Stories From The Hurricane Highway Season 1 Episode 14 Transcript - 2003 Part 2 / 2

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hello Mark Sudduth of hurricanetrack.com here with stories from the hurricane Highway the podcast series for patreon and hurricane track Insider members welcome to 2003 part two in this continuing Journey Down the hurricane Highway in the year 2003 we will take a trip back in time looking at Tropical Storm Henri and Hurricane Isabel from the hurricane season of 2003 as we wrap up the 03 season and uh really interesting story there behind Isabelle all these stories are hopefully interesting if I wait to hear what we did in Isabel how exciting it was some of the opportunities Etc so just to recap 2003 was of course the year that the Chevy Tahoe came into being I purchased it in February thanks to A Renewed contract with Lowe's and Lowe's home improvement stores and their connection with NASCAR they thought it would be a good idea to invest in this vehicle the flagship vehicle for the Lowe's hurricane Readiness program and my big chase vehicle intercept vehicle whatever you want to call it that's what it was it was well outfit with equipment the anemometer system on the roof roof mounted gadgets and lights and all kinds of things because remember really important to keep from keep this in mind back in the day in the early 2000s there um and for a while thereafter actually um it that's how he had to do it you had to drive into the Hurricanes well you didn't have to it's not like somebody put a gun to my head but you know if you want to get good data that's how you had to do it if you wanted good video good documentation of the impacts of tropical storms and hurricanes you had to drive into them that was just the way it was and the field of Hurricane Chasers the general term for this was expanding from you know just a handful that grew out of the 60s and 70s once a handheld television cameras TV cameras became I won't say affordable because they were probably pretty expensive in the 60s 70s and early 80s but the field was growing this new generation people my age we were all getting into it but that being said there were still only really a handful of people around the world that made a career out of documenting tropical Cyclones when they made landfall and I was very proud to be part of that you don't know that you're making history while you're making it usually but as we look back now the year 2003 just another mile post and that's a great analogy isn't it another mile post along the over 400 000 miles of the hurricane Highway that I have traveled down with numerous different people helping out along the way and we will talk about that in this continuation of looking back at the year 2003 so we wrapped up the big uh Coca-Cola 600 around Memorial Day you remember I discussed that in the last episode here where I got to do the parade lap with the Chevy Tahoe and all of its Glory there the very first year of its existence as a hurricane tracking Flagship vehicle what an experience that was then the hurricane season commenced and I don't know if you remember what the names were back in 2003 we started off with Anna and then we had Bill and Claudette Danny Erica Fabian Grace Henry and then Isabel Juan Kate Larry Nicholas Odette and Peter the 2003 hurricane season kind of kept going on into December we'll get to that so really didn't have much to do hurricane track.com was certainly busy in it's uh definitely in its Heyday very very popular website there was only a handful of websites no social media to speak of yet no Facebook no Twitter we were almost there Mark Zuckerberg you know that would happen I believe in 2004 remember that movie The Social Network kind of Explains It All based on a book called The Accidental billionaires um but it it we just we just still had only the internet I say only with air quotes so you know I was blogging talking about the season you know we had Anna okay no problem we had Bill not a problem Danny Claudette all of those no problem to speak of um but you know what and I remembered this as I was going through everything before there was one uh in this you know I got all excited I was going to talk about Isabelle I forgot about the only time that I can remember in my career that I actually chased a hurricane and that was 2003. and we're going to talk about that um so the sea storm Claudette yeah I totally had forgotten about Claudette I've done this too long I'm starting to forget things at least we've got this podcast that I can go back and reflect upon and you know when I eventually write a book one day and like I said I'm gonna do that that's for sure I'm gonna do a book someday um at least I got this to reflect upon anyhow Claudette so let's jump to that all right so a disturbance in the Gulf of Mexico in yeah the first week or so of July uh looked like it was threatening to become uh a name storm and maybe a maybe a hurricane for the Texas coast and you know I wasn't real sure if it was going to happen you know how it goes it's you know sometimes it's not as easy to know if something's going to take place or not the models are you know kind of waffling is the intensity going to be there whatever and so Claudette forms and it's it's highly sheared and it really didn't look like it was going to do much but then all of a sudden um as it always turns out right all of a sudden it looks like it's going to try to make a name for itself it's uh around July 10th 11th or so in 2003 