Stories From The Hurricane Highway Season 1 Episode 9 Transcript - 2001 Part 1 / 2
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Hello Mark Sudduth of hurricanetrack.com here with another chapter of stories from the hurricane Highway in this chapter in this episode we're going to go over the year 2001 you know I keep saying that they are momentous years each year seems to just get better and better and 2001 was another big turning point in my career in my journey along the old metaphorical hurricane highway I appreciate you joining me for this unique podcast Series where I take a look back at my career through these uh stories this intimate look at what I have done how I have accomplished what I have accomplished who I've accomplished it with along the way and some stories some inside information that you won't hear about anywhere else they're not in any of my documentaries Etc and that's what this is all about I often refer to this as being very similar to a book on tape and maybe one day as I've hinted at this can serve as the basis to maybe help me write a book by the same title the hurricane Highway that'd be nice maybe after I turn 50 which is in November oh boy all right so the year 2001 remember I've got the Isuzu Rodeo now I bought that in 1999 in the year 2000 I outfitted it with a professional high-end scientific grade anemometer from RM young Corporation the propeller-based anemometer system I had the proper mounting I had the wind tracker inside that had a digital readout from that anemometer and I had tested it one time in the year 2000 with Eddie Smith down in Cedar Key for Hurricane Gordon that came rolling in uh we didn't get a hurricane at weak into a tropical storm but it was a good test you know the anemometer did really well and of course I had my Davis pressure sensor mounted inside of the Isuzu and it was a full-on Chase vehicle that's I mean such a misnomer you really don't chase hurricanes but I guess the public and the media likes that term hurricane Chaser Chase vehicle whatever uh but the Isuzu was very adequate for what we needed to do as small as it was you know it's a small SUV it's not like what was coming in you know the next couple of years with a bigger Chevy Tahoe so that came into play in 2003 but to get there to get to that point something really really life-changing truly happened all right so let's back up just a hair in the Years 1999 and 2000 this project IMPACT program that I have talked about from FEMA back in the day it was a Clinton administration James Lee Whitt FEMA administrator he was the head of FEMA his program project impact to build disaster resistant communities had grown and expanded all across the nation many many communities were involved since its Inception in 1997. so by 99 and 2000 the New Hanover County Wilmington area where I lived had been producing in a big Cooperative Collective effort a very large hurricane awareness Expo and these were done around the country in different big cities uh Houston's had them for a long time um different cities in Florida and maybe a few hardware stores Lowe's Home Depot would have a couple here and there but the one in Wilmington was truly special probably one of the biggest collaborative efforts in the country where just about every imaginable business and industry all the Media Partners the government agencies all got together for a massive hurricane awareness Expo in early June 1999 and again in 2000 and we would of course do that again in 2001 and I think that was the last year the project impact funding and the program was getting ready to wrap up especially after the election in the year 2000 you remember what happened there right ended up in a tie and the Supreme Court deemed that George Bush had won and so that was the end of the Clinton Administration and by virtue you know of course no Al Gore Administration and things changed and then they do and we don't really do politics here but uh sometimes politics and weather do mix and after the Clinton Administration that was the end of the project IMPACT Program which was a shame because being disaster resistant is a good thing but you know I don't make policy we just do science here so there you go but nevertheless we had this Expo and it was massive you know thousands of people would come out and and as I hinted at during the last chapter here that we covered 2000 um I was at the Expo I had a booth if you will that displayed my maps I would give away these maps that I had produced the storm surge Maps my trademark poster sized hurricane tracking maps and you know I had a display that would show computer animations that were you know really popular and so what happened is in the year 2000 little did I know that one of the representatives from Lowe's community relations a gentleman by the name of Robert Eggleston had visited in the year 2000 I probably met him but I don't remember because there were so many people there and he went back to Lowe's headquarters which at the time was in North Wilkesboro now it's in Mooresville and you know he talked about the Expo because Lowe's was one of the title partners them and Home Depot if you can believe that it's true everybody you know hey disasters do not care hurricanes do not care about Brands right so you know we all got together and and put branding issues aside all the media worked together as I mentioned and Lowe's was part of the the big effort there and so Robert went back and talked to his people and you know my name was was mentioned around Lowe's headquarters and so that brings us back