Stories From The Hurricane Highway Season 1 Episode 13 Transcript - 2002 Part 2 / 2

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hello Mark Sudduth here hurricanetrack.com and welcome to stories from the hurricane Highway the podcast series that takes a look back and oh I don't know 25 years of hurricane stories uh how I got into this and the intimate details of many many miles along the hurricane Highway um so welcome to this episode it is February the 26th and we're going to talk about the Year 2003. this would be a fairly Short episode um this is going to be part one we'll have 2003 part two next week trying to break these up so we can extend this out uh and we will get through the year 2004 this first season of the podcast series just to let you know the podcast began in December with episode one and it will end uh on whatever the last Wednesday of May is um and that'll be the year 2004. we started off way back in the beginning how I got into all of this Etc and we will end the first season here of the podcast series with the year 04 and then we'll pick up again into December the first Wednesday in December with 2005 and we will have something in between we'll talk about that later all right so here we are the year 2003 uh you know as you recall let's just kind of go back just a little 1999 I purchased the Isuzu Rodeo the green Isuzu outfitted it in the year 2000 with an RM young anemometer system the anemometer on the roof the wind tracker that's the device that actually picks up the signal and converts it into miles per hour or whatever the case may be for us it's miles per hour that was on the dashboard of the Isuzu we had a pressure sensor in there from Davis a little lightning detector whoever that was from basically the Isuzu was the first quote-unquote Chase vehicle and it did very well for us through 19.99 2000 2001 2002 and of course I know two uh I was in a couple of significant events with that Isuzu tropical storm Isidore along the Mississippi Coast with Jesse bass and then of course Hurricane Lily which as you recall from the last episode weakened thank goodness down to a category one before making landfall in South Central Louisiana in early October 2002 I was there with John Van Pelt for that and the Isuzu did really really well it was serving its purpose and um you know no complaints now during all of this of course I had the major partnership sponsorship with Lowe's and a growing partnership with Sprint they were providing Sprint was all of our technology the wireless Broadband that we had and you know the mobile phones Etc it was great you know so this episode really is going to focus on the really Monumental uh event that happened in 2003 we're going to go all the way up through Memorial Day and then that's where we'll call it a day on this particular episode uh part one of the year 2003. so as O2 came to an end again as I talked about in the last episode Lowe's did their budgeting in the fall and then their fiscal year begins February 1st I presume that's the way it still is today that's how it was back then and so we would discuss what do we want to do for the future you know the program that I was in charge of consisted of hurricane awareness PR community relations work interviews media I produce the hurricane guides I was in charge of organizing and attending multiple hurricane Fairs around the country these hurricane awareness fares from Texas to New York and many states in between and so we had a lot going on and um I was in charge of that project and each year each year it got bigger and bigger my budget got larger uh was great lows green lighted every everything that I asked them for and so as we began 2003 um I was really hinting as they finalized all their budget stuff and whatnot really hinting that you know we need a flagship vehicle a larger SUV the Isuzu you know I did not buy the Isuzu brand new I believe it was a 1997 or 96 Isuzu something like that I purchased it used in 1999. and you know so I pitched the idea that let's try to get a flagship vehicle that really stands for everything that we're doing awareness Education and Research and lows could be all over it like a NASCAR like Jimmy Johnson's car number 48 right the Lowe's logo on the hood um and you know make it very visible make it again like I said our flagship statement of the hurricane Readiness program that's what Lowe's called it by the way Lowe's hurricane readiness and you know they would also give me a bigger safer more modern intercept vehicle again I hate to use the word Chase because you don't chase hurricanes but I digress um and so I met with their marketing folks and uh up in um you know I can't remember if O3 by then they were in their offices in Mooresville or not they may have been doesn't matter they were in North Wilkesboro for a while then they moved to some new headquarters in Mooresville I just don't remember what year that was but nevertheless I met with them at the corporate headquarters and sat with the marketing the community relations people and we discussed different ideas um and the big interest was that they could maybe use some of their marketing money that they use for NASCAR to help support this budget to purchase a vehicle and tie it all into the NASCAR marketing I.E and do something with Lowe's Motor Speedway right which back in the day Lowe's was the title sponsor what's now the Charlotte Speedway Charlotte Motor Speedway it was called Lowe's Motor Speedway and we would do some stuff with NASCAR I mean you know you can't have a race if it's raining and thundering and if there's hurricanes you know and they do race during the summer and the end of the fall uh and so that it was a big deal we