uh it kind of comes off the northern Yucatan and it's going to make its way towards the Texas coast and lo and behold the sheer lets up and the forecasts are for the sheer to kind of uh make it more favorable and boom it's going to develop into something all right so now this is about mid-july coming up on the uh 15th or so 13th 14th 15th it goes a little bit more Northwest kind of reforms the center of the low level Center and man it's going to come in now um somewhere near Corpus Christi maybe the central Texas coast and I don't have time to get there in the Tahoe you know so I was like and I had this really really good equipment I had the anemometers um and this Data Logger very expensive Data Logger remember we were using that in 2002 and so what did I do that's the first and only time I've ever actually I don't know if it's the only time if you want to get technical about it but it was definitely the first time that I chased after a hurricane if you will uh I drove to Myrtle Beach I remember this clearly now that I can remember it drove to Myrtle Beach caught a plane airlined in like a duffel bag uh all the equipment that I needed an anemometer the Data Logger um and like a small battery a little small AGM sealed lead acid battery and I flew to Houston rented a vehicle it was like an SUV and drove down to Victoria and vicinity near Palacios in that area Port Lavaca and intercepted hurricane Claudette and I got there just as it made landfall uh got into the core of it and didn't get into the eye it had moved Inland uh it brought hurricane conditions a storm surge as you can imagine um several feet and I was there you know I got I went and I remember this was so neat I drove to the Lowe's store in Victoria well behind the eight ball here um Claudette had already made landfall and you know I was like I said it's kind of behind but whatever it's still coming it's still full force I think it got up to about 85 miles per hour and I'm gonna tell you what though as a side note claudette's definitely one of those ones that had it another 12 hours over the water it would have been a major hurricane it was well on its way to organizing had a beautiful eye the sheer relaxed and it was Off to the Races and anyway so I pulled into the low store and I coordinated with the headquarters up in North Carolina and they talked to the people at Lowe's in Victoria I had been there you know for one of the first hurricane fairs back in 2001. so these people knew me and I needed some supplies to craft some kind of a pipe and clamp system to secure just a couple foot Mast on This SUV I rented a Jeep or something so that I could get some rooftop wind readings and I would run the wiring down into the back door through the back window to the Data Logger in the back seat and it was actually a pretty good setup I thought I did pretty well with it had my pressure sensor the Davis pressure sensor and off I go tracking around the area getting some data some wind readings 60s 70 mile per hour gusts stuff like that didn't have a video camera with me that that I can recall I know I had a digital camera finally I think it was a little Canon handheld like Sure Shot or something whatever they were called and I took some pictures um and uh you know documented what I could and it was just like a day-long event I drove back to Houston spent the night and I think I flew home like the next day and that was it you know first and probably only true technical I gotta chase after it because here's the phrase that I like to say if you have to chase a hurricane that means you left too late and that's what I did I left too late for Claudette and I had to chase after it and um it was an interesting experience you know I learned a lot I learned about out airlining equipment trying to deal with stuff on the road and it's interesting how I do that even now but we get to you know this is not a podcast about now this is a podcast about back then so Claudette tackled successfully everything worked as well as could be expected I was able to fly everything out there fly back home and boom I got an intercept under my belt I chase an intercept whichever way you want to look at it and it was very successful so I was happy about that so fast forward to remember that was mid-july uh to early September now we got another one in the Eastern Gulf this one is tropical storm Henri h-e-n-r-i Henry and you never know and when they're in the golf and it looked like it was going to head towards I don't know somewhere along the um Western peninsula of Florida region um not a major threat anything like that but it was something to do so what did we do it was myself and it was Jesse bass and John Van Pelt the three of us went down there John drove his vehicle he had like a Dodge truck that was outfitted with a camper shell kind of deal and he had a Davis system on there his own webcam and he was doing his storm study project and we were starting to collaborate more and so the three of us went down and it was really I gotta be honest a non-event I hardly even remember it but we were there we captured what we could a few squalls it was no big deal and uh Henry moved ashore close to the Cedar Key area and I really like that area of Florida uh and it's really interesting how back then there was no Wireless well we had our Sprint stuff we were able to do um you know updates and the webcam image we had Sprint wireless data technology since 2001. in an O3 it's interesting because Sprint had migrated and got it into the 