into the year 2001. so in very early 2001 probably in January I received an invitation to come to Lowe's headquarters in North Wilkesboro and do a pitch and I'm like if you knew how extremely rare that is to get invited to do a pitch usually it works the other way around if you have a an idea if you have a product uh if you're in the movie business and you want to pitch a script if you want to pitch your pilot to uh you know a studio for a television network whatever you know uh you have to do a pitch and you usually have a lot of rejection when you do pitches I think people are familiar with that people pitch ideas and in in Corporate America marketing campaigns so that idea of you know doing a pitch for a product an idea a concept a movie script whatever the case may be it is extremely rare for someone to tap you unsolicited if you will just boop hey I want you to come and you do a pitch for us well that happened in very early 2001 Lowe's had done their homework they knew about my award from 1999 and they knew about all the maps that I had done in my involvement in the project impact realm my enthusiasm and my track record for studying hurricanes and so they wanted me to come to Lowe's headquarters and do a pitch about what would it take to create a hurricane awareness program for Lowe's corporate and I couldn't believe it I mean it was like really you know wow and so uh I got a good friend of mine that I had gone to grade school in a couple years in middle school with until he moved away his name was Jason and Jason did all of the web programming for Hurricane track.com any of the really neat Mouse over java tracking Maps you remember Java and Flash those were the days um he handled all of that you know remember we had a really strong presence with hurricane track.com um probably the strongest in the private sector field that's not related to media in back in the day now there's competition everywhere of course but uh so I I wanted to do go and go into the pitch with with an assistant if you will some backup uh because I was going to pitch to a pretty good sized group of people it wasn't just myself doing the pitch and Mr Eggleston there was going to be several other people marketing um you know through even some people from sports management that handle remember Lowe's used to be their name was on the Lowe's was on Charlotte Motor Speedway it was called the Lowe's Motor Speedway uh number 48 Jimmy Johnson and all that NASCAR and it is this was a huge moment right you don't just yeah let me throw some stuff together I'll be up there Monday you know this was a really really big deal so uh in late January of that year um Jason and I went up to North Wilkesboro and I met with the uh these people from Lowe's um I can't remember how many there were there's probably eight other people in the room and it was again from community relations to sports management marketing um probably their Emergency Management side of things because yes these big companies Walmart Lowe's Home Depot Publix Etc you know these big retail stores they have emergency management and they have their own EOC even if it's small they do exist so um there we were and uh I did great and um you know was a little nervous of course because this was this was big you were talking to Fortune 50 company right and so this was this was a chance to change my life and I did my pitch I talked about what we've done and my vision for the future what could we do with a partnership with Lowe's and I outlined it that we could take this hurricane Expo idea that we did in Wilmington and farm it out and expand it on a much smaller scale to any low store that is Within Reach of tropical Cyclone impacts from Texas to Maine if you want to we could do our own hurricane tracking guide that's Lowe's branded and give them out by the tens of thousands to Lowe's customers Lowe's could be the sole sponsor the big corporate sponsor of my website and also by default my research my field work and so forth and so on I would basically be the pitch man for Lowe's hurricane I'd be the face of Lowe's hurricane program that was that was my pitch and as many of you probably already know um it didn't take long within two weeks maybe less they said yes and um they uh I remember here's here's an inside story uh and any non-disclosure agreements and all of that have long since expired uh I remember sitting in that room with all of these upper management people and I had no idea uh of how much money to ask for and I was very honest about that and I said I don't know how I would even price this you know what in the world do I propose as a budget and I remember one of the people I will at least leave his name Anonymous just you know I think that makes sense I remember he looked at me in the eye and said don't be afraid to shoot High kid you not really said that don't be afraid to shoot High I thought wow and um so I went back home after the meeting and within a few days I submitted a written proposal and I um proposed you know fairly high it was a good salary if you will it was a good budget you know out of that budget would be travel and other expenses and then of course a salary my fee if you will my consultant fee was baked into that and uh they accepted it there was no negotiation you you know they didn't talk me down it was yes and wow and I'll put it this way when that happened and it was a done deal you know that we knew the contract was going to be signed and they got on it right away um it was it was finalized by like March uh we went ahead and bought a house my wife and I