September 11 - 10 years later

It seems that part of my life has come full circle.  Ten years ago on September 11th, I was working an overnight shift in the Florida Keys as a participant in the KAMP program for part of my graduate work.  My replacement arrived and I headed home between 7 and 8 am Eastern, said a quick hello to the other grad students/friends in the rental house we had on one of the many islands in the Keys,  and headed to my downstairs "cave" to catch up on sleep.

I was totally out of it when one of the grad students from A&M bust into my room and said I needed to get upstairs quick because something bad was happening.  Not fully cognizant of what was going on, I managed to get some clothes on thinking that one of our vehicles was in an accident, the SMART-R truck was on fire, or some other project-related possibility and I would be worthless with one hours sleep.  Instead, everyone was in the living room clustered around the TV watching smoke pouring out of one of the two World Trade Center towers.  I asked what I was watching and no one could really give me a straight answer.  Within minutes we all realized what was going on.

Forever etched in my memory is the scene of the second airplane ramming into the second WTC tower, live shortly after 9 am.  Live.  On TV.  My exact thoughts at that moment were quite simple and quite blunt and I still remember them to this day...

"Oh my God.  Oh Shit.  This isn't good."

A couple of cell phones started to ring within a few minutes, but then the house phone rang.  That number was reserved for getting in touch with the project directors only.  Sure enough, one of the lead scientists was calling saying that they were stuck at Key West Naval Air Station under lockdown; anyone leaving the NASA radar site would be arrested at gunpoint.  After a couple more phone calls to the house phone and some terse/short conversations, the SMART-R engineer looked as us all and said to get all the vehicles, go get gas and Diesel, get the tanks topped off on the SMART-R, refill the spares and get an emergency kit packed.  Then my cell phone started to ring.

My parents were nowhere to be found.  My sisters and I knew that they were on vacation in Lake City, CO but details were still sketchy about how widespread the threat was.  Wild thoughts started to run through my mind, the minds of my sisters, and grandparents who were trying to check in on their kids.  The one thing I think my sisters and I wanted to hear was "It will all be O.K.".  As it turns out, Mom and Dad were totally (and likely fortunately) oblivious for much of the morning as they fished well out of cell phone range and also managed to drop the keys to their Suburban into one of the lakes.  They were probably in one of the safest places in the States at that time; nestled up in the heart of the Rockies in the central part of the U.S.A. but it still is unnerving not being able to get in touch with your Mom or Dad in a crisis such as the one that was unfolding.  It wasn't until the end of the day that we heard from my parents and they were O.K. and when we finally were able to see each other face-to-face a few months later, they told me they were confident that I would be O.K. because "I had my head on straight".  On the 11th, that may have been the case IF I was in Texas but instead I was stuck well over 1000 miles away from "home".

The rest of the day has already faded away from memory.  I don't remember where I was or what I was doing when the third hijacked plane hit the Pentagon or the passengers fought back on the fourth plane.  I do remember seeing FBI wanted posters all over the Keys later that week as they finally started to unravel who was involved.  I remember a bunch of conversations about whether we could continue the field project or not.  There was a brief stand-down but then Tropical Storm (at that time) Gabrielle presented an opportunity to do a mobile deployment of the then-new SMART-R.  The weekend after September 11th, the FAA and national security teams had decided to open the National Airspace System again and I didn't care what opportunities there were, I wanted to get back to Texas, to my home state, and to a much closer proximity to my firearms for "WTSHTF".  In hindsight it was a poor decision because I missed out on "chasing" a tropical storm at the time but I didn't care, I wanted to get back to the Hub City and back closer to home.

That was another interesting event; since the airline flights were all messed up, my reservations were out the window.  I have no doubt that my guv'ment employer issued ID helped getting through the backlog of passengers and United actually managed to get me back to Texas through some interesting routing.  Key West to Miami to Philadelphia to DFW to the Hub City.  And first class the whole way.  After getting my seat on the aisle on the Miami to Philly flight, the stewardess and a rather burly man in a United uniform asked if I would mind taking the window seat instead.  We made the swap, introduced each other and shook hands which is when he noticed my class ring and asked what academy I went to.  I pointed out that it was an Aggie ring and that I had graduated a couple of years earlier.  He apologized and stated that it looked a lot like his West Point class ring from the side.  Sure enough, he was retired Army and I was able to put two and two together and at some point in our conversation he quickly added; "Don't ask about why we swapped seats".  All I said in response was "I understand".  He was put on the aisle so he could have a clear view of the cockpit door, and I still wonder if he had some form of firearm with him...