3G stuff really starting to get into 3G and that was a big deal and so we had better equipment Sprint would send me the latest and greatest air cards that's what they were called these little PCM CIA cards that you would slide into the PC slot on your laptop um and I you know it was we might have had the USB style air cards as early as 03 but I don't recall that we did I believe they were still these PCM cards as we called them and anyhow we were well equipped but there was there was just no Sprint data at Cedar Key and I remember how frustrating that was in 2000 when I was there for Gordon and again in 2003 when I was there for Henry um you know we had to plug in through a modem oh off the laptop and you know get that 28 8 to 56k or whatever it was huh that was horrible but it worked and we did what we could Jesse took several great photographs I remember on the way back along one of the state highways between Cedar Key and Gainesville beautiful rolling Countryside out there Horse Country some areas oak trees with moss and that was just gorgeous you know the geographer in me really got to enjoy that um the camaraderie of the three of us myself and Jesse and John you know we we enjoyed working together even though Henri turned out to be you know non-event basically so we go back home and we're waiting that's early September it's the peak of the Season as you know right and you know it's only a matter of time and that you know hourglass ran out if you will um not long after off the coast of Africa around that same time just a few days later September 6th or so the first advisory for what would become category five at one point in its life Hurricane Isabel early September September 6 is when it was first named and so the vigil began as it moved across the Tropical Atlantic heading towards who knows where right way out in the Deep tropics and you gotta remember that back then you know the forecasts were not anywhere near as accurate as they are now and we had five-day forecast then those were implemented but those five-day forecasts could be off three four hundred miles now it's it's much tighter uh 250 or something like that you know it's definitely improved so Isabelle's marching towards you know the the Western Atlantic basically and again absent social media and looking at computer models like people do on social media there really wasn't much of a consensus as to where it might end up the 10-day Euro people didn't talk about that like they do now the 8 9 10 day GFS not as much as we do now not nearly as much but there was one website where people really did talk about it and that was at storm2k.org storm2k.org a community of storm enthusiasts weather Watchers hurricane Fanatics whatever you want to call it and I was a member of that site it was a message board still is it still exists today a great resource for the crowdsourcing and consensus gathering on what's going to happen a great no-nonsense platform was then still is today and it was really interesting as Isabelle moved along in its evolution that maybe it was going to threaten the southeast United States and speculation was beginning to grow at storm 2K that this might be a problem for Florida but more than likely a problem for the southeast as a whole and it was just really interesting that early iteration of what we now know as social media and the Wildfire aspect of how information can get disseminated on storm 2K that was sort of the birth of it back in those days and we would discuss it thread by thread message by message it was really interesting as I recall that and how the evolution of Isabel progressed so uh it goes along and it took a while it took about 12 days to get into the Southwest Atlantic so by the 14th or so it is clearly going to threaten uh the Carolinas and more than likely North Carolina specifically and my good friend Jeff flock from CNN remember we met first in 1999 for hurricanes Dennis and then again with Floyd he gets in touch and says that he has arranged with CNN to literally in bed with us my group the hurricane intercept research team hurricane track.com my crew remember O3 is also the big Iraq invasion Etc you know all that started commencing CNN really advancing the technology with live streaming from inside the troop embedding um stuff that they were doing they were embedded with the troops remember that word really became in the common vernacular back in O3 embedded with the troops you know different people that covered the war in Iraq that was the deal embedded okay and so Jeff luckily didn't have to go to Iraq I mean and I certainly applaud the folks that did that the war correspondents as well of course as those who fought over there but you know going against Man versus man rather than man versus nature I'm gonna take man versus nature any time because I think you know man is a lot more unpredictable to be honest with you so fortunately for all of us Jeff was not covering the Iraq War not to my knowledge and he certainly wasn't in mid-september of O3 but that idea of embedding with a a breaking news event had a lot of appeal to the major networks Fox News CNN and MSNBC at the time and some of the major networks offshooting from there NBC CBS Etc right ABC so Jeff's plan was to actually have a dedicated sat truck a crew a producer the whole kitten caboodle and we were all going to just work together for several days we were going to have what are called setup pieces so not just the hurricane is coming we all get out there Rush you know to