They left with suitcases and travel backpacks, when the skies were still dark, and journeyed almost three hours over the gulf until they reached the hurricane’s eye. The 17 crew members aboard “Miss Piggy” — the nickname of one of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s main aircrafts — had a job to do.
Each year, as hurricane season approaches, a team of engineers, mechanics, scientists and meteorologists (among others) ready themselves for a task that sounds almost make-believe: hurricane hunting.
As systems develop away from land, the crew board the 1976 aircraft and make their way, thousands of feet in the air, toward the center of storms. Their mission is data collection — wind speed, humidity, pressure, the works — which is then used by the National Hurricane Center to help chart the size and intensity of those oncoming storms as they move toward land.
“We help give people early warning, with a goal of saving lives,” said NOAA engineer Nick Underwood. “If people know the path of the storm they can prepare.”
For Underwood, who has flown into 31 hurricanes since he joined the team eight years ago, there’s no denying that storms are increasing in severity. During Hurricane Ian, which wrecked southwest Florida in 2022, footage shot by Underwood went viral, as turbulence from hurricane force winds jostled crew members, and spilled open the plane’s storage cupboards.
“I can’t think of adjectives to describe it,” Underwood said of the flight. “It was like ‘this shouldn’t be happening.’”
Tuesday morning, as the plane charged into Hurricane Milton, that memory was revived. The turbulence was so strong, Underwood said, it lifted the plane’s floorboards. A video he took showed crew members being thrown around, cabinet doors flapping.
Though he’s come a long way since his first flight, when he got motion sick and spent most of it vomiting, he’s experienced a different type of anxiety in recent years as more storms turn toward Tampa Bay.
A majority of the crew, including Underwood, live in the region.
“So this is really personal to us,” Underwood said. “We’re gathering data that’s painting a picture of major threats to our own community.”
That comes with a heaviness, Underwood said. On Monday, he helped a neighbor put up hurricane shutters. He talked through evacuation plans with his colleagues as they prepared with their families. He ran through checklists with his wife, who evacuated with their cats to Tallahassee from St. Petersburg.
Tuesday night, Underwood planned to stay with his crew in Mobile, Alabama. On Wednesday, they’ll get up before sunrise and head back into the eye of the storm, gathering data that will be used for evacuation orders and final preparations. He said he hopes the community will take warnings seriously.
“There are so many people, on land and in the air, doing this work so you can protect yourselves,” Underwood said. “Please don’t let it be for nothing.”
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