knew that NASCAR fans um for all of their rowdiness and you know the uh this the what people think of them as they're completely dependent upon the weather you know there's this sort of I think image of what Nascar fans they partying carrying on on the back of the RV they fill up you know 100 000 seats in the stadium but you know what at the end of the day all that rowdiness and um this love of loud engines well it's completely dependent on you know depended upon it not raining or you have big problems and so we knew that this would be a good Market you know that um it wouldn't be alien to NASCAR fans that we're talking about weather and it's a great segment of the population to reach and so they agreed and provided me with the funding to purchase an SUV and I looked at a bunch I looked at uh first I looked at Ford um and then I you know definitely had my eye on pretty close the whole time to GM and I looked at Hummer remember the Humvees well they weren't they were called Hummer it's a takeoff of the Humvee the military version um there's the H1 and the H2 and yeah I kind of looked at that and thought about it but they're very expensive Big Gas Guzzlers and I really didn't need anything like that I mean I know it would be very flashy and you know exciting you know oh wow man Mark's driving a Hummer all right you know but I didn't really need that I would rather put extra funding into equipment and what have you I needed more functionality than I needed Flash and um and and Pomp and you know circumstance or whatever right so I did a lot of research I looked at the Chevy Trailblazer and I was like well that's just a little too small I looked at a Chevy Suburban uh a little too big and so I settled on in between and you know what that is Chevy Tahoe uh and I test drove it and I fell in love with it it was perfect um I went to Jeff Gordon Chevrolet here in Wilmington uh and it was great you know like one of the few times you could ever just hand somebody a check so to speak and pay for the vehicle and uh that's essentially what I did it was a 2001 and and here's the history here here's where you get these details people have heard about they've seen it they know about I mean most of you that listen to this you should by now be familiar with the hurricane track Chevy Tahoe and you should because it's been in more hurricanes than any other vehicle in the history of mankind and I bet I could prove that if I really had to and I stand behind that claim you know no other vehicle has been in that many hurricanes something like I don't know 30 plus hurricanes and you know probably a dozen more tropical storms and a handful of winter storms you know and 400 plus thousand miles of traveling into storms and going on awareness tours and whatever so it's a big deal so uh the um the the way it all went down I went to Jeff Gordon Chevrolet in a brand new Chevy Tahoe very expensive and you know Lowe's wasn't giving me a blank check you know but they they gave me the budget to purchase uh what I needed and so I went to Jeff Gordon Chevrolet and picked out an 01 Tahoe and um it had I think 26 000 miles on it this was 2003 so in February 2003 I purchased it um and it's funny because they let me drive it off a lot with only my contract from Lowe's as proof that I was actually going to be able to pay for it because the Lowe's physical year begins like I said February 1st or so and it takes a few weeks to get you know the money and back then we didn't do direct deposit I guess like things are done now um and so they would mail a check and that would sometimes take a couple of weeks and it's true Jeff Gordon Chevrolet you know I mean as if someone's going to come in and just lie I mean I had a multi-page contract I showed them Lowe's is of course the big sponsor of Jimmy Johnson and NASCAR Etc easily verifiable is the bottom line so they did they gave me the keys and they said all right when the money comes in bring us the check and they trusted me and like literally a couple of days later we uh packed up the family and we drove that Tahoe down to Orlando and went to Disney World uh true story really did and I had already put the hurricane intercept research team it used to be a rectangular logo you know about 18 inches across and maybe six to eight inches tall and it was black and red and yellow I believe it was and it said hurricane intercept on the first line and there was like a line with a hurricane going through it and then research team below I'm sure there's pictures of it out there somewhere and I went ahead and put that on there I got Fast Signs to make me up the decal to put it on there and then when I got back from Florida in Disney World with my family uh the money came in from Lowe's and of course I went and paid Jeff Gordon and then I took the vehicle over to Fastsigns and it was so cool folks this was so neat the very people at Lowe's graphic design that do all the mock-ups and the decal generation work for Jimmy Johnson's 48 car did the stuff for the Chevy Tahoe that's a true story so they sent the templates to Fast Signs Fast Signs got everything ready I took the Tahoe over there in the course of an afternoon it was transformed into this amazing NASCAR looking Lowe's branded hurricane Readiness truck you know SUV I call it a truck um and uh man it was just it was one of those moments where you just you feel like can it get any better than this I was just so honored humbled excited you know it was like a kid in a candy shop right or whatever the whatever the phrase is you know you name it Christmas day whatever that was Mark I was so thrilled like a 16 year old getting a brand new car for his birthday or something right so next step was to