'I'm too old for this.' Man has another near-miss with hurricane

 By Adriana Navarro, AccuWeather staff writer

Published Aug. 29, 2020 3:14 AM

A handful of the people who didn't evacuate ahead of Hurricane Laura, having weathered Hurricane Rita in 2005, took their chances with the new monstrous hurricane that was hurtling toward the coast.

Todd Miller's shoes and socks were still wet as he shared his family's harrowing experience with AccuWeather National Reporter Bill Wadell. He didn't have the chance to change them after the monstrous Hurricane Laura tore into his apartment and drenched his family during the early hours of that morning.

Like other residents of the Gulf Coast, the Miller family is no stranger to dangerous storms.

"Rita, Humberto, Ike, and then the no-name storms. And then we had the flooding of March 2016," Miller said, listing the storms he and his family had weathered over the years. They had also faced flooding from Hurricane Harvey while living in Deweyville, Texas -- a town situated near the Texas-Louisiana state line. "So, we decided to move over here closer to where I work at."

Todd Miller and his family rode out Hurricane Laura while sheltered in their home in Vinton, Louisiana. (AccuWeather/Bill Wadell)

Vinton, Louisiana, where the Miller family has called home for about a year and a half, sits around 20 miles to the west of Lake Charles. When the latter was slammed head-on by Laura, Vinton was close enough to also get caught up in the hurricane's rampage.

Before moving, people in Vinton who Miller knew had told him the town had recovered after Rita and Ike "in no time."

But Laura arrived with a vengeance. Miller told Wadell he and his family "had to hunker down." They flipped a couch, having their kids crawl inside into what Miller described as the "little cubby hole" under the piece of furniture. They then took a mattress, setting it on top of the opening to protect them from the wrath of the Category 4 hurricane.

"Just rode it out," Miller said. "Just keep watching the ceiling come apart. The bigger the hole got, the more of the storm we could see."

"Just keep watching the ceiling come apart. The bigger the hole got, the more of the storm we could see," Vinton resident Todd Miller told Bill Wadell while recounting Hurricane Laura. (AccuWeather/Bill Wadell)

Laura had torn the roof from the rental home the Millers had moved to, and what insulation remained was clinging to the exposed wooden beams overhead. Part of the home's exterior had been stripped away as well, and large trees were downed in the road.

"I don't see this getting fixed anytime quick," Miller said.

Hurricane Laura tore the roof from the home the Miller family was renting. (AccuWeather/Bill Wadell)

Similar scenes are reflected across Cameron and Calcasieu parishes in the aftermath of Laura. Aerial footage of Holly Beach in Cameron Parish showed side-by-side comparisons of what the area looked like on Aug. 25 and after Laura made landfall on Aug. 27. Roofs had been stripped from homes, and debris littered partially drowned lawns and fields.

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Maxar Technologies captured satellite images of areas near Lake Charles and Cameron that were impacted by Laura, comparing them to images taken from before the hurricane had hit.

In a close-up of the Lake Charles Regional Airport, at least two buildings seem to be nearly entirely demolished, and the roofs peeled from other structures. Other photos of residential buildings show homes near Grand Lake High School pummeled with debris scattered across the fields.

In Sulfur, Louisiana, a city between Vinton and Lake Charles, a few residents shared their experience with Wadell and expressed that Laura was no Rita.

"This is probably worse than Rita," Sulfur resident Jerry Cole told Wadell, highlighting both the damage it had done, particularly to his property, and that it had sounded worse. Other survivors of the hurricane have likened the sound of Laura to the sound of a freight train.

Sulfur resident Jerry Cole recounts to AccuWeather Reporter Bill Wadell what he had seen while weathering Hurricane Laura, saying the hurricane was "worse than Rita." (AccuWeather/Bill Wadell)

Hurricane Rita, a major hurricane from the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season, had made landfall in southwestern Louisiana as a Category 3 hurricane. Like Hurricane Katrina, which had struck New Orleans about a month before Rita, the storm had reached the strength of a Category 5 hurricane before weakening to a Category 3. However, despite the downgrade, Rita's storm surge inundated low-lying areas across the coast, adding insult to injury to the communities trying to rebuild from Katrina.