get to where we need to be and hope for the best it was going to be several days of what does Mark do what does his team do how do we get ready for this the setup it's called a setup piece stories ahead of time these these um uh short uh packages of what they're called he would produce a package put it on we do live shots from the beginning you know like not as I said hey we all run out of the Outer Banks and cover it tomorrow no no no no this was going to be several days of embedded coverage with Mark suddath and the Gang from Hurricane track and the hurricane intercept research team so we uh uh met in Wilmington Wrightsville Beach to be specific um the afternoon I don't know I think it was either the 14th or the 15th I can't recall specifically but I went out to do an interview with Jeff at Wrightsville Beach and we did this first big setup piece and boy Lowe's and Sprint were just thrilled because there I was on National Television for several minutes doing these setup interviews some of them live and then the recorded packages as the setup for Isabelle was coming and it was just Monumental and very stressful at the same time um at this point in time I had three children Nathan who is like um five years old something like that Cole who is uh three and Mallory my little baby girl who is roughly two years old yep yeah two years old little over two and I had all of them my wife's working at the hospital she's an ER nurse still is today and um you know I had to juggle all of that Nathan was in school you know life goes on man it's not you know I had to handle all of this and we never did daycare or anything like that I was in the daycare and I just remember juggling all of this and you know picking them up after school and then getting ready for the interview at like five o'clock sharp down at Wrightsville Beach and I lived across the river in Brunswick County in a little town called Leland in a golf Community back in the day no I'm not a golfer this just it was a nice area to build and it was affordable back then not so much now and um golly it was just so stressful uh and all the news media calling me wptf one of my client chance that I was still doing hurricane maps for in Raleigh you know w-a-v-y out of Portsmouth Virginia people wanted interviews and I remember I had to stop get out of the Tahoe on the side of the road going into Wilmington and do one of these interviews because I was in the car and you can't have kids back there yelling and screaming and crying and whatever oh I mean it just gives me the heebie-jeebies to think back about how stressful that was um but I made it I got out to Wrightsville Beach in time for the 5 PM live shot and I had a neighbor a good friend of ours she helped out she intercepted the kids speaking of intercepting hurricanes she intercepted the kids for me and I was able to do my work and um so we packed up Jesse came down uh from um uh Portsmouth in that area and uh joined up and John came down and the plan was we were gonna go to Buxton and Rodanthe all right and if you remember Isabelle knowing what you know now and if you don't know you should go you should pause the podcast and go look it up you know honestly it's like you know to hear me say that I hope you're like oh man really yes that was the plan and let me grab some water here the allergies it's I'm recording this by the way this is March 4th and the allergies are starting I can feel the pollen

so I've got the old water bottle here in the recording office the recording studios at Hurricane track um so that was the plan we were going to go to the Outer Banks proper right where I got my start the Outer Banks and you know Rodanthe Buxton area Hatteras Village that region uh and Jeff was like all right so they're gonna have like a 200 000 sat truck a couple of Vans many tens of thousand dollars tens of thousands of dollars of equipment we were gonna have our Tahoe John's truck and I even think Jesse was going to bring his vehicle he had like a Ford Explorer or something like that I believe uh there'd be a lot of assets you know that's the bottom line and I remember I emailed Sandy Sanderson who was the Emergency Management director for Dare County he knew who I was we had coordinated uh on some projects back in 1999 with the big storm surge map project and um you know Sandy was very matter-of-fact um uh not gonna blow Sunshine up your rear end no funny business kind of guy straight shooter knows this stuff and you know took his job very seriously and I emailed him out of respect and out of professional courtesy whatever you know hey look I want to go out I'm going to be working with CNN they're embedding with us here's our plan and and just to reiterate not like today where we're gonna go set up cameras and then leave okay no this is we're gonna go out there we're gonna stay there for the hurricane which at this point it was Cat four cat five big headline maker whatever right a major major news event and uh you know sometime later hours whatever it was uh Sandy Sanderson responded and basically you know it was this sure come on out we don't close Bridges until whenever you know he gave me the protocol and we were well ahead of the curve here so you know we weren't going to get stopped by any roadblocks the evacuations hadn't commenced and you know whatever we were going to be well ahead of that so no problem but he said I highly encourage you to read whatever you can about the 1933 hurricane that came through this area and after you read about