and at this point in time our two boys and we had a third child on the way we were going to have a daughter and so yes I had enough to put a sizable down payment you know more than just a couple thousand bucks on a house our own you know our first house in Leland in west of Wilmington over in Brunswick County Land was still fairly cheap you could still get a house for you know about a hundred grand back in the day two thousand square foot house I think it was like a hundred and seven thousand dollars or something back in the day maybe it's a little more than that I don't know but um that's what we did you know and it really changed my life as you can imagine so boom all of a sudden I've got a contract as Lowe's hurricane guy you know and boy they treated me like a king um reached out to me for advice allowed all of my creative needs to be met if you will you know they never stifled my ideas we got to work right away and we set up seven I think it was five or seven smaller Lowe's hurricane Expos that I would host I would be the guy that would go to these cities and you know sort of be the point man you know hey we have a hurricane expert on site and his name is Mark suddath you know that's how it was going to work and uh I remember the very first one was down in Texas in Lake Jackson I believe it was uh and it was in May of that year and uh Mike Farrow you remember I had Mike Farrow on with me uh part three of 1999. Mike Farrow went with me I talked him into going with me and um you know because he all of his experience dealing with hurricanes in the media on radio and the project IMPACT Program he went with me so we did we flew out and Lowe's had a tent several tents and they you know got their parking lot I told them what to do you know we need to get people to come out you got to promote it you know it's a big hurricane Awareness Day get the Red Cross out there who's you know Lowe's is a partner with the Red Cross National Weather Service and so Corpus Christi came out and it was remarkable we flew into Houston rented a vehicle drove down to Lake Jackson went to Lowe's and you know they knew about me you know hey Mark nice to meet you we've heard a lot about you uh gosh it was just it was remarkable and you know what I'm gonna a little brain fart it was not Lake Jackson it was Victoria my fault it was Victoria we would actually end the Lowe's hurricane Expo tour in 2001 in Lake Jackson there was two in Texas that year the very first one was in Victoria Texas my bad yeah there's a lot to remember as I try to recall these stories but it was Victoria Texas and uh thanks to the guy that works inside my head that keeps in track of all the files you gotta go through remember that movie uh if you're a Pixar fan called inside out and it's got all those different characters that represent emotions like anger you know and fear and whatever well they should have done one about the guy that keeps up with all your memories your files they kind of do but you know whatever so the guy that runs my file cabinet and my brain shout out to him for helping me remember that it was in fact Victoria Texas where the very first Expo was held under the Lowe's hurricane Expo brand uh the media came out it was a big success hundreds of people showed up and everybody was talking hurricanes and um you know later on down the road in early June thereabouts um we had another one that was scheduled uh down in Louisiana I believe it was Baton Rouge but that guy that rained out believe it or not it was LaFayette um there you go I remember it's coming back to me is Lafayette Louisiana and that got rained out because of Allison remember tropical storm Allison that just you know devastated parts of Southeast Texas including Metro Houston with at the time you know record-setting rainfall that has been surpassed by Harvey and in some areas even by Imelda in 2019 but you know yeah the Expo there in Lafayette was rained out but uh visited Savannah Georgia that year uh of course we had the one here in Wilmington uh also went down to Tampa St Pete for a Lowe's hurricane Expo there and and the ones in the southeast United States I drove the Isuzu and you know it was this hurricane chasing SUV the media liked that I had a little bit of archive b-roll footage I could share and you know I got interview after interview I was in the paper remember newspapers yeah I was in the newspaper you know I would be on any online articles that they may have and and lots of television and radio um we did one in Metairie Louisiana in 2001 uh I remember that one because I had like almost complete laryngitis the day before and as I drove down there and I had to be up really early like at six a.m that's really early for me to do radio interviews W uh wno or whatever it is New Orleans um there's a wwno anyway it's the um WWL I know I did an interview with them um and maybe it was wjno I don't know whatever but lots of media and that was exciting I got very good at talking in short bursts instead of long stories sound bites talking points right I started learning all of this I had training from Lowe's community relations and their public relations there's two different branches there and uh it was really really exciting partnered up with a lot of different people to help me Eddie went with me Mike Farrell went with me on a couple of these as I mentioned uh and it was a really good time it was a road show it was a tour you know and uh I wouldn't trade it for the world it was really really exciting and very big for Lowe's to have this program the only big company in