Stories From The Hurricane Highway Season 1 Episode 11 Transcript - 2002 Part 1 / 2

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hello and welcome to another edition of stories from the hurricane Highway with Mark sudath that's me uh tonight we're going to take a look back and revisit the year 2002 so what is that about 18 years ago now wow uh so glad you can join me for this latest podcast episode right here on patreon exclusively on patreon and for our hurricane track Insiders uh we're ready for another Edition another chapter as we move on down the road of the hurricane Highway these are stories these are the intimate details that as I've said before are very similar to what we would have if this were a book on tape I guess we also have the hurricane Highway television type series that I have begun producing episode one now available on patreon and a hurricane track Insider site and that is a new series that's like I said a TV type series uh where it is it's a series this is going to be at least eight episodes and episode one is finished and I posted that on patreon and hurricane track Insider recently and episode 2 should be ready by the end of the month with the eighth episode uh hopefully by mid to late May I've got my work cut out for me for that but the podcast series of course is more behind the scenes stuff slower burn if you will you know a longer duration we can break some of these up into two parts which I've done often some of them three parts and we'll do that again with this episode this chapter uh the year 2002 I'll have part one tonight and part two next Wednesday I say tonight it's funny because you can listen to this anytime but I'm recording it on Wednesday February the 12th for what it's worth all right so you may listen to it tonight you may listen to it 30 Nights from now who knows that's the beauty of these podcasts you can listen to it on any device you choose generally and at any time you wish so the year 2002 um the First full year of really having the momentum of major storm surge map projects with this project IMPACT program the Isuzu Rodeo had done really well for me in 1999 2000 and 2001 as our first intercept vehicle Chase vehicle whatever you want to call it that was doing great my website was doing great my relationship with Lowe's was entering its first full year as well Lowe's home improvement stores our big partnership and of course as I mentioned and as we all know it in September of 2001 of course we had the uh the attacks the terrorist attacks and a lot of things were kind of in limbo we weren't sure as a nation how were we going to proceed with a lot of different things the economy and we were getting ready to presumably go to war and you know there was a lot of stuff up in the air and two of those things directly impact the fact that me one was of course my relationship with Lowe's was that going to be able to continue you know that was you know the biggest single event since Pearl Harbor September 11 2001 and so what was that gonna do in terms of the future and also these uh storm surge Nor'easter projects that I was doing for these two villages in Long Island East Rockaway and Freeport very close to New York City you can take the Long Island Railroad and be in and out of the city in no time lots of people new folks that I was working with who worked with uh the fire department and First Responders police Etc emergency managers I mean hey hurricanes and emergencies they're one and the same when hurricanes come right and so it was all intermixed and there was this big question mark But like I mentioned in the the last chapter there the last episode uh from 2001 where Jesse bass was our guest I really commended the leaders up there in Long Island for forging ahead you know understanding they were dealing with a lot of grief and a lot of anxiety about what happened in the awesome Big Apple and the financial district there with the loss of the World Trade Center towers Etc you know and and more down there what we call Ground Zero they just kept going forward you know and that really was commendable they were not going to ignore natural disasters and that was really important so that allowed me to continue with this project and so 2002 I was forging ahead and working on some really unique things growing out of my experiences from producing hurricane tracking charts in the mid to late 90s the storm surge maps that I won the award from FEMA for in 1999 my work in 3D modeling to create animations and using real world photographs um to add digital CGI images to I.E water you know being able to show water on photographs and how high the water could get and to animate all that again I was leading the way in that field but boy it was it was catching up to me quickly lots of other TV stations you know production companies the movie industry you know personal computers from Macintosh the max which I used I used the Power Mac G3 to do all my work even Windows based PCS were catching up people were using Photoshop video animation software you name it non-linear video editing it just goes on and on and on I wasn't going to be you know sort of the King of the Hill for too long in the world of dominating hurricane awareness graphics and Innovation um you know you got to keep going and innovating and evolving or you get left behind in 2002 you know I did that and so one of the big things that I wanted to do for this project in the project IMPACT program for each Rockaway in Freeport on Long Island was to really explain uh what we mean by storm surge even more so than ever before because they're not used to it up there and and one of the people that was involved it was a gentleman by the name of Dennis