that then ask yourself do you really want to come out to the Outer Banks and if anything happens to you we're not going to be able to come rescue you just wanting you to know that and that kind of honesty and just Brute Force you know that's not the right word it was it was you know no Shenanigans like not he was not catering to my desire to be in a hurricane you know he was not going to um assume that I knew everything and I really appreciated that and I could appreciate that at the time whereas you could look at that and say whatever and you know you have too much hubris where you think you know more than these you know and he's older than me he's more experienced I mean come on that was great advice believe me so I read up on it I knew a little bit about it I brushed up on it I discussed things with Jeff flock and the crew and uh and the crew also of course meant Jesse and John and we decided against it you know yeah that probably wouldn't be the best idea so we settled on uh instead the Crystal Coast region Atlantic Beach and vicinity of North Carolina Morehead City Atlantic Beach that region right so we departed Wilmington made our way up to Atlantic Beach I had been there many times as a child I went and saw um the uh the little the documentary A lady called Camille at the and I've talked about this before and it's also in the hurricane Highway TV series that I'm producing in episode one um Pine Knoll Shores is part of that area of the Crystal Coast in um in Carteret County in North Carolina and you know I knew the area well again that's where I really got my start at the aquarium at pineal Shores you know the the documentary A lady called Camille so it was just very fitting if you will I remember I traveled up you go through New Bern and here's a great story for you okay one of those intimate details that you get only in the podcast and someday it'll be in the book right but here it is first remember we have a webcam coming from the Tahoe it's not live video it's still just an image and it's updating about every minute I believe it was at this point in time and we're really popular on Hurricane track.com and of course the webcam image went to Hurricane track.com right on the home page and everybody knew about it so on the way up to Morehead City Atlantic Beach in vicinity um we stopped in New Bern and I grew up there and uh went to Chick-fil-A of course and Chick-fil-A has a standalone restaurant they also have one inside the mall there it's at Twin Rivers Mall and then there's so there's one inside the mall and there's a stand-alone restaurant as they call it a freestanding unit or FSU it's sad that I know that but that's what they call them um and we went there the crew uh and um I think CNN was coming later whatever they had to go shoot some packages in Topsail or they call it Topsail uh you know and they were gonna meet us later at the Sheraton down in Atlantic Beach but anyway John Jesse and me uh we stopped I know we stopped at Lowe's and whatever then we went over to Chick-fil-A okay to get on with my story and we got some lunch okay and so we're sitting there we're having our lunch and this guy comes in uh older fella very excited you know you could tell he came in and had this excited look on his face like like he's gonna come in and he's gonna meet his old friend that he hadn't seen in 30 years or something it was so funny and he he looks around and he makes eye contact with us because he was clearly looking for somebody and he looks at me and he goes Mark I was like Yeah and I don't remember his name so I'm gonna just call him Bob Smith okay I mean everybody says John Doe so we're gonna use Bob Smith maybe his name's Bob maybe I get lucky he came in he's like Mark oh hey Bob Smith I was watching your webcam all the way up here from when you left Wilmington and I thought where where are they stopped and folks let me remind you this is a webcam image there's no audio so it's not like you hear where I am he knew we were at Chick-fil-A in New Bern based on that webcam image and drove over to Chick-fil-A to meet us to meet me to meet John to meet Jesse true story our first stalker if you will that's a terrible term because it was all good intentions man I wish I remember the guy's name you know back then I did it's somewhere in my brain because he did introduce himself I just don't remember I'm sure he sent me an email it's probably sitting on a hard drive somewhere on that old Gateway 2000 that I had back then but wow what a neat thing as creepy as it sounds it was really neat that he came out he said he's a big fan wished us luck the whole bit right just a really really neat experience uh and off we went we finished up our Chick-fil-A we were in amazement you know that somebody would track us down and come out and meet us based on the webcam image wow you know that was pretty amazing so have we finished up in New Bern went on out to Atlantic Beach that area um we stayed down at the Sheraton did some stuff with CNN we did some stuff with uh Good Morning America out on the beach front I do remember that and this is where I got the first lesson um in uh staring into the sun it was early in the morning like the next day and remember Isabelle is not here yet you know we're still a day out or whatever maybe more and all the media is down there doing their setup pieces and whatnot and um and we didn't have any kind of an exclusive agreement with CNN we weren't getting paid so we could do any kind of media that we wanted and of