the United States probably of any company that was doing anything of this magnitude at all Walmart wasn't doing it Home Depot any of the other major Outlets you know didn't exist Lowe's was the leader in this field and it was really really a privilege for me to be able to to head this up um and so another thing happened at the 2001 hurricane Expo in Wilmington uh they would also change my life in a little different way and changed his life as well um through the website hurricane track.com which of course was hurricane99.com in 1999 when it started uh you know it grew quickly and remember I was doing these hurricane tracking charts these posters that's the more um the the more that's the more accurate they were posters I'm telling you they were huge I was doing these for lots of um TV stations including w-a-v-y Channel 10. in Portsmouth Virginia uh and they would promote them on the air you know you know the 2001 wavy hurricane tracking guide is now available and remember they they gave them away at Farm Fresh uh up in southeast Virginia uh and just to kind of refresh your memory I was doing these tracking posters in Norfolk Portsmouth area Charleston Wilmington Raleigh and Charlotte I believe and all of these different areas except for Southeast North Carolina they just paid me a fee they went and got the advertisers the sponsors got the artwork I told them what to do and at this point in time I was producing these Maps myself a hundred percent on my own on my Macintosh and you know it was good money I will admit as making a living just from doing that um and uh so Farm Fresh was the distributor in southeast Virginia and a guy by the name of Jesse bass had uh heard about it on the TV probably went to farm fresh picked it up of course my website's on all of these you know for more hurricane information visit hurricane track.com right and he went to the website learned about me and he emailed me at some point and came down to Wilmington in early June 2001 he said my wife and I are going to come down to the Expo it would be great to meet you uh he said he does photography he loves weather he shoots on film of course back in the days pretty much dslrs were prohibitively expensive at the time and so he said he's gonna come down to Wilmington for the Expo so sure enough that's exactly what happened Jesse came down and came out to the Expo to trash Coliseum many many thousands of people came out to that Expo again that year and he introduced himself to me he brought I remember he brought like a photo album uh he was nervous I remember this he he looked at me um I don't want to say like a celebrity but you know he was a fan of my work you know just now only really a couple years into the website Etc um and he really admired what I was doing he said he loved severe weather uh you know always wanted to be in a hurricane himself Etc and you know we hit it off and he offered up that if you ever need any help around the area you know let him know and you know he'd be glad to help out in intercepting a hurricane somewhere uh and he just there was just this Rapport and you could just tell that um we would get along you know if that need arose so we talked for a little bit at the Expo and he went around and collected different things and he and his wife went on back to Southeast Virginia so that seed was planted right I met Jesse because of the project impact hurricane Expo and of course at that point in time I had the Lowe's contract and that gig and you know my life was good you know the funding was there I had my new house you know moved into the new house and um late February early March whatever it was uh my daughter was born at the end of March so things were just you know couldn't get any better right and um in all of this uh also in the spring of 2001 I got uh contacted by a couple of what they call Villages and that's what they call these places you know down in Louisiana they're called parishes the counties they're called parishes and some parts of the country towns are called Villages um either informally or formally so the Village of East Rockaway in the village of Freeport in New York on Long Island their project impact people coordinators whatever they were these two Villages contacted me uh in the spring of 2001 that they too were project impact communities the Village of East Rockaway and Freeport and they were interested in doing a big hurricane awareness project and they wanted to marry it with Nor'easter awareness that they get storm surge flooding from nor'easters as well and at that time a recent event was 1996 where they had some pretty significant flooding in that part of Long Island from a nor'easter nor'easters of course are a different type of storm but they're you know kind of like winter in the wintertime cousins of hurricanes right and so negotiations had begun uh what would you charge to consult and produce a big multimedia project just like what you did in North Carolina and and then Georgia I added Georgia I did storm surge mapping for the six Coastal counties in Georgia um I had gone to the project impact Summit that we had and the National Hurricane conference uh was up in Washington DC in 2001 kind of a a weird place to have the National Hurricane conference but I was everywhere I was meeting people right and left and my name was getting out there and projects were just getting thrown my way one after the other it was it was almost overwhelming because I did all of this by myself right and so this was exciting something for the Northeast and uh you know they do have their own