McCabe and he was the project impact coordinator up there in Freeport and I remember him in this interview that I did um with him and I'm actually going to play part of that as a clip in this episode so that's going to be pretty cool another uh time when I get to hey here's a clip I'm going to play some of this for you in just a little bit but he talked about that that hurricanes are expected in Florida and in North Carolina and of course he had that great Long Island dialect accent whatever you want to call it uh that that I can't do but he did a great job because he lives there but it was um it's true you know you know Long Island has a hurricane history of course but not as Rich obviously as latitudes farther to the South Florida Texas Louisiana the Carolinas you know goes without saying so there was this real Desire by me and the leaders up there to really emphasize as the science what is storm surge how is it created the mechanisms behind it some history behind it and and then I guess more importantly I'm struggling is the the right word here and phrase but what do we do about it you know that word mitigation how do we mitigate future damage from storm surge elevation awareness proper mapping Etc all of that would go hand in hand and this was really really exciting to do this for Long Island New York so I got to visit up there a couple times and here's another trivia question in the making for you all right you know one day uh you know jeopardy some trivia game Trivial Pursuit hurricane Edition who knows right maybe in my book we'll do a quiz show I will do a book someday I promise and this podcast series I've said it before it's going to be the the basis for a book we'll get a Ghostwriter and I'll work together with them and use this podcast and we'll crank out a heck of a paperback book for you and one of the quiz questions that we will derive from all of that was this uh the very first time and remember let me just sidebar again real quick the beauty of this podcast series and how it's different from the docu-series that I'm producing the television series if you will the hurricane Highway these are stories from the hurricane Highway remember so this is the companion uh if you watch The Walking Dead they have a companion TV show called The Talking Dead I don't know if you knew that but it's true and there are other Star Wars that whole phenomenon has a podcast NASCAR and NFL there are all these Companion podcast series to things in uh film television movies Etc um so anyway this is no different and so this is a companion to the hurricane Highway docu-series the television series and the Really the beauty of this are these intimate details that we can go into you know and take it or leave it some people may find it boring and that's fine that's the other beauty of this you can just turn it off and not listen or oh I really like this and you can keep listening uh whatever the case may be that's the beauty of this in in one regard is that I can talk about these little details these the minutia as they call it of these Amazing Stories again take it or leave it so one of those little tidbits here um the very first time that I ever experienced a Boston Market food place it's not really fast food because it's like home cooking if you've ever been to Boston Market uh you know I've seen commercials I'd heard about it and they don't have those in Wilmington North Carolina and I went up to Long Island a few times to do this project to meet with people to shoot film video background stuff sorry about the dog barking I'm recording this uh at the height of the afternoon when the kids are outside playing with the dogs um so we'll just have to ignore it but um first hey the dog heard me talking about Boston Market and he got all she got all excited it's a she Delilah that's Delilah barking I think you can hear it maybe you can't and if you can't you're like what is he talking about anyway first time I went to Boston Market was in Freeport New York in uh early 2002 I believe it was um made it might have been at the end of 2001 when I went up there bottom line this project was the first time I got introduced to Boston Market uh just so write that down first time Mark went to Boston Market I love Boston Market I go there whenever I can when I'm on the road uh you can actually eat healthy there if you so desire you get rotisserie chicken you can get some fresh vegetables and it all looks good it's wholesome and it's like home cooking you can't beat it it's not some other fast food whatever that we're all familiar with that I enjoy uh so Boston Market was the first you know the first experience was Long Island New York as part of this project now that I've completely derailed um you know talking about my restaurant tastes back on ask here of what we were doing so you know got to keep yourself well fed and I did that at Boston Market and I kept my energy levels up right and uh the key to the the success of some of these projects is through your stomach your tummy and that was no different for me and I was able to really understand their needs in Long Island you know their history as I mentioned what what is what are some other challenges um and to immerse myself up there I would stay up there for days at a time meeting with Town officials Emergency Management fired police Insurance folks regular homeowners interviewing people visiting different locations that flooded and passed events powerful nor'easters like 1992 1996. um you know hurricane history Gloria 1985 the Long Island Express 1938 right and there are others and so it was just an absolute thrill and an honor to fly into JFK get a cab maybe somebody would come pick me up and um you know and take