course Lowe's and Sprint really liked that because I would occasionally drop the fact oh yeah well we're supported by Lowe's and we have a partnership with Sprint with our technology it's you know whatever so you know we did all the media we could possibly do especially me being the face of everything but I got a lesson in staring into the sun you know when it was coming up that morning I couldn't see it it made me cry like like literally like onions almost like that Michael Jordan meme with the onions you know where he's crying um because the sun was just so bright in my eyes I'll never forget that and uh trying to deal with that and I insisted that they let me put shades on and I'm like I cannot do the interview with where you're standing the the interviewer you know I had to look at him slightly off camera and he was the sun was right behind the guy and it was oh it was horrible and they finally let me put shades on because I couldn't do the interview anyhow uh we moved up to the pier I think it's called the the Triple S Pier or something like that and there was a little Motel there uh and the owners of it uh let us stay there for free me John and Jesse and that was going to be where we would cover the landfall of Isabel which at this point was not too far off the forecast uh of making landfall in that area to be honest with you it's pretty close to Cape Lookout which was not far from where we were um and any wobble over to the left or Southwest of that track could bring the center right over Morehead City Atlantic Beach and vicinity but it was really aimed at that Cape Lookout area um so basically like down East North Carolina East of Beaufort out along Eastern Carteret County Atlantic Stacy Cedar Island Cape Lookout National Seashore you know in the southern end of the Pamlico sound so that all of the Outer Banks Ocracoke Hatteras Rodanthe Buxton would be in that right front quadrant all the way up to Kill Devil Hills and Kitty Hawk and Beyond and we would be down on the if if the track verified perfect we would be on the left side of the track and so we staked our claim you know we got out there and we're ready to go we put a mast up on the Tahoe so that the anemometer was about six feet above the Tahoe and so we were about four meters off the ground we did so much CNN so much Good Morning America today show every media outlet that was out there including Der Spiegel I think is what they were called I think it's inner Spiegel TV whatever it is from Germany I did radio station interviews from FM 109 I think it's what it's called in Ireland I kid you not um and then something absolutely incredible happened that seated planted the seed for something that would happen later on if that makes any sense in other words the origin story of a man that you're going to come to know in future editions of this we would come back to this later probably starting in December when I picked this up again uh with and we're going to go through 2004 by the way in this podcast through May of this year 2020 and then in December of 2020 we'll pick it up again stories from the hurricane Highway World War Zoom with 2005. okay so that's how we're going to do this so the name Paul Bowman remember that name Paul Bowman this is where he comes into the story enter Paul Bowman if it was a movie script um and sometimes I think it is and so this whole journey I get a text message on my Sprint phone during all this coverage of Isabel because we the group are on major Network television and radio and online all around the world literally millions of people know who we are now and especially me I'm the face of it you know that's just the way it goes uh hurricane track.com and Mark suddath and his group you know that's the way it was and so I get a text message and it's from a guy who says he is watching my coverage on CNN while he's at a bar in Pahrump Nevada and that's really cool what you're doing I'm a huge Tech fan myself like he's a techie he loves Tech stuff love your webcam love your website whatever and um and uh and I thought you know wow guys John just said it's got this text and I gotta remember I did have a media page and my phone number was on the media page and so that's how this guy got my number and so his name was Paul Bowman and I thought wow this is amazing so I texted him back you know like wow uh and yes we did have text messaging we even had camera phones back then that was just starting out uh as crude as they were we had them and you could even get like AccuWeather radar on your phone back in O3 uh but yeah the first time I ever heard from Paul Bowman was in Isabel in 2003. um it got so busy with the media that at some point I remember they were fighting not literally like fisticuffs fighting but somebody from ABC wanted to get in and do an interview with us and they asked Jeff he was like Jeff Jeff can I just get a word just a quick one with Mark and the Gang or whatever and oh huh Jeff what is he couldn't get his ear thinking what I didn't hear you we just won an interview with Mark real quick and Jeff said oh yeah sorry so Jeff cleared out and ABC News got in and um there were so many people in and out of that truck and in the Tahoe that somebody cracked the lens cover to John's uh Nikon camera I remember that he got pretty upset about it you know just so much commotion and you know what was the big deal the big deal was somebody finally brought a mounted anemometer just like I did four years earlier in and Floyd and Dennis somebody finally had