fairly Rich hurricane history up there you know the great New England hurricane cane of 1938 comes to mind 1944 and others you know in the most recent one in this era uh and even today is Bob 1991 Gloria 1985 and then many many nor'easters as I talked about that can cause flooding and other problems up there so uh negotiations had begun on exactly what we would do they were going to get a big partner um and they were looking at partnering with State Farm as their major private sector funding partner and they would use public money tax taxpayer money through the project IMPACT program they would get their own media and and it was it was exciting you know to say the least uh hey I could be be doing something in New York of all places and um so that began and then we got into the hurricane season you know all of this kind of mixed up together uh and you know the season forecast to be fairly busy no major El Nino threats anything like that and so we waited you know with a big anticipation when would the first hurricane of the new century you know hit right where in the year 2000 we had no hurricanes at the United States would it be 2001 you're right so I was ready uh and so during the summer sometime in I think it was July uh you know how July is it's usually pretty dead in the tropics um you know the season just wasn't looking real active yet and you know okay we had Allison in early 2001's season in early June big flutter is that a word flutter a big flooding historic hurricane or tropical storm Allison uh and until we get through Imelda and the hurricane center and the wmo that's the World Meteorological organization's designation of whether or not a Melda will be retired tropical storm Imelda from 2019 Allison still if memory serves is the only tropical storm named to be retired off the list of names that we use it's true because of the damage and the death toll and the impact that it had on parts of Texas and Southwest Louisiana so anyway Allison came and went and we were waiting for Barry tropical storm barrier whatever would be you know when is berry going to happen so July usually pretty dead in the tropics as you know and I was just determined you know I kept thinking we live in an era where pretty much everybody has a cell phone now albeit probably a flip phone maybe you have a more sophisticated what we call a bar phone and did it look like a little candy bar I was about the size a little bit wider and longer than a Milky Way Maybe they call they were called bar phones um Sanyo had them who else Samsung I think was a leader you know obviously nothing from Apple yet that was going to be a few years down the road quite a ways down the road but it existed the cellular network in the United States was up and coming and I had heard from Jason my web programmer my real good friend who lived and worked up in the Raleigh Carey area of North Carolina what we call the triangle he worked for the SAS Institute statistical analysis software one of the most successful privately held still it's not a public company software companies it's kind of like the Microsoft of the East and he worked for SAS Jason kept up with you know all things website related for me handling the back end server maintenance you name it Java programming and whatnot and he knew all about my hurricane exploits my my desires and my grand ideas for the future and the number one priority for technology in 2001 I was never at rest ever never sat back on my Laurels okay I got everything I need I'm good you know what it is I wanted wireless internet I thought there has to be some way to transmit zeros and ones through the air come on now and Jason told me that he thought that Sprint had data cards you know what they called an air card and you might want to go talk to Sprint Sprint was very prevalent especially along the coast um and you know he said you should go talk to Sprint so I did I went into the Sprint store here in Wilmington and this would make the folks at Sprint cringe but yeah you know it's just part of the it's part of the story process right this is a true story I went in and told them you know immediately salespeople come up to you as you can imagine hey what can I help you with and you know I said well I am a singular um customer right now it was Singular Wireless uh singular with a c c i n g u l a r something like that and a friend of mine a colleague said that Sprint uh has data you know that you can you can get me like I can use maybe my phone for data maybe have an air card you know what and then oh well I think we do it was really funny because they didn't really know and they had a little kiosk and a little display area that talked about Sprint data and that you could tether your phone through a USB cable or something like that it might have even been serial I don't know but you would use your phone a certain phone you have to have a specific phone designed for this that your phone could use data Sprint data Network probably I would I would assume it was 1G I guess certainly no more than 2G obviously um and I believe they said it was like 28 .8 kilobits per second or something like that or maybe it was 50 to 70 kilobits per second because the Sprint data spectrum is different than your dial-up modem you know where we used to either 28 8 36 or 56k and I think that the Sprint um Spectrum it was no more than 70 kilobits per second I know that and I think that was it at burst speeds they didn't really know much about it though that's what was funny uh and they were going to try to demonstrate it for me at their little