outfit it with equipment and again I really have to commend Lowe's and and this is not bragging I'm just telling you this is the way it was and I was very fortunate and I realized that anything that I asked them for they said yes and so I said I need a roof rack I need equipment I need lights I need all kinds of stuff meteorological gear I want it to be right I want this to look like you know essentially the Ghostbusters truck of hurricanes and I know that sounds a little hokey uh but you know that was a pretty famous what was that an ambulance or something that they used in Ghostbusters um but I wanted to project an image that you know we're out there we're going to collect data from this truck it was going to be a hurricane hunter on the ground instead of powerful engines on an airplane like the C-130 I got four tires and a V8 that's the way I looked at it and they said yes and so I bought this really nice roof rack and all the equipment lights and cameras you know we could feed a webcam in um just a whole bunch of stuff took it all over to a place called soundtronics here in Wilmington who does a lot of high-end vehicle and home theater speaker systems Electronics they do police cars ambulances um RVs for Emergency Management that kind of thing they specialized in this sort of stuff they knew what I wanted and they took care of me and voila by Spring of O3 the Tahoe was ready and it looked amazing you know everywhere I went uh people talked about it and you know the anemometer would be up there and you know people would ask you know oh is that thing real and yeah yeah look and you can see right on the dashboard there it is four miles an hour 12 miles an hour whatever might be in a parking lot or something and the anemometer sat nine feet off the ground which meant I couldn't go in any drive-throughs anymore so that was kind of a bummer I'd have to take the Mast or the anemometer off the Mast um dogs barking that's fun um one thing I forgot to mention I guess I should throw this in I designed in Photoshop this idea we had the roof rack on there which covered the whole top a very very nice I think it was from Wilderness racks or somebody uh but on top of that I got um Edwards Incorporated which is a crane and Fabrication Industrial company in North Carolina we have a location here in Wilmington uh it's called Edwards Inc um they were one of our project impact Partners I knew them from from those events back in the day uh anyway I got to know the folks at Edwards and they donated this very large aluminum plate if you will why well aluminum doesn't rust and they welded these different mounts and masts into it attachment points for the equipment and then we bolted that down to the roof rack and that is still on there to this day as is the roof rack even though the roof rack has rusted probably 30 percent of it away the aluminum base that Edwards created is still there and served its purpose very very well um so everything went on top you know I had KC lights uh the Amber flashers um you know to signify if we were pulled off on the side of the road or something that were there look out for us you know you don't put red or blue obviously we're not fire we're not EMS we're not police but the the Amber flashers indicate you know caution we're doing something here we are whatever um and then all the meteorological equipment and it was just remarkable a big conversation starter like I said everywhere I went gas station grocery store you know it it definitely Drew attention which was nice it was nice to be able to talk to people and strike up a conversation about weather and of course you saw Lowe's the lows was on the hood they were on the door and it was Lowe's branded and that was important for obvious reasons to Lowe's and we took it to the hurricane fairs that we had scheduled um in the spring and summer but one thing that I did as we kind of closed out here I told you this would be kind of short today part one thing that I did that it definitely sits with me and will be with me the rest of my life uh one of the things we wanted to do because of the tie-in with NASCAR you know very Loosely I don't want to make it sound like you know that I'm on MRN or whatever remember that Motor Racing Network I'm not in the booth with anybody I'm not up there with uh um you know I can't even remember see I showed you how much I don't know about racing um I wasn't featured or anything like that so I'm not trying to blow this out of proportion but there was enough of a tie-in that something really amazing happened they wanted me to participate in the Coca-Cola 600 Memorial Day Weekend 2003 in the parade lap at Lowe's Motor Speedway so I went through um you know the process of you know going up there I had to get there real early my father came down and uh hung out with me for that that was remarkable and I got to take the Tahoe out onto the racetrack at Lowe's Motor Speedway you drove in this entrance they had like the Coca-Cola monster truck that had other vehicles that were special you know it's it's like a parade of interesting Vehicles all right and uh and the Chevy Tahoe was part of that and they announced it I remember that they did an announcement you know okay you know whatever coming around turn one is the the Coca-Cola Monster Truck Yeah and everybody cheers that's probably 15 20 000 people plus the infield all the people in their campers in the infield they were there uh who knows many how many thousands of them there were um yeah they do the parade lap several hours before the race starts but it's part of the festivities and I got to be down in the infield I got to be part of all of that and then to drive the Tahoe on the track was so amazing