High Island and Sabine Pass carrying surface winds of 65 mph.

For a local take and more details on Tropical Storm Edouard read Heather Menzies' column in the Bay City News August 6, 2008.

A Day in the Quest For a Hurricane Warning System: August 1st 1945

From the pages of The Hurricane Hunters and Lost in the Bermuda Triangle:

Our crew had an early morning call the day our regular rotation was posted on the board. It would be a routine observation flight, and according to our briefing we would be flying southeast crossing the lower Bahamas near Turk Island then north of Puerto Rico to the vicinity of Guadeloupe where we would reverse course and return by way of Santa Domingo, Dominican Republic, across Port Au-Prince, Haiti, the eastern tip of Cuba near Guantanamo Bay and back to Miami. Those were the thoughts going through my mind as we taxied out to the runway and turned into takeoff position. First Pilot Lt. Robert Engles headed our crew, Co Pilot Lt (jg) Alvin Shepherd, Navigator Lt. Bert Bassett, Plane Captain Aviation Machinist Mate 1st Class Hal Jackson, and Radioman 2nd Class Al Primrose and I was First Mech.

The skipper pushed down on the brake pedals, moved the throttles forward. Then as he backed off the brakes, we started to move slowly down the runway. With full fuel tanks the plane struggled at first before it began to take a life of its own and roll effortlessly down the runway. This was my first flight in quite a while that I wasn't designated as plane captain. Of course on these long-range flights they needed someone in a more senior position either first class or chief to be designated as plane captain. I could care less about the ranking and what was going through my mind was a complete rehash of the check off list. Had I done everything I could to make the flight safe? Once we got up to speed the plane lifted off the runway. Moments later the skipper called out to the co-pilot, "Gear up." The landing gear folded into place and once we got into a routine climb attitude I made my way aft for the post takeoff inspection. I moved along the catwalk through the bomb bay and stopped beside the starboard waist hatch. I glanced down at the clear blue Atlantic waters just as the skippers voice crackled into my earphones. "Gentlemen, I have just been informed that we should scrap our briefing information, then take a more south by southeast direction and head toward the St. George's Island and Granada. Seems there's a tropical storm cooking up in the Eastern Caribbean."

Hot dang, I thought as I made my way back to the flight deck. I looked around and could see excitement in the eyes of the rest of the crew. Finally it looked like all of our practice runs were about to pay off. Immediately after Bassett set our new course heading Lt. Engles picked up his mike and said, "Put on your oxygen masks, we're going up top and see if, at that altitude, we're able to spot anything with the radar." When we reached 20,000 feet I looked out the waist hatch and the sea looked white with only an occasional plot of blue water mixed in. I had no doubt that the sea was roiling. The sky above was bright blue and was broken only by a few scattered cirrus clouds four or five thousand feet above our present altitude. My thoughts turned to the storm itself. Something I had read within the last week or two was how old time sea captains had figured out ways to judge the location of a storm center and then maneuver his ship out of harms way. Of course what we were doing was just the opposite. We had reached the altitude of about 29, 000 feet when all of a sudden the skipper got on the horn and said, "We'll begin descending, since we haven't spotted anything on the radar. Think we'll go down and take a closer look at the waves and swells and see if they can tell us anything." (To be continued.)

Writers Corner:

Lenora Smalley found this piece of solid advice to all writers and passed it along to the Corner.

In Writer August 2008 Andre Dubus says "Pages are written the same way farms are made productive, or houses are kept clean or baseball pennant races are won with steady work each day. This means that you get up every morning uninspired... and work...Whether the particular pages on a particular day are good or bad, there is still you, all of you, bringing to that work and that day everything you have. And when you're doing that, you're a writer."

About the Author

Tom Barnes -- Actor, Writer and Hurricane Hunter. Check out my website for books, blogs, western legends, a literary icon, reviews and interviews. Also my novels The Goring Collection and Doc Holliday's Road to Tombstone along with a non fiction remembrance of The Hurricane Hunters and Lost in the Bermuda Triangle.

www.tombarnes39.com
www.RocktheTower.com