display area but apparently nobody else in Wilmington needed wireless data so they never really had an opportunity to showcase it and nobody knew how to operate it and so I had funding and so I purchased a Sprint phone it was a Sanyo bar phone uh so it's not a flip phone right it's a bar phone and it came with a tether a little data cable and some instructions on what to do I don't remember how much it cost I just don't it money was not a problem back then and I bought it and and I had an agreement and I guess it was just part of their operating procedure anyway that if this does not work I had uh whatever a week or two weeks I could bring it back and they would cancel everything no penalty to me so forth and so on so I went home and you know I was like it was like Christmas Day I opened the box you know how it is you Electronics Geeks out there you open something new and you can just smell the electronics you smell the silicone or silicon sorry whatever maybe it is silicone too uh if something is sealed with silicone you smell the electronics it just if you're an Electronics geek like me a tech geek you know what I'm talking about you open those boxes and you're just like yeah all right and I followed all the instructions downloaded the drivers whatever I had to do to do and I had an HP laptop and I fired everything up and turned on the modem activated it whatever through the phone and it said it was connected there's a it was like a dial-up manager that would come up separately and you would see it doing its thing and you got a little signal strength thing and it would connect and you were in and um okay good I'm connected and so I opened uh my browser at the time it's probably Internet Explorer and the very first website okay here's a trivia thing for you uh if I ever become legendary and you know you have a trivia whatever if I'm on if I'm a Jeopardy category one day how about that for being you know delusions of grandeur what was the very first of course I know it's different on Jeopardy it's you have to form it in the phrase of a question or whatever but the first website that uh Mark visited the answer uh you know what is the National Hurricane Center yes that would be it that's correct for two hundred dollars um only a 200 question the National Hurricane Center nhc.noa.gov was the very first website that I visited using my wireless data connection and I remember uh I called Jesse he and I had stayed in touch a little bit and I was like dude you wouldn't believe it and I told Jesse and I told Jason and I was like oh I got Wireless and it was incredible and I remember I put the laptop in the Isuzu uh the Isuzu had a built-in inverter so I could power um you know AC powered equipment and um off I went you know somewhere in Wilmington just drove out somewhere maybe to the beach I don't even remember so excited and I tried it again and I went to my website and I was like whoa and I went to a weather tap that's who we used for radar back then weathertap.com and my goodness it was like whoa this is amazing and you know I was able to update my website from the field and and that wasn't enough though I thought okay if I can do this I can probably get a webcam from Logitech or whoever made them back then and I bet I can send a webcam image uh through this air card you know it won't be frequent you know probably every few minutes or something because the data Spectrum was just you know not gonna handle it yet the bandwidth and so that was the next thing I did I went to um this site that's uh probably extinct now called outpost.com you guys remember that site and I ordered a webcam in a few days it was the precursor to Amazon right and uh I ordered a webcam and I installed it and I could send a webcam image like every five minutes uh set it up I would FTP it to my website and voila mid-summer 2001 I've got a webcam I've got wireless internet I've got the Lowe's contract you know I've got these projects pending for New York I've finished Georgia or working on Georgia I can't remember I mean so much going on it was just mind-blowing and waiting like okay now you know now we really need a hurricane here okay come on people come on weather gods and you know that's a weird thing to wish for a hurricane but it's it's like the fire department gets a grant they get money from the County Commissioners whatever funding process works for a fire department and they get a brand new three hundred thousand dollar fire truck they don't want to have to go and deal with a big apartment fire somewhere but they want to use the truck you know what I mean it's like well you know if there's gonna be an apartment fire at least we are well equipped that's the more accurate way to look at it they're not sitting around the fire station um hoping for a big disaster somewhere a plane crash you know a major pile up on the highway a chemical spill but boy when those things do happen they are adrenaline driven they know they've got the technology the equipment and the same thing is true in the military and in in anything else where the technology and your backbone infrastructure dictates how successful you could potentially be and that was me with the Isuzu you know it's a small SUV but it didn't matter the anemometers on there the pressure sensors on there I even think I bought a lightning detector they sold these lightning detectors it was like a a radio frequency it was like a little gray Project Box and I had an on off switch and that was about it and it had a bell an electronic Bell it would just go so ding when it detected lightning