me out to these two Villages uh or I'd jump on the Long Island Railroad you know the lir lir and go out there you know to these different places and all the while building up this amazing project uh that was really going to be Innovative and so I remember in February of o2 I took some time and flew down to the National Hurricane Center and interviewed Max Mayfield the director of the National Hurricane Center in the day and got his perspective and he was really behind this project um you know anything that we could do to promote awareness using science using history and he was really really excited about my Graphics that I was going to put together that I was doing stuff for Manhattan I had done some work with the Hurricane Center for New York City remember we talked about this in a prior episode that I had done some animations of storm surge using real photographs and animating water going into the Brooklyn uh the Brooklyn Battery tunnel or whatever it is right the Brooklyn Battery I think it is um so max was behind it you know 110 percent and I got to to spend time with him and you know doing an interview just a brief segment you know about hurricane history storm surge Etc you know to have that authoritative tone from the director of the National Hurricane Center as part of this um kind of like documentary infomercial thing that we were putting together about storm surge in New York uh I I was doing this video production to go along with the maps that we are producing it was like a big multimedia project very very exciting to do all that so it uh rolled on you know through the spring I worked on it um went up there and and again met with people to talk about the mapping side how would we present this to the public to get them to understand their elevations you know in relation to what does that mean if there is a hurricane or a powerful Nor'easter the difference between nor'easters and hurricanes they both are big wind machines generally and they both create a storm surge but one of them typically has bigger waves usually the nor'easters do and again it was just like I was getting to live my passion as a career uh and it was just great and Jesse was a part of this as well I would consult with him get some feedback get some ideas uh and that carried us through the spring and once we got to early June that's when the project would officially unveil up in these two communities these two villages in New York uh I had worked with Lowe's as I said for one year already by the time we got to O2 and the contract got renewed uh for 2002 with a little bit more budget available and we were gonna do even more of these hurricane Expos for lows I would go around the country uh even more you know it was it's just when I think back as to how this evolved year after year everything built upon the previous year and in some cases the previous six months things would move along quick enough that you know six months later stuff would change you know for the better Innovation computing power sponsorships opportunities whatever and the same held true for our new relationship with Sprint um remember I talked about we were discovered Jesse and myself our project uh was discovered on The Today Show because I was using a Sanyo Sprint branded bar phone to do wireless internet in 2001 and so my relationship with Sprint grew in 2002. they offered me more technology more devices testing Etc and you know between that and Lowe's and my project for the two villages in New York plus I was still producing hurricane tracking charts paper versions uh for areas down South Norfolk Portsmouth area Wilmington Raleigh Durham Chapel Hill Charlotte Charleston you know and there might have been others I don't know it was it was it was definitely the Heyday still of producing these paper maps and really being involved with massive hurricane awareness campaigns and as we got into the spring in the summer Lowe's uh launched a big media campaign they would get me out in front of TV stations radio station interviews you name it I would go down to New Orleans Metairie Louisiana New Orleans area Tampa St Pete Miami Texas Houston Texas you know the Carolinas in southeast Virginia and then up in Raleigh Durham and uh it was up in that area that I met someone else that was also heavily into weather Big interest in weather and was also doing their own type of thing related to awareness capturing data technology kind of stuff and uh his name was John Van Pelt and I met him at a Lowe's hurricane Expo in the Durham area we became friends in 2002 he had a website still does called stormstudy.com and we got along very well good sense of humor extreme bright marketing guy you name it and he and I and Jesse um were like starting to forge this idea we're gonna do you know hurricane stuff maybe other severe weather it was it was expanding the role of the internet getting my name out there more meeting more people you know you think social media is it and it is it's amazing now I mean because now you can just go at like light speed with stuff that term viral uh and and there's no you know comparison between the internet of 2020 and what we had in 2002 I know that but back then though it was a big deal being able to send your webcam image to Hurricane track.com every couple of minutes um you know the exposure by doing blogging anywhere I wanted to wanted wanted to you know if I was at a Lowe's hurricane Expo I'd blog about it throw some pictures up take them taking digital pictures finally putting those online you know things were just progressing right uh and I met John as I mentioned at one of the hurricane expos in the spring to early summer uh and that relationship began uh partnership uh with John