And now 10 years later, that is the norm.  You never know when the person sitting next to you in an Air Marshall or not.  I made it back to Texas without any problems, graduated from the ATMO program at Tech, lived/am living through the ongoing wars on Terror, in Iraq, and in Afghanistan.  There have been a couple of flights in and out of Washington, D.C. on American Airlines in the last couple of years and each one of those flights began with a prayer and a mental note of who was boarding the plane or not.  Yes, you can say that I was mentally profiling those who were walking on those planes and I bet there are plenty people in the U.S. that would be guilty of that.  Now I am back in the same city I was in ten years ago but in a totally different stage of life, different world, and a different worldview.  Then there is the hovering well above the background noise level a sense of uncertainty on where I will be when the next attack/attempted attack will be and how I will respond.

There is so much more I've thought over and continue to mull over but will hold off for now.  I'm not here to write a thesis but reflect on how much my life changed on that day 10 years ago.  However, I'll leave you with this thought.  One of my friends recently posted this on Facebook and I totally agree with her:

"Violence begets violence.  Unforgiveness begets unforgiveness.  But as long as I live I will never ever forget."

Farewell, STS

At 11:30 am on July 8th of 2011, I cried.  On my computer screen was the live feed of the last liftoff of the Shuttle Transportation System and the last flight of OV-104 or as most people know her, Atlantis.  Thirty years have passed since Columbia rode into the morning sky, a morning that my Dad woke me up on his way out to work so I could see the launch on our old RCA TV.  I still remember that morning to this day, the sense of awe and amazement of this amazing machine and moment that was taking place.

I think that it was that moment that I decided that I was going to be an astronaut and to the credit of my family, they did everything they could to encourage that decision.  With a set of grandparents living near Houston, several trips were made to the Johnson Space center in my younger years and I can't remember how many Christmas presents were space-related.  In 1986 I remember hearing something about an incident with Challenger in school because of the first teacher going to space, kids talking about it at church choir practice that night, and then seeing it plastered over the TV when I finally got home.  Reagan's eloquent speech with the "slipped the surly bonds of earth" quote, and then tears shed for a different reason; the realization that being an astronaut wasn't as safe as it seemed to be on the news.  However, the encouragement that the President gave about continuing the exploration of space was reassuring and I still wanted to reach that dream of being in space.  There is also a story that one night when I was still a wee young-un, while out with my grandparents and parents on the family ranch, we saw a shooting star overhead and I asked my grandmother if she saw it.  At some point in our conversation, I told her that one day, I would be up there looking down on the ranch and waving to her from "space".

The desire to be an astronaut was so strong that yes, I participated in this program when I was going into 7th grade:

Now, I didn't participate in the one in Huntsville, AL.  I went to the one in Florida and had the time of my life; we were able to see a shuttle stack on the launch pad, walk through the Orbiter Processing Facility, and fulfill a small part of my dream.  Another highlight was the full-day simulated mission that we flew in the Space Camp simulator; I remember I was a mission specialist with callsign "Spacegeek" (yes, that is how much I knew about NASA programs, space in general, and so much about the systems), we at astronaut food, and had a successful go at it.  Then there was the end-of-camp trivia contest which we won, and at "graduation" I received my astronaut "wings" and an award for being one of the most active participants in the camp.  Yes, I guess you could claim that I was just as annoying as Max from the Space Camp movie (you know, the role that Joaquin Phoenix played).