and I don't remember 10 miles away whatever it was uh anything within that radius it would you know how when you listen to AM radio and you hear that little when there's lightning there's a little static you know and you should know this you can you put it on AM radio and maybe even FM and I know it's prevalent on am and you hear the static discharge uh the lightning monkeys with the radio frequencies and uh you can hear it there's a little click and you can hear it in people's video when Lightning's about to strike real close by there's an audible brief click right you know it's a little snap sound right before lightning strikes real close by to people that are filming thunderstorms and this lightning detector would do the same thing and so I was outfit with everything I could possibly get my hands on at this juncture of my intercepting career and Jesse and I at stated touch and certainly with Eddie Eddie was moving on Eddie was gonna probably be leaving the project IMPACT program that was wrapping up in 2001 as I mentioned and he was going to finish up his master's work uh and go on into public administration so the era of Eddie Smith not quite over but is reaching its midpoint we would hear from Eddie again a few years down the road we'll get to that uh and um you know Dr Brian Davis that I worked with uh still good friend of mine even today uh but but Jesse was on Deck you know Jesse had this drive and he was very adamant you know we would talk on the phone on occasion uh during the season probably shared emails uh I do remember Jesse bought a couple of posters from me I used to sell these satellite pictures of hurricanes and he bought some from me and adorned his house with my posters um and he was on Deck you know he was ready to go if there would be uh an opportunity to do so and as it turns out you don't have to wait too long uh the rather anemic 2001 season 2001 season um it didn't produce a lot but the next name up Barry early August 2001 and that's what I will cover in part two because uh I'm gonna have Jesse as my second in person maybe Skype I gotta figure out our schedules either way Jesse will be my guest as I tackle part two of the year 2001 and tropical storm Berry very very important on a lot of levels wait to hear about this uh another harrowing Adventure the first one uh you'll see Jessie's like what did I get myself into and that's what I will cover in part two of stories from the hurricane Highway the year 2001 in next week's edition uh so you know this one is uh and I didn't date it should have done that at the beginning so this one's the 29th of January next week will be February the 5th Wednesday February 5th edition uh that's what this one will be covering when Jesse and Mark get together incredible things happen it'd be the start of quite a a series of Adventures ah boy where that leads to down the road you shall see I cannot wait and and we'll have Jesse probably back more than once so look forward to that for next week so there you go um that'll that'll wrap it up that's it for to not tonight I mean I can't say tonight's Edition because I'm actually recording this during the day but I'm used to saying tonight for some reason but you get the idea the beauty of this podcast you can listen to it whenever you want to on any device you want to I guess your device of your choosing uh so next week uh we'll we'll talk with Jesse all right as always I appreciate and I'm going to always say this I don't care if it's five ten years from now and hopefully we at that point in time have thousands of patrons uh we're gonna grow this and it is because of you that I am able to do this to support my family to support my career now I mean think about it you know I'll just say this real quick in those days it was big projects corporate sponsorships things like that now we're in the era of crowdfunding and supporting creativity and what crowdfunding means you know crowdfunding supports music arts film animation you know bloggers uh Foodies you know even there's a there's a guy on patreon and this is how I got introduced to patreon from one of our patrons his name is Dan he told me about this guy several years ago uh there's a dude on patreon who's got patrons that support his blogging about going on Royal Caribbean cruise ships I I'm not kidding and you know I don't know how many patrons he's got it's a sizable amount but that is our world you have the choice to support things that matter to you and it is definitely a heartfelt thank you that I matter enough for you to support me and allow me to be able to do these projects like this podcast series that I will reiterate it is not available anywhere outside of patreon uh and it will never be because this is your original content that you helped to fund and it is my way of saying thank you and giving you something unique and I can't wait you know as we grow patreon and more people come on board they will get to see this podcast series they'll Discover it and they'll go back and listen to the first chapters and as this grows into several dozen episodes down the years from now come years from now it's really going to be amazing so thanks for supporting it I appreciate it more than you will ever know and that's the truth all right that is it for this version this chapter part one of the year 2001 thanks as always for tuning in I am Mark sutath you have been listening to stories from the hurricane Highway the good old year of 2001 where will we go next with it tune in next week to find out thanks for listening I'll talk to you again next week