uh from uh Raleigh and so enter early June and now it's time for the big unveiling of the project impact hurricane and Nor'easter uh multimedia project for these these two Villages up in New York so we were going to have a big celebration kind of our own Expo up there if you will the the two Villages were going to make a big deal about it lots of media State Farm was the major corporate sponsor and partner for both The Villages uh and it was a big Shin dig okay so I talked Jesse into going with me you know hey man take a few days come up to Long Island it's early June let's go hang out and let's roll this thing out so I'd printed up tens of thousands of storm surge Maps uh elevation Maps explaining you know what storm surge is it was the paper version we had paper online you know like a website and a multimedia a video you know like like I said almost like a documentary infomercial kind of deal um you know a public awareness video that's the best way to describe it so off we go drove up there and I remember uh so the Isuzu was a straight shift you know isn't that what you call it it's a manual manual transmission stick shift and I remember Jesse was driving he took a shift and that's a pretty long stretch from Wilmington to Long Island you know it takes you about 10 to 12 hours depending on when you stop and how long you stop and it was so funny somewhere along I had 95 I'll tell you this little quick Side Story I snoozed off you know dozed off in the passenger seat uh the the Isuzu was loaded with maps and a screen projector thing and just all kinds of stuff for this big unveiling of the project up there you know you know luggage for the a few days whatever um and Jesse's driving along and I'm sleeping taking a nap and we're in you know somewhere probably between DC and Baltimore you know thick with traffic 5 000 Lanes thick you know whatever it's a bit of an embellishment but it is it's wide Lanes of traffic millions of cars it's just mad pandemonium and I remember it was late in the afternoon whatever day this was we were headed up there and uh you know maybe he had to hit the brakes or something and it jolted me from my nap you know where you're just you're snoozing and you're like whoa I'm awake and I woke up and you know how it is you don't know where you are sometimes and you're sleeping and as as human beings we do some weird things I woke up I was like whoa you know where am I whoever and I look ahead uh out the windshield and I'm like hey hey look look out there's there's a ladder or tires or something in the road there's tires and I just freaked out and of course there was nothing there I was hallucinating it was like a mirage or yeah you just wake up from that boy I scared the heck out of him though that was so funny he was like freaking out what what am I looking for and I go oh never mind I was just seeing things and I laid kind of back down in my seat and went back to sleep huh that was funny we can look back and laugh now but for about five seconds it was very tense as good old Mark was hallucinating wouldn't be the last time there will be a future podcast episode when Greg Nordstrom's involved you'll see you'll hear um you know when you're on road trips and you're tired and whatever you wake up you see something in the road it kind of freaks you out a little bit even though it was not real so there was that we made it to Long Island just fine and we went up and we did this big unveiling lots of media attention everybody was real proud We handed out these storm surge Maps unveiled the public awareness video and I did a pretty good job editing that together and that's what I'm going to do here I'm going to play a clip for you from that video and just let you kind of hear how it went down Etc maybe about a minute minute and a half for you and um and then we'll resume with the podcast here so here's a clip from the 18 year old now almost 18 years old uh public awareness video that I did for East Rockaway and Freeport in Long Island New York the probability of a major hurricane hitting some area like Long Island is going to be extremely small but in the case of Long Island it has happened in the past and it will happen again in the future project impact has been about building a disaster resistant Community we've been trying to get people to realize that the threat of storms is a real threat up here we haven't had a major storm in several years so people kind of get comfortable and they feel that a big storm is going to go to North Carolina or to Florida are not going to go after them and project impact is our way of trying to get the message to people that they are In Harm's Way here on the coast of Long Island and flooding is a real problem it can happen in the summer during a hurricane it can happen during the winter during the Nor'easter once the storm passes and the tide goes down no one wants to be in a shelter people want to be able to get back into their home that's one of the most important things being having something to go back to so that's why we're building a disaster risk resistant Community by strengthening the the structures in the community as they exist today all right so it turned out really well it was very well received we gave away like I said tens of thousands of maps um a very proud moment the folks up there were uh receptive we had like a big dinner they I remember they always treated me like royalty uh uh they took me out to eat um we would go down on the waterfront in Freeport and had a big meal um I remember I saw the bill for it it was like 637 dollars for all these people that were up there and they fed me well no Boston Market for you man you're coming down to the Waterfront you know and uh