My interests started to change and I became more and more convinced that I was supposed to study meteorology as I grew up but I never totally gave up on the idea of being an astronaut.  Going to A&M afforded some chances to see things at JSC that few ever will; connections with the soon defunct Spaceflight Meteorology Group allowed the student AMS chapter access to Mission Control Center White FCR while it was stood down between missions, to walk amongst the consoles in the room and sit in the CAPCOM chair, and the opportunity to see the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory in use.  My desire to be a part of NASA continued through my undergraduate and post-graduate work; I participated in the TRMM mission during TEFLUN-A in 1998,  KWAJEX in 1999 (where I was able to fly on the NASA DC-8 research aircraft), and then KAMP in 2001 (where as a sidenote, I was in Key West on Sept. 11, 2001...talk about an interesting time!!!).  Also in 1999, I was able to watch Columbia re-enter and fly over Fort Worth, leaving a red glowing plasma trail (this was the view from Houston to give you an idea) as I watched at a park about 3 miles from my parent's house.  In the time it took for me to drive home, Columbia had already touched down in Florida and was rolling to a stop when I walked in the door.  Little did I know the significance of this event about three years later.

Then came the morning of 1 February 2003 when I awoke to the news of Columbia breaking up during re-entry.  I knew that the re-entry track would be passing almost overhead of the Hub City but I had a cold and turned off my alarm after a coughing fit, deciding sleep would be better than getting up at 8 am to see the re-entry plasma trail .  My room mate at the time was sitting on the couch when I woke up and he was glued to Fox News showing images from WFAA-TV in Dallas of several streaks of light rapidly moving over the city.  Immediately my heart dropped and I felt even more sick; I knew exactly what had happened from my experience in the simulation so many years before at Space Camp.  At the time I thought that somehow the shuttle had suffered a catastrophic system failure and lost all steering control taking the orbiter outside of it's normal trajectory; instead it was something that took place almost two weeks earlier during the ascent stage when foam impacted the leading edge of the wing.  Again, tears were shed.

So now I watch this one last shuttle mission day-by-day, reliving my childhood dream of being up in space looking down on the earth.  As the title of an IMAX movie from years ago stated, for so many years of my life, "The Dream is Alive".  Perhaps someday I will be able to fly into space, just not on a NASA-sponsored mission.  And this is where the deepest sadness comes from.  I believe that the direction this administration is taking NASA is wrong.  It is easy to cut budgets for something that isn't perceived as providing immediate benefits for the public.  But what would you do without Velcro, scratch-resistant lenses, Tempur foam, freeze-dried foods, satellite radio technology, microgravity protein and metallurgical synthesis (more accurate medical imaging in proteins and nearly spherical micro ball bearings), and the list could go on.  All of these items came from needs arising during manned NASA missions.  Yes, the shuttle system is expensive, is inherently dangerous, and is approaching the design age limit for the orbiters.  However, mismanagement within NASA and misguided directions by both former and the sitting president all have left NASA adrift without a direction.  Without a way to inspire younger generations.  Without something to make a kid dream.

We had to catch up to the CCCP in the late 50s into 1961 which lead to Project Mercury.  Kennedy literally shot for the moon to jump us ahead of the Russians which led to Projects Gemini and Apollo.  Then some thawing in the cold war came along and with leftover hardware from Project Apollo, we headed up the Apollo/Soyuz Test Project and separately Project Skylab.  At the same time, dreamers decided to take the next big leap and develop the Shuttle Transportation System.  Now, NASA is practically left adrift; we were dreaming big again by returning to the moon with Constellation Program but after spending lots of money and progressing towards testing the crew module, a new administration came in and cancelled the project, took the step of shooting for an asteroid and Mars, and passed those goals off to the private sector.  I do hope that the private sector is up to the task and can make travel on a sub-orbital, orbital, or interplanetary flight realistic and available to the masses but I doubt this will happen.

Space travel is still inherently dangerous and I doubt that our litigation-happy society will be able to afford the insurance costs or fully comprehend the waivers that will need to be signed to keep one lawsuit from shutting down a company after an "incident" leading to loss of life.  Are some industries and fields best left to governmental control is a question that I am still trying to decide my stance on.  And I do acknowledge that NASA will still be involved in space operations.  However, manned spaceflight in the USA will disappear for quite a while once Atlantis touches down in Florida; handed over to Russia until someone here at home comes up with a way to get our astronauts (and public) into orbit.  I doubt we will be seeing as much hoopla about Soyuz launches in the eastern hemisphere than manned launches that take place in our own backyard.

