This post is an update and remix of posts and images from my old SkyDiary website as I move chase accounts to ChrisKridler.com.
Damage after Hurricane Charley hit Punta Gorda Aug. 9, 2004.
I should say up front that I’m not a hurricane chaser. I find them fascinating, but I enjoy the visuals of supercells, tornadoes and lightning and loathe the misery hurricanes cause, given I live in the hurricane zone in Florida. And 2004 had plenty of misery to go around. While I didn’t experience Ivan, the third of four hurricanes that hit the state that year, I had more than enough fun with Charley, Frances and Jeanne.
Charley, which hit Punta Gorda on Florida’s west coast on Aug. 13, was a Category 4 at landfall. I almost chased it for the newspaper I worked for but changed my mind when I saw its rapid intensification – we literally turned around. I just wasn’t up for facing a Cat 4, especially for my first hurricane chase. But the next day, I was dispatched with a photographer to the area to document the damage. The eye was quite small, but its path was devastating.
Flying out to meet Frances
Chris on the all-night flight around Frances.
A couple of weeks later, as Hurricane Frances approached the Florida coast, the National Hurricane Center’s track at times brought it right into Brevard County, my home.
And I got the call that my name had come up on the waiting list to fly on NOAA’s GIV hurricane hunter plane, which flies around the periphery of the storm. So I drove over to Tampa to board the all-night flight and cover this unique perspective on hurricane research for my newspaper.
It’s tradition to sign the dropsondes, so I told the “F” storm what I thought.
The GIV crew plots a course that allows it to gather data that feed into computer models, aiding forecasting of a hurricane’s track and intensity. Dropsondes carry sensors that send data back to the plane before they fall into the ocean.
It’s tradition to sign a dropsonde – it looks kind of like a mailing tube – before it’s dropped from about 40,000 feet, so I was excited to sign one. I addressed the F storm, “F” you, Frances! <3, Chris.
The data are gathered and analyzed on the plane, then sent via satellite to the National Hurricane Center.
As we flew in the darkness, a report came through from the Air Force plane crisscrossing the eye: There, the moon shone.
“When you think of the houses it’s knocking down in the Bahamas right now, it’s not a pretty thing,” said Jack Parrish, flight director for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Gulfstream IV jet.
Remarkably, this flight was one of the calmest I’ve ever been on. This plane actually tries to avoid the roughest weather. (I still want to fly into the eye of a hurricane!) See more photos in the gallery below.
Frances whips up waves on the Indian River Lagoon.
As you can see in the photos below, S.F. Travis Co. in Cocoa, Florida, saw a big business selling generators and other supplies. Meanwhile, people lined up at Home Depot in Merritt Island to buy plywood so they could board up their windows. The 7-11 nearby was ready with its “Bring it on!” sign.
Surfers took advantage of crazy-high waves in Cocoa Beach on Sept. 3, before Frances made landfall late on Sept. 4.
The center of Frances ended up making landfall farther south from where I lived, and fortunately it weakened from a Cat 4 to a 2 at landfall, but the storm’s huge size and slow movement brought hours of strong, sometimes hurricane-force winds to Brevard.
The wind whipped as the hurricane slowly churned inland. Hurricane-force winds rocked the Rockledge waterfront, kicking up surf on the normally calm Indian River Lagoon.
In the fierce winds and uncharacteristic waves on the lagoon, boats were bashed about and docks and dockhouses destroyed. Cocoa’s City Hall lost roof panels from its outdoor overhang. Many ended up across the street at Murdock’s restaurant and bar.
Damage to NASA’s Vehicle Assembly Building from Hurricane Frances.
Hurricane Frances also knocked over lots of large trees, causing power outages. That was fun – about five days of no air-conditioning. As you can see in one photo below shot in Rockledge, the tree pulled up the sidewalk with it.
Kennedy Space Center was blasted by the hurricane. The Vehicle Assembly Building, where space shuttle orbiters were stacked with their solid rocket boosters and external tank, lost 1.3 acres of wall panels. The shuttle tile and thermal blanket facility lost part of its roof.
Locally, the most stunning damage was to a Baptist church in Cocoa Beach. The steeple plunged through the roof and into the pews inside, like a missile. At least the congregation had a sense of humor about it; its sign afterward read “3 2 1 BLAST OFF.”
The First Baptist Church in Cocoa Beach lost its steeple in Frances.
The show wasn’t over with Frances. We still had Ivan and Jeanne waiting in the wings.
Hurricane Jeanne. Credit: NASA
Mean Jeanne
Huge waves damage a boathouse in Rockledge, Florida, and push debris onto the shores of the Indian River Lagoon around 9 a.m. Sept. 26, 2004, as Hurricane Jeanne passed through.
Ivan actually preceded Jeanne, coming ashore Sept. 16, officially making landfall as a Category 3 at Gulf Shores, Alabama, with the Florida Panhandle helping take the brunt of the storm.
Jeanne made landfall in the same area as Frances, on Hutchinson Island on the eastern Florida coast, late on Sept. 25. We were without power for about 9 days for that one and it ruined my birthday, not that it’s all about me.
Unfortunately, it caused a lot of damage in Florida and, sadly, was responsible for deaths and billions in damage in the United States, though we’d been pre-disastered by Frances.
I think it’s safe to say that’s a season I never want to repeat.
Click on any image to start a slide show.