we're gonna eat some real locally caught Seafood you know whatever off the Waters of Long Island um and they did they treated me really well I felt extremely honored uh you know just little old me you know I was just a dude from North Carolina who just was a hurricane nerd right weather geek and I turned it into a career and I was doing some big big things now moving up into friggin Long Island New York you know I mean it just doesn't get any better than that um and we we finished up in Long Island uh Jesse and I made our way back and we were ready for the hurricane season uh 2002 you know what would it have in store you know we now have Jesse that can go with me on missions if he wants to if he's available uh I did more of these Lowe's hurricane Expos as I talked about resume those around the southeast um and um I remember I did one down in Florida and John Van Pelt went with me and took his vast knowledge of severe weather and his he did radio uh back in the day before I had met him in the Raleigh area so he had a good voice good radio voice very well spoken very intelligent and um you know not shy and so I remember he accompanied me we drove down to um it was uh oh what was it the Treasure Coast Mall that's right and they actually let me drive my Isuzu in there I say let me they wanted me to so we we took the anemometer off the top lowered the little mass that was on there and drove the Isuzu into the Treasure Coast Mall and uh we've talked to literally thousands of people over this weekend in early to mid-june it wasn't too long after I got back from Long Island that we did this and um Just Amazing Just to you know man I'm in Long Island one weekend down now I'm down in the Treasure Coast Area uh Stuart Florida that vicinity Jensen Beach that area um of uh Southeast Florida uh and thousands of people came out all the media was out there just this massive Groundswell of attention from a lot of people about hurricanes and it was so amazing to be that well received people were just enthralled by the Isuzu you think about my history now 20 something years later that all of this began you know in O2 people were excited even back then uh they saw the Isuzu once we got it in you you would drive it in these big you know you've seen Vehicles inside of malls before and that's how you do it they open up these specific doors and you drive in and we had to get the anemometer down like I explained but once we got it in there uh we put the anemometer back up and it just looked like something out of Twister you know that's what people said oh this is like that movie Twister and people were just so excited to see the Isuzu and we had some video from you know a few hurricanes that I had been in already right Bertha Fran Dennis Bonnie you know Floyd from the 90s and then some um you know Barry hurricane uh well not quite hurricane Berry but uh hurricane Berry from 2019 was a hurricane but that's for later down the road um you know what limited footage I had I was able to show to people the data that we could left with the anemometer John was real good at talking with people getting them excited Weather Geeks came out uh just regular old people that just live there you know your regular Joe's as they call it oh well go the hurricane Expo down at the Treasure Coast Mall uh it was in Martin County I believe in Florida I I cannot emphasize enough how just amazing it was to be able to talk to that many people about hurricanes I I just that was just it always floors me that there's that many people interested in it um that to take time out of their day I mean look you're listening to this you're interested in it people coming out to Hurricane Expos they're interested in it that was really neat and it was just another one of those proud moments and so the hurricane Expo season as it were wrapped up we always tried to finish up in June uh and we concluded up in Durham again always wanted to have a big presence Inland in North Carolina especially I emphasize that with Lowe's hurricanes are not a coastal problem only they also have Inland impacts and Lowe's recognize that we would do hurricane expos in Orlando and I think you know Orlando of course definitely in the uh Bullseye for hurricanes coming from the Atlantic or the Gulf but they're Inland they're not along the coast so we would do Orlando Charlotte Raleigh Durham area Goldsboro North Carolina I remember doing some there Greenville um and you know it was what can I say I had a Fortune 50 company doing anything I needed them to do to promote hurricane awareness and that was Lowe's and Sprint was not far behind Sprint uh that partnership was growing and we would start to do some stuff as well I'll talk about that more when we get into the next year 2003 but um you know as we wrap up part one here the summer goes along we got all this stuff behind us and we're ready John is really interested in what I'm doing would love to go with me he worked at an advertising company in Raleigh um I believe he was either one of the owners who is certainly one of the partners something like that and he was able to take time off if he needed it which is a big prerequisite if you ever want to do this kind of stuff just so you know you know you got to be able to go when it's time to go the Hurricanes aren't going to wait and John knew that he knew that with his storm study project that he was trying to move ahead with up in in the Raleigh area and so he expressed interest hey I'd love to go uh on a mission if I ever can and get away from the office I will Jesse of course was available and so um to kind of wrap it up here and we'll leave it on a little teaser we get into the mid to late summer not much activity that year overall