And so the dream is fading, likely already extinguished for a whole generation of kids that will grow up not knowing, not seeing, not dreaming about riding a space shuttle into orbit.  Once again, the government takes away something that a kid can dream about, learn from, or be inspired to pursue (and probably punishes the State of Texas by removing all the major parts of the shuttle period such as the orbiters themselves, the simulators, and the full mockups to museums everywhere BUT Texas).  So farewell to the Shuttle Transportation System, to something that made this kid-at-heart dream a lifelong dream of riding a shuttle into orbit.  As the line from a Van Halen song says "Dream another dream, this dream is over..."

Fair winds and following seas Atlantis, Discovery, and Endeavor...

P.S.  Watch this series of videos for some amazing footage of how a shuttle launches...

Conspicio

Here we are almost a full two weeks after the events of 24 May in Oklahoma.  I have returned to the "normalcy" of my life; shift-work, my home with laundry to fold and dishes to put away, a Jeep that needs a new radiator.  Meanwhile, many residents continue to pick up the pieces of their lives and are far from a normal life they lived on May 23rd.

My thoughts still turn back to the things I saw and wrote about last week after going out on the storm damage survey.  The Weather Forecast Office in Norman has finally conferred with several folks and have given the tornado an EF-5 rating; the highest and most destructive rating for those wanting to give a firm number to a force of nature that covered a much larger range of damage than this.  A debate continues because the rating was bumped up after some new radar measurements of wind speed were released from an experimental mobile radar that scanned the beginnings of my survey portion near the I-40/Calumet exit.

The continued focus on this storm keeps the images at the forefront of my mind.  Colleagues at my place of employment are asking questions, want to know how they can take the lessons I learned and store them away in their mind for the unfortunate time they will be called to do a storm damage survey.  My dreams are still occasionally filled with the images I saw across Oklahoma on the 25th; not nightmares but more of a reliving of the events that week.  Images are occasionally triggered by smells or smells come back to mind from time to time.  These events aren't debilitating or haunting, but more of a reminder of what has happened once can and will happen again.

Now that the rating has been released, I feel that it is O.K. for me to share with you some of the images to give you a poor glimpse of what was encountered.  By no means is this inclusive; I took over 300 pictures and a few panoramics in there as well, but I feel these are images that have come in my dreams and to my mind the most.

First is this image of the remnants of some form of vehicle:

We found other pieces along the damage path all within about 50 feet of each other, but none of them could give us an idea of what kind of vehicle this was.  As far as I know (and I truly hope), no one was in this vehicle.  If this doesn't explain why you should not try to outrun a tornado of any type, I don't know what will.

In similar fashion is this picture:

You are looking at a 2009 Chevrolet Malibu, or what used to be that vehicle.  It was tossed 50 yards from the garage it was parked in onto this tree.  A wrecker had to come in and pull the vehicle down.  No one was in the vehicle; the owners fled into the nearest town because of the reports they saw on television on how strong the tornado was.  They went into a well-built steel and concrete shelter they had at their place of employment.

This next image was a way too common sight; a hardwood tree, denuded and debarked by the tornado.  Images of the tree from the movie "Poltergeist" come to mind.

Again, you can see the remnants of what used to be a two story home on the right side of the image.  Some cleanup had occurred but the owners were still sifting through what little was left of their home.  They were polite but you could hear the resignation in their voices that there was little left of their lives to find. 

Southeast of Okarche was one of the more fearsome places I have been to.

Again, a two story home that very little was left.  The door to the basement was nowhere to be found as I stood on the slab and peered into the dank darkness below.  My curiosity wanted to go down into the basement, my respect for whomever's property this is kept me from doing so.  There was also a sense of fear; a sense that going down the stairs would result in me imagining the sheer terror of hearing your home disappear above you in an instant.  I have no idea if the lone boot was left there by the tornado or placed there by someone, but that was the only intact and "clean" piece of personal property left.  We had to gingerly walk around this property because of the sheer number of nails, sharp objects, and countless pieces of splintered wood that were all eagerly awaiting the chance to slice, dice, cut, or pierce the skin.  And all of them were coated in mud, dirt, grass, and Lord knows what else...