live wind readings during the dead gum hurricane that was not a handheld anemometer or whatever it was not a stunt and I'm not saying that those who do that are doing stunts but this was much better than holding up an anemometer with your hand I think we can all agree it's not as good as a Wind Tower mounted and anchored into the ground and you know where we've come since then I know that but a vehicle mounted anemometer with the readouts on the dashboard it had a great visual and that is where uh this came from all this interest okay clearly and it was a big hit lows man they soaked it up because that Tahoe was just covered in lows lows on the door lows on the hood we wore like a Lowe's hat you know whatever and so Isabelle comes in we get 70 78 miles per hour no big deal didn't affect the crystal Coast per se too badly uh it did however really impact Ocracoke Buxton Rodanthe Kill Devil Hills Kitty Hawk Nags Head and on up into eastern North Carolina Southeast Virginia uh it was over Jessie's leaving to go home late that night took him freaking forever to get home through an ocean of downed trees probably one of the most dangerous and dumb things that he's ever done was trying to drive home that night uh and it might have been the next night but Isabelle came in towards the evening I remember and you may have left later that night or it was the night of the next day uh honestly I can't remember but it was very challenging for him and he actually went and stayed in some Firehouse somewhere fire department it was just too crazy you know and it was very harrowing for him no communication everything was down you know and um and we didn't know if he was okay Etc it was just very wild uh and and just you know the early days of intercepting hurricanes in person still the infancy of this as far as we were concerned uh you know I had done it in 1996 through 99 you know with the early hurricanes in eastern North Carolina Bertha Fran Bonnie Dennis Floyd we've already talked about that now we're a little further along but you still again you got to do it in person and it is dangerous you know there are hazards of doing it in person and one of those hazards is trying to get home okay and I remember we were concerned about Jesse's well-being but he made it obviously um everything kind of wound down I did some follow-up pieces with CNN I went home and that's pretty much it and I remember it wasn't 10 days later that I came out to the Coast Guard Station down there at Fort Macon and I did a presentation I cannot remember who it was for honestly sad that I can't remember all these little details the little tiny details but it wasn't long after that I went back out there and I did a presentation for something it might have might have been a rotary club or some it was definitely a social group meeting and I did a quick presentation on PowerPoint shared a little bit of the wind data that we had collected talked about you know quote chasing hurricanes um and my experience with Isabel and we go back to the email from Sandy Sanderson make sure you read about 1933 hurricane and remember we're not going to come rescue you it really did a number on the Outer Banks and it's just one of those things that man fate remember in Ghostbusters where um Bill Murray's character Dr vinkman he says and I think it's him and where it's Dan Aykroyd but I thought it was it was uh Bill Murray's character that quote the line where he goes call it fate call it luck whatever you know remember that line I can't remember the exact line but it's a very classic line uh anyways like we're we're all here you know whatever and it's it you just wonder what would have happened it's fate it was luck that Sandy and it's Mark having enough sense I guess you know that we didn't go to the Outer Banks proper because we would have been swamped absolutely swamped and literally the Tahoe would have ended up in the Pamlico sound or buried in sand CNN would have lost their sat truck lows would have canceled my sponsorship I know they would have Sprint would have you know as soon as you screw up one time it doesn't matter how long you've been doing something the first time you screw up everybody will abandon you and that's just the way it is you know whether you are a quote hurricane celebrity in that little micro Universe it is there or a big time celebrity the first time you mess up it's true if you're in the public eye you get thrown to the wolves there's always your loyal supporters usually a handful of people but it was really a good thing that we did not go to Buxton and rodanthean vicinity uh the pictures and the stories that came out um you know Isabel created a cut down there between Hatteras and Frisco that took a while to get filled in and people were stranded for a long time weeks and it was a big deal different Chasers that filmed it in person along the Outer Banks they got some great video and yes we go back after that and we see the video and we you get this professional jealousy you know oh gosh that could have been us they got that video you yearn for that you want that good video you want the trophy so to speak but at what cost you know we would have lost the Tahoe guaranteed absolutely would have lost the tile and you know the first year we got it no doubt and so it was a it was a stroke of good luck combined with Mark's common sense that I listened to the voice of reason from Sandy Sanderson and we avoided disaster and ended up with lots and lots of media impressions as they're