In Sulfur, the winds had torn into what the water hadn't destroyed. Destruction ranged from that of a wooden stake impaling the front windshield of a car, to a toppled and torn Motel 6 sign. Buildings had been gutted, their parts scattered and interiors drenched. Businesses were physically destroyed, the winds sent utility poles and trees crashing onto roads and even toppled a billboard into a family's home. The destructive power of nature had made itself known to the residents.

The fierce winds of Hurricane Laura sent a billboard crashing down into a family's home in Sulfur, Louisiana. (AccuWeather/Bill Wadell)

"I had to go fix a window over here, and when I did, it looked like I was in the middle of a vortex where water's going down the drain," Cole said. "It was pretty bad. Things were flying everywhere."

He had sheltered in his home when the hurricane hit, though stole a look out the window to see what he described "looked like a tornado coming down the middle" between two nearby houses.

The deafening storm pelted loose objects against his home, tore up his fence and uprooted a weeping willow.

"I had a pretty nice fig tree I've been taking care of for about 25 years," Cole added. "It's gone."

Other Sulfur residents like Chris Guidry and Tram Nguyen had each gone to a shelter before returning home, thinking the worst of the storm had passed, according to Wadell.

It hadn't, and Guidry ended up weathering the rest of the night at home as the storm ramped up.

Sulfur resident Chris Guidry tells AccuWeather Reporter Bill Wadell he went through Hurricane Rita in 2005. (AccuWeather/Bill Wadell)

"I went through Rita. I stayed here for Rita 15 years ago. This one was much more intense," Guidry told Wadell. However, despite the storm's strength, Guidry expressed he was fortunate. His home was seemingly undamaged, though with a few trees down.

For Nguyen, however, Laura was her first experience in a hurricane.

"I don't want to see it again," Nguyen told Wadell.

Hurricane Laura was Tram Nguyen's first experience in a hurricane, Nguyen told AccuWeather Reporter Bill Wadell.

Miller also hopes that this will be his family's last hurricane experience. Laura was the final straw for their life on the Gulf Coast, and he's now looking into a possible transfer with his job to New Mexico.

"I'm too old for this. I’ve had enough excitement in my life,” Miller said. “I don’t need to go through this no more. I want to retire one day.”

Between rebuilding after a storm and moving around, he expressed he wouldn’t be able to retire the way he wanted to, not to mention the fairness to his family.

“It’s not fair to my children. It’s not fair to my wife. It’s not fair to myself,” Miller said.

But until then, the community will start to rebuild.

"In southwest Louisiana, everybody's going to help everybody else," Guidry said. "We have a tight-knit community."

Reporting by Bill Wadell.

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3-year-old girl's terrifying kite mishap in gusty winds caught on video

 Published Aug. 31, 2020 5:04 PM | Updated Aug. 31, 2020 5:14 PM

An unidentified 3-year-old girl was taking part in a kite festival in Naliao, Taiwan, near Hsinchu City, on Sunday when she was unexpectedly caught in the tail of a giant, orange kite and lifted 100 feet off the ground amid gusty winds.

A video shared on social media on Sunday shows the scene, as a crowd of spectators is filmed cheering at the sight of the kite being released into the sky. However, the happy cheers soon turned to screams of horror as spectators realized that a child had been caught by the kite and swung violently into the air. After a heart-stopping 30 seconds, the girl is seen landing as she is pulled into the ground by members of the crowd who managed to get the kite under control.

A Hsinchu city government official told media that a sudden gust of wind at the site of the Hsinchu International Kite Festival caused the kite’s tail to wrap around the child’s abdomen, lifting her into the air.

According to AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist John Gresiak, wind gusts of around 30 mph were recorded in the area, which is known for gusty winds.

"The gusts were triggered by some heavy showers and thunderstorms passing nearby," he said. "Kites are very aerodynamic and, with those kinds of gusts, can easily carry off a small child hold on to them."

The girl, who has been identified only by her surname, Lin, suffered minor cuts and is safe and sound, according to a statement released by the mayor of Hsinchu, Lin Chih-chien, on Facebook. In the statement, Chih-chien also apologized for the accident, saying that local authorities will assess the case to avoid future accidents.