I will save you some other images of vehicles thrown over 800 yards, homes obliterated, and leave you with the one that comes back the most; I guess haunting is truly the proper word:

 

This was all that was left of a home.  Behind where I took this picture was the location where Ryan and his brother once lived, once laughed, but were tragically taken before their time.  You are looking at a safe room, a specifically built structure designed to withstand the strongest of tornadoes.  We were told by the Search and Rescue incident commander that a family did ride out the tornado in the shelter.  The homeowners were willing to spend the extra $3-6,000 to install this room, nothing bigger than a walk in closet, and it saved their lives.  Outside of this safe room, all hell was literally taking place outside of that steel door (the homeowners found their quads and put them back on the property after the tornado).

Somewhere between 5 to 10 hours after this picture was taken, search and rescue teams found the body of 3-year old Ryan floating in the lake.  That fact is something I continue to dwell on; there is NOTHING I could have done to find him or any way to know that he was in the water.  Yet at the same time, I was there.  Perhaps that is why this continues to be so real for me and why the visions of the damage continue to come back every once in a while in my dreams.

As for what I have learned or contemplated on...that will be for another post down the road once I mentally process all that went on that week I was there...

Sleepless agony...

I know I haven't blogged in a while.  There are currently seven posts in the queue that are in some state of being written that I started and then promptly forgot in everyday life.  Tonight however, I find myself unable to sleep and need to write.  Write to free my mind and try to unload the events of the last 2 days.

I have been in Norman, Oklahoma participating in the Experimental Warning Program; you can read the details in the link but the Cliff's Notes version is that we are testing ways to better display experimental weather information to aid NWS meteorologists in issuing warnings that are used to (hopefully) protect lives and property.  Our project was ongoing the evening of May 24th and several tornadoes developed across Oklahoma.  One was heading towards our location and was getting close enough that evacuations to the storm shelter were ordered for non-essential personnel.  After it became apparent that the storm was going to miss the testing center, I went to the roof and just missed the dissipation of the tornado coming close to us but was able to see debris falling from the sky; mainly leaves but occasional pieces of housing material as well.  A haunting feeling to know that we came that close to having a tornado ram into our facility.

Many of you hear on the news the intensity of a tornado rated in the Enhanced Fujita, or EF, scale.  This scale is based on 41 years of research roughly being able to tie together the wind speeds inside a tornado that can cause a certain type of damage (see the link for a more detailed look).  These surveys are done in most cases by employees of the local NWS Office.  However, on May 24th there were so many tornadoes over such a large area that multiple teams were needed to drive and walk through the areas of damage to determine the intensity of the storms.

Because I have prior experience in surveys and was in Norman, I was asked to survey a portion of a tornado from near Calumet, OK to northeast of Piedmont, OK.  This tornado so far has resulted in 7 fatalities (10 total from the 24th in Oklahoma) and unknown numbers of injuries along it's nearly 58 mile total path length.  I have surveyed damage swaths before, but nothing to this extent.  I cannot release too many details at this point because the discussions are ongoing, but the only time I have ever seen damage this bad was back in the late 90s near Castell, TX.  The Castell tornado was so strong that it sucked asphalt pavement off the road and left little in it's path.

I guess the best way to say this is that I am haunted right now by the scenes I came upon.  Peoples lives were strewn over miles of countryside, nothing much left of their homes but kindling for a fire.  Cars looking as if an angry child threw them with all their strength after beating them up with a meat hammer.  Horses, cattle, and pigs disemboweled across the countryside or someones beloved dog getting ready to be dumped into a hastily dug grave which is nothing more than a pit dug by a backhoe.  Tree trunks with limbs gone and all that left is a trunk missing the bark and the stubs of the tree limbs sticking out as if they were some freakishly amputated arms.  Household goods intermixed with dirt, grass, and who knows what else stuck in fence or barbed wire from somewhere a few miles away.  I have never been in a war zone but I believe this is as close as one can get without being shot at.

Then there are the smells that linger in my nose a full day after the survey.  The mix of Diesel, gear and motor oil, and other fluids from the crumpled masses of 18-wheelers.  Leaking natural gas or propane.  Something of a mix of fresh cut grass, freshly plowed fields after a rain, and the unmistakable smell of rotting flesh.  The occasional whiff of a house that reminds me of someones home I was a guest in many, many years ago.  Strong odors of pine, cedar, and other trees across the region that are split wide open.  And then the dust containing God knows what; not the smell of dust like I have in Lubbock way too often, but something else that is nasty.  Unclean.  Ghastly.