called millions of hits to the hurricane track.com website as you can imagine and my first encounter and introduction to Paul Bowman remember that name write it down Paul Bowman it's important it'll come back later trust me the name the man the myth the legend you'll see and so 2003 Marches On didn't really have much after that we had to be concerned with there was more out there uh certainly and you remember before this was Fabian real quick that impacted Bermuda and it was a big impact for Bermuda Jim EDS one of the more prolific famous hurricane Chasers out there he went to Bermuda for Fabian and he shot a lot of amazing POV point of view stuff himself he did a great job but I didn't go to Bermuda for Fabian obviously so Isabelle was pretty much it but the season continued you know we had Mindy uh on into early October and then we went on from there with Nicholas which is my son's name cole we call him Cole for short and then Odette on into December one of the rare times that the season extended Beyond November 30th Odette was in December and then we had Peter and it's funny about Odette I'll tell you a quick Side Story uh the family and I went down to Walt Disney World in early December of 03 and um had a vacation right and uh that's kind of the rule around here by the way after a hurricane season is over if I am busy and Dad is gone and the husband and my wife is gone a lot we go on vacation that December or January and back in those days we went to Disney World whenever we could usually January but for whatever reason we went in early December of 03 and I remember I was down there and um Odette formed and I really didn't keep track of it much you know this didn't and I got an earful from John you know he's like you really need to be blogging about Odette we got a name storm out there and you're down at Disney World and you know I was like yeah sorry you know and it was just one of those funny Side Stories um you know if you're gonna do this you got to do it you know if it's outside the hurricane season he was right and it kind of taught me the importance of staying on top of things even if Odette was just out in the middle of the Atlantic and it was for the most part you know cut across Hispaniola the island of Hispaniola Haiti on the right on the left side or west side Dominican Republic on the east side of course it was a Caribbean storm and it wasn't affecting the us as my point but I didn't need to blow it off and I remember John giving me grief about that you know here you are the face of Hurricane track and you're not blogging about it you know and he was right uh and we had a an otherwise great trip to Disney World and then Peter you know Peter formed tropical storm Peter and that was December 9th 10th and 11th and the season continued after the season was over and it would lead to the first of the mega Seasons that we will begin talking about drum roll right next week when we start 2004. this is going to be a multi-part experience that I'm going to break 2004 up into several weeks because uh you know remember folks 2004 was one of the gargantuan seasons of modern history it really was uh and for those of you that were around and remember it vividly you know what's coming so we in 2003 just again uh in the stratosphere if you will to to coin a meteorological analogy that's perfect for what we're talking about you know that just that's perfect and that's where we were everything was in an all-time high Lowe's was happy Sprint was happy everybody was happy had a great team myself Eddie Smith Jesse bass John Van Pelt the group of us ready to go ready to tackle what would come down the road down the hurricane Highway which was getting ready to turn into the hurricane Super Highway of 2000 then four and that's where we will go next when we visit the year 2004 on next week's edition of stories from the hurricane Highway alright so that'll wrap it up 2003 very exciting year the Year of the Tahoe's Inception the year of Claudette chasing a hurricane Henry the not so much event and then Big Time Isabelle Big Time media Impressions Etc really taking that momentum into 2004 and we will begin that Journey like I said 04 I'll break it up into probably four or five episodes that's how big o4 was and we will revisit that and I'll just give a little teaser for you there will be an episode in the year 2004 you know as we explore that that's not about hurricanes specifically it's about tornadoes yes wait till you hear about that it's coming it's coming all right as always thank you so much on patreon and our hurricane track insiders the support the crowdfunding this is for you I hope you enjoy it I've gotten feedback from you all you know again it's to me it's like a book on tape I've said that before this podcast is my special gift to you to give you those inside details just like we're sitting around having dinner together and you say Mark tell me about 2003 and here you go that's what it's all about so I really appreciate you supporting me to be able to give me the opportunity to do this um uh I appreciate it and I appreciate the feedback that I've gotten from you all right so that is it another edition of stories from the hurricane Highway in the books so to speak next week we begin uh the Super Highway version of stories from the hurricane Highway as we begin to explore the unbelievable year of 2004. for Hurricane track.com I am mark suddath this has been stories from the hurricane Highway the podcast series I'll talk to you again next week