and I remember uh it was probably sometime in September that um we had one you know I was like oh we got one and it was Edward uh not a big storm by any means but something that popped up for us to go after uh nevertheless and I say us in this case it was going to be Jesse and myself so uh with all this technology you know even back then right I get excited about what we got now but you know back then we had a lot of Technology we had the Sprint wireless internet of course we've talked about that uh and the ability to do whatever we needed to do whenever we needed to do it uh on the road and so Edward popped up it was just a tropical storm and it was right there at the first of September kind of near Labor Day right and it was a threat for the uh East Central Coast of Florida Daytona Beach Points North and honestly it was no big deal uh but we went down Jesse and myself and you know we're like all right um let's go down tackle this and um it's it's a start you know maybe September being the peak of the hurricane season things will amplify from here and remember we don't root for hurricanes to come in story lives just like firefighters don't root for big giant hotel fires so that they can go to work they just know if there is a big hotel fire or whatever the case may be I get to go to work that's how that works it's not this weird complex that we wish for death and destruction of course not we don't do that but we're jonesing to use our intellect our technology and our Gusto right our emphasis for going out and tracking down hurricanes you want to track some down dog on it so if they're going to come we're going to get them and that's the way we looked at it and Edward it was a like a little warm-up let's just put it that way uh as to as for what was coming so Jesse and I went down to Daytona and vicinity um I remember I set up a camera up on in our hotel we got an Oceanfront Hotel a lot of people bailed out for that uh period uh canceled rooms and whatever because of the threat of a tropical storms were able to you know get a good room right there on the ocean in Daytona and I remember I said my video camera up and I got a time lapse and Edward was sheared and the low-level Center was exposed and it came in and I don't know if I've got video of that anywhere I got to look for that and eventually stick it into the hurricane Highway TV series that I'm working on if I can find it but you could actually see the rotation of the low level Center as it came on Shore because we went up to whatever sixth seventh tenth floor of this condo this hotel I don't even remember what it was if it was a Hilton uh I don't know doesn't matter but we were we got ocean front room I set the camera out on the balcony that low level Center came like right over us and you could see it spinning you could see the rotation it wasn't like a a big water spout or something but you could watch the wide shot of it coming in because we were up high actually got a good Vista and I've always wanted to do that remember I'm a weather geek man I love this stuff and time lapse is a great tool and that was the victory from eduard you know otherwise a several hundred dollar mission to Florida every one of these matters the ones that are sort of Duds are not a big deal I mean thank goodness they're not all Irma or Michael or Katrina I mean gosh if they were we'd never be able to live near the coast right so you're going to have your Edwards from time to time that are nuisance media talks about them but they're not a big problem overall they have rip currents they do they had they got impacts of course but they're not terrible they're not memorable but for us they all are they're all memorable and for this the victory was that time lapse showing uh where you could see the rotation of the storm coming ashore um and so that's where I'm going to end it there's more oh oh yeah there's a lot more for part two of the year 2002 as we journey down the hurricane highway so next week I will go into part two and I will at least tell you what it is so after Edward we wait and later on in September of o2 what we thought was going to be the biggest event of my career at that time was coming and it was only a couple of weeks later or so and that was Hurricane Isidore

i-s-i-d-o-r-e Isador hurricane Isadore and then after that Hurricane Lily ended up both being very significant and you'll have to tune in next week to understand why but boy do I have some stories those intimate details when we hit the road what we're doing Etc you're going to want to make sure you catch that next week so we'll go over hurricane is a door and Hurricane Lily um when I do part two of stories from the hurricane Highway the year 2002 next week all right hey as always thank you so much for tuning in but more importantly again I want to thank you for supporting this your patronage your support on patreon or as a hurricane track Insider you know sustaining member is what it's called in public radio and when you're a patron of the Arts you sustained this for the long term you all are making a huge difference you allow me to be able to pay my bills in the off season to invest in stuff that needs to be invested in and to be ready for the next hurricane season and in between I get to do projects like this the podcast series uh and of course the new television series The the hurricane Highway very excited about all of this and it's all because of you and so take a look at the mirror and say that's because of me and it's true it is it's because of you and I appreciate it so very much and I can't wait to you know go in and talk about Isadore and Lily as we finish up the year 2002 for next week on stories from the hurricane Highway