um probably drove I remember my I've told my kids this over the years and I got a lot of kids and as each one gets old enough oh yeah let me tell you about when I drove on the like we watched that movie Cars you know and you see the it's a Pixar movie and oh yeah Dad did some stuff kind of like that you know very very slightly kind of I drove on a race track once and I explained it and they always say well how fast did you go I'm like oh only like 20 miles per hour it's a it's a parade it's like you know coming down Main Street except it's at the Lowe's Motor Speedway and um so you don't go fast you know that wasn't the point but man when you get to those turns those Banks those banked turns holy cow they warned me that it's gonna feel weird especially when you're going slow um that was an understatement it felt like the Tahoe was just gonna roll over you know uh the the direction that we went it would roll to the left and I was just oh man I'll never forget that it was such an odd feeling uh but really really an honor and a special moment like I said my father was there he got to hang out with me I took lots of pictures it was in a couple of newspapers Lowe's talked about it and for me you know I'm not a big Nascar fan uh more of a college basketball guy but this was really special and then of course I got to watch the Coca-Cola 600 and man you know that's a whole other story about wow if you've never been to a Nascar event especially something like the Coca-Cola 600 it is something else um you know to say Days of Thunder you know is an understatement there is no noise louder in the world than that I'll just say that it was amazing uh not even a One Direction concert with 15 000 screaming uh little little girls so NASCAR wins hands down so it was really just something that is seared into my memory I'll never forget it um truly truly special and so the the birth of the Chevy Tahoe and what it would do for us in the coming years hundreds of thousands of miles later that's how it all started and so we moved ahead into the spring and summer of 2003 obviously after Memorial Day we're into early June shortly thereafter and we started the hurricane awareness tour the hurricane Readiness tour as it was called All Around the southeast you know I've mentioned this already numerous times and we've continued it Lowe's kept adding cities I would go to mobile I would go to you know Miami Norfolk you know the Carolinas of course always get to Texas when we could hit as many states as possible 12 15 cities in the Chevy Tahoe became the flagship statement icon of Lowe's hurricane Readiness program and it was ready to be my ground truth hurricane hunter on Wheels very few Vehicles like it probably in existence at the time you know there's a few Storm Chasers and researchers out there that had vehicle mounted equipment um I know John did on his truck he had a Dodge truck um and so it was the Tahoe was not completely unique but it was set up from the get-go for that purpose and it was ready pure and simple and uh so the 2003 season began uh and you know we'll go over that and what happened because it was a you know we had a really big event that happened I'll tease it it was Isabel but before Isabel we had another event that was on re that's spelled Henry with an i but you pronounce it Henri and we'll get to that in the second part of the year 2003 all right so that'll be for next week um so there you go that's a look back at the first part here of 2003 the origin story of the very famous at least in the world I mean think about this let me just before I sign off 400 and something thousand miles on the road 30-something hurricanes more tropical storms than that you know combined uh if it's a hurricane it was a tropical storm at one point right uh winter storms you know all the the tours that we did Etc how many millions of people plus all the television appearances you know Discovery Channel CNN The Weather Channel every Network MSNBC Fox all the local stations uh you could ever think of newspaper online how many millions of people know about the Chevy Tahoe even if that it's even if it's not top of mind you know what I mean millions and millions of Americans and even worldwide and especially through the website and it even lives on today and as we wrap up you know the next episode I'll talk about in case you don't know whatever happened to the Tahoe you know it was a very famous vehicle um and that's how it all started you know that a company a Fortune 50 company had the vision and the guts to say yes and I really applaud them for that uh and of course Sprint we'll talk about Sprint more as we go along that partnership began to grow and eventually we would add the Sprint logo uh to the Chevy Tahoe as well but we'll get to that so there you go that's uh part one of the year 2003. um as always I'm gonna just make sure you remember this this podcast series stories from the hurricane Highway funded completely by you folks on patreon and our hurricane track Insider uh crowdfunding advocacy that's the best way to describe it you guys helped to support this just like patrons that support the Arts Theater public radio whatever the case may be and I thank you for it so this is an exclusive thing just for you guys and it's great to be able to sit here and tell you these stories and I hope you learned something along the way all right well that'll that'll do it that'll wrap it up for part one of the year 2003 this has been yet another Journey Down the hurricane Highway with some more stories for you stories from the hurricane highway see what a great name I am Mark South as always thanks for tuning in I'll be back with part two of the Year 03 next week foreign