However, the thing that haunts me the most is the fact that I had to walk through a neighborhood where search and cadaver dogs were still seeking the faint scent of a 3-year old boy missing since he was ripped from his mother's arms in their home when the tornado hit.  His 12-month old brother didn't make it through the storm and his pregnant mother is in the hospital with serious injuries (unborn baby is O.K.) while his uninjured father was frantically searching from him after driving in after the tornado hit.  We had to go and look and see what was left of this home, to see how the home was constructed, and to see what was left to try and determine what hellish winds were being produced by that tornado.  Meanwhile, not 75 to 100 yards away was the remnants of a "safe room", a fortified haven for a different family to survive this exact same tornado without getting a scratch on them.

After the 13-hour damage survey marathon on Wednesday, I got back to my hotel exhausted but glad that I had a hotel to come home to.  As I washed the red Oklahoma dust and other particles of whatever was floating in the air that afternoon off my skin and out of my hair,  I kept running over what we saw.  I still had to sit down and go back through all the pictures to better locate where all the damage was and how wide the tornado track will be.  Will we be able to determine how strong the tornado was by my pictures and descriptions alone?  Was there something I missed.  What could I have done differently.  I didn't get far; the internet connections were down and I was too tired to keep my mind awake so I pretty much collapsed last night and fell into a restless sleep.

Tonight however is different.  I returned to my hotel a couple of hours ago after having dinner with good friends and co-workers laughing it up, having a hot meal, good beer, and times of fellowship.  With a bunch of  meteorologists hanging around each other, conversations naturally turned to retelling stories of previous experiences.  I didn't think much of it at the time but the emotions started to "percolate" under the surface of a strong emotional facade.  Tossing and turning in bed however, there is nothing to keep them in check and they  hammer away at the front of consciousness.  Tears have come and gone for the hell that people are having to go through even though they are shining examples of feeling blessed that they are still alive even though that is all they have right now.

The tears flow however because this morning I found out that they found the missing boy in the lake that I walked around not just 12 hours before about 400 yards from where his room was once located.  The local media outlets had Ryan's face plastered on their newscasts and webpages, likely to "connect" with their audiences.  For me however, a particular face is now burned into my memory as one that was taken WAY too early in his life by a force of nature I am tasked to try and predict and warn for.

There were others that didn't survive this tornado or the other ones across Oklahoma this night, or any of the tornadoes that you have seen across your news outlet or internets from across the United States this spring.  However, this feels personal.  More questions arise, questions I will never have answers to until I stand before Jesus and can finally ask Him.  Why this young child in particular?  Why take a tornado over populated areas as opposed to open country.  Why turn the tornado heading straight for us where we had a large safe harbor for many people away and let it dissipate while tearing another across part of the countryside and take the lives away from a family that didn't have a safe place to go.

I cannot show them just yet but I will have some pictures that will not do justice to the sensory experience from the 24th and 25th.  They may just give you enough of a glimpse into the power that I saw out northwest of Oklahoma City...and definitely serve as a reminder for me as to things that may come in the future anywhere my loved ones, family, friends, or myself may be located.  However, there are too many questions that will take a long while to fade away...at least until the next tornado occurs and this meteorologist has to go out and find a different set of answers.  And these, along with the other images will once again crop up...

UPDATE 5/30:  I wanted to share a link from a fellow meteorologist and good friend that experienced a similar gamut of emotions and feelings; take a look at the bottom half of his essay here.  The 3 May 1999 outbreak is a very similar analog to what happened on 24 May 2011.  We (being the meteorological community) will continue to learn what worked well and went wrong with this event, and I must commend the people of Oklahoma for the resiliency of their spirit and mind throughout the area I surveyed.  And yes, pictures are coming as soon as the Norman NWS office completes the effort in rating the tornadoes across Oklahoma.  For those impatient to see the destruction for some reason,  another fellow meteorologist and good friend shares these thoughts on why it is a good thing for those involved in storm ratings and assessments to take our time.