"The municipal team expresses its deepest apologies to the parties and the community at large, and we will review the reasons to avoid the recurrence of accidents, and we will take accountability and review them in depth," he said in the statement.

The two-day kite festival celebrated its fourth anniversary this year, but the even was cut short on its second day after the incident left festival-goers shaken. During the festival, more than a dozen of professional kite fliers put on a show for thousands of spectators, as they showed off elaborate kites designed by local and foreign artisans, according to Taiwan News.

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Mobile radar offers a rare, close-up look into the eye of Hurricane Laura

 By Lauren Fox, AccuWeather staff writer

Published Aug. 31, 2020 4:05 PM

As Category 4 Hurricane Laura crashed onshore in Louisiana, it packed winds of 150 mph and caused destruction along its path. But, as hundreds of thousands of residents were evacuated and many more were hunkered down to stay safe amid the storm's havoc, scientists pushed safety concerns aside to drive doppler trucks into the deadly storm -- all to get a better glimpse into the eye of the ferocious cyclone.

"There’s a lot more to learn about what's happening inside the hurricanes," atmospheric scientist at the Center for Severe Weather Research (CSWR) Karen Kosiba told AccuWeather's Bill Wadell.

Kosiba and Josh Wurman of the CSWR drove two mobile radar doppler trucks along Interstate 10 to gather data and information on Hurricane Laura as it tore through the Texas-Louisiana border.

"Our goal is to scan with both the radars to triangulate on parts of the eye and measure the vector winds, basically the wind speed and the wind direction, so we can see how the air is overturning, how it's spinning," founder of the CSWR Josh Wurman told Wadell.

The Center for Severe Weather Research used two mobile radar doppler trucks along interstate 10 to closely study the eye of Hurricane Laura. (AccuWeather / Bill Wadell)

According to the CSWR, weather phenomena like small mesovortices inside hurricanes and tornadoes occur less frequently and oftentimes very close to the ground, which can make tracking them with standard meteorological devices tricky.

The eye of the storm is a somewhat circular center of the storm that is much calmer than the atmosphere surrounding it, with lighter winds and less precipitation. The eyewall, however, is the zone surrounding the eye and contains the heaviest winds and strongest thunderstorms.

Mesovortices are small rotations that develop inside the eyewall of a cyclone such as Laura and can hold wind speeds up to 10% higher than the rest of the eyewall. They oftentimes end up spawning tornadoes.

"When a radar emits a beam of energy or radio waves, the beam rises the farther away from the radar it goes. Because of this, it is more difficult to see lower level circulations," AccuWeather Meteorologist Brett Rossio said.

A mobile radar that can travel closer to the eye of the storm, Rossio explained, can better meteorologists' understanding of the mesovortices that go on inside them. He said the technology is relatively new, and the ability to have a radar close in proximity to the center of the hurricane's circulation allows researchers to better study how mesovortices may impact the wind velocities of the eyewall.

Karen Kosiba, an atmospheric meteorologist at the Center for Severe Weather Research, took part in examining Hurricane Laura from the inside. (AccuWeather / Bill Wadell)

“We’re trying to look at this in very fine-scale resolution, and look at things really quickly and map out what's happening as the hurricane is making landfall," Kosiba said.

A recent disaster in the same region of the country brought the small-scale but devastating wind phenomenon into light.

“In Hurricane Harvey, which happened near here, we saw for the first time really, a lot of these tornado-scale vortices, which were associated with swaths of damage, and we’re trying to understand that newly discovered phenomenon better," Wurman explained

The researchers are aiming to uncover how ocean energy works its way up into hurricanes and how strong winds are pulled down to the ground to cause damage, he explained.

Founder of the CSWR Josh Wurman traveled to the eyewall of Hurricane Laura to study mesovortices. (AccuWeather / Bill Wadell)

Rossio said the mission may be beneficial scientifically, but it is extremely dangerous for those involved as wind speeds of over 100 mph destroyed nearby homes and rattled the trucks.

"These meteorologists are risking their life to get this critical data," he explained. However, he said they were smart to go to the western-side of the hurricane's landfall because wind speeds were weaker there due to friction from land.

Rossio said having the wind vector analysis data from this mission will allow meteorologists to model small-scale features within a hurricane at a higher resolution than before, especially in the eye of the hurricane or the eyewall. The data will ultimately allow for better quality numerical weather predictions and thus more accurate forecasts.

