18 years ago on this day (September 28, 1998), Hurricane Georges roared ashore in southern Mississippi. 18 years and one day ago, my interest in weather was sparked. Below is my story from Hurricane Georges.
I had an interest in weather supposed since I was born. As my mom could attest, when I was 1 year old sitting in my playpen, my mom was watching the news. She figured that I didn't want to watch the news and turned it to cartoons. Apparently, I started bawling and crying. She then turned it back to the news, and I stopped. But, of course, I don't remember back that far, and thus, Hurricane Georges is my first moment that I realized I wanted to be a meteorologist.
I was 4 years old at the time. I was in my grandmother's bedroom while she was putting away some laundry, and my mom and her fiancee were in the living room watching TV. I had the Weather Channel on the TV in my grandmother's room watching the late John Hope give an update on Hurricane Georges. It was raining, it was windy. We were in the right front quadrant of Hurricane Georges, and we had a risk of tornadoes with the outer bands spiraling onshore. We were under a Tornado Watch. While I was in my grandmother's bedroom, my grandmother and I were oblivious to what was happening outside.
My mom was looking outside the kitchen window (which faces east). She saw what appeared to be lightning off in the distance. Her fiancee then looked out the window with her. The flashes started getting closer and there were loud pops going on. He then realized that those were transformers exploding.
The next thing we knew, our power went out, the house shook violently, and the wind was roaring outside. Immediately, somehow we all knew to get into our hallway bathroom (which is the most interior room without windows), even our dog knew. So we all crammed into the bathroom, closed the door, and my mom's fiancee started taking roll. We called out all our names except my grandmother. We were trying to figure out where she was. Then we hear a knock on the bathroom door, and there she is holding flashlights. Now, to her credit, she was from Vietnam and had no idea what was going on. All she thought about was that the power was out.
After being directly hit by a tornado, we looked outside from our window. We couldn't see a thing. Our entire neighborhood had no power. We called 911 and told them that we had been hit by a tornado, but they didn't believe us. They said that since there was no warning, there couldn't have been a tornado. They were partially right, there was no Tornado Warning issued. However, they sent one officer out our way. The Sheriff's Office was only a few blocks away, but they weren't impacted. However, the officer quickly had to call for back-up. They realized there was a substantial amount of damage. We could hear people yelling from the trailer park about 100 feet away to make sure everyone was okay. Unfortunately, we had to wait for daylight to see the full extent of the damage. One thing we knew, we didn't seem to have much damage. Everything still seemed in tact.
Daylight broke the next day (well, it was still cloudy as Georges was starting to make landfall in Mississippi), and we finally saw everything that had happened. Power lines and power poles down everywhere. Branches down. Even a tree in front of our house collapsed on the house across the street from us leaving a gaping hole in their roof. Thankfully, no one was home. But there was quite a bit of damage in our neighborhood. Every house around us had sustained some sort of damage (mostly in the form of roof damage. Our house had actually remained unscathed, just a few shingles off our roof, but no substantial damage. The tornado was rated an F1 (winds 73-112 mph), and it caused an estimated $300,000 in damage.
That got me interested in how the tornado seemingly skipped our house and the fact that there was actually no warning issued. I wanted to learn more about tornadoes, hurricanes, and pretty much everything. I also wanted to be the person to warn people about dangerous weather. I wanted to be on TV to be that person that people turn to when there's dangerous weather approaching. To this day, I carry this passion with me. I want to find ways to improve communication to the public through various media (television, online, social media). I want to give people a forecast they can understand while also teaching them something new. It's a dream that I can't wait to come true.
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