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“People should be paying attention to the forecasts, and, hopefully, they’ll keep getting better and better as we keep learning more about hurricanes," Kosiba said.

Reporting by Bill Wadell.

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Fall to feature the return of one of the most-popular constellations

 By Brian Lada, AccuWeather meteorologist and staff writer

Published Aug. 31, 2020 3:35 PM

The nights will outweigh the days by the end of September, giving skywatchers plenty of time to enjoy the night sky and all that it has to offer.

Not only will the nights be longer, but they will bring the opportunity to see some constellations that have not been visible since early spring.

Cooler weather will accompany the longer autumn nights, meaning that people heading out for a night under the stars may want to bring a sweatshirt or a light coat to stay warm.

Here are the top three astronomical events to look for in September:

1. Full Corn Moon
When: Sept. 1-2

The glow of the final full moon of summer will fill the sky during the first few nights of September as it shines bright after sunset on Sept. 1 into the early morning of Sept. 2.

September’s full moon is typically called the Harvest Moon; however, that is not the case this year. The Harvest Moon is the full moon that occurs closest to the equinox, and this year that full moon falls on Oct. 1.

An aircraft passes the full moon as it approaches the airport in Frankfurt, Germany, Friday, Sept. 13, 2019. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)

Every month’s full moon has been given different nicknames that date back hundreds of year.

“One such name for the September full moon was the Full Corn Moon because it traditionally corresponded with the time of harvesting corn in what is now the northeastern United States,” the Old Farmer’s Almanac said.

2. Fall equinox
When: Sept. 22

September marks the changing of the seasons as the long, hot summer days transition to crisp and cooler autumn ones.

Meteorological fall begins on Sept. 1, while astronomical fall does not occur until later in the month on the equinox, which is when the sun’s most direct rays are over the equator.

Astronomical fall will officially begin in the Northern Hemisphere at 9:30 a.m. EDT on Tuesday, Sept. 22. Meanwhile, that same time will signal the start of spring for the Southern Hemisphere.

3. Constellation Orion returns
When: Late Sept.

With the changing of the seasons comes a slightly different night sky. Certain constellations are only visible during specific times of the year, including one of the most famous constellations, Orion the Hunter.

By middle to late September, stargazers will be able to spot Orion in the eastern sky by 3 a.m. local time as it climbs above the horizon. By around 4 a.m. local time, Sirius, one of the brightest stars in the sky, will become visible just below the constellation.

Orion will gradually rise earlier and earlier throughout the fall before becoming a prominent feature in the night sky during the winter months.

Looking back at August

SpaceX made headlines several times in August, starting on Aug. 2 when the crewed Dragon spacecraft returned home after a two-month mission on the International Space Station.

NASA Astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico, completing the historic Demo-2 mission for SpaceX, paving the way for the company to launch astronauts on a regular basis.

Two days later, SpaceX performed a test flight of its Starship SN5 prototype rocket where the silo-sized rocket flew about 500 feet into the sky before making a controlled landing back on Earth.

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The SpaceX Crew Dragon Endeavour spacecraft lands with NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley onboard in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Pensacola, Fla., Sunday, Aug. 2, 2020. It s the first splashdown in 45 years for NASA astronauts and the first time a private company has ferried people from orbit. (Bill Ingalls/NASA via AP)

The iconic Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico reported some unfortunate news around the middle of the month. The 1,000-foot-wide radio telescope suffered serious damage after a cable snapped.

This radio telescope was built in 1963 and held the title of the word’s largest single-dish radio telescope for decades, surviving hurricanes and tropical storms throughout the years. It is unclear how long it will take to fix the telescope.

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One of the best meteor showers of the entire year peaked on the night of Aug. 11 into Aug. 12 with people all across the Northern Hemisphere spending a night under the stars to watch the Perseids. It was a bit of an off year for the Perseid meteor shower, but skywatchers in dark areas still counted dozens of meteors per hour.

A few nights later on Sunday, Aug. 16, a car-sized asteroid zipped past the Earth at a mere 1,830 miles away. This is the closest astroid flyby ever recorded that did not end with the rock burning up in Earth’s atmosphere.

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