Tree Clearing Convention in Tallahassee

I received the word yesterday that this hurricane landfall experiment is going to attempt to study hurricane Ivan. So, today I drove the government van from Oak Ridge to Tallahassee, Florida. It was a long day, about a 9.5 hour drive, I'm glad I could get my ipod to play into the van's radio to keep me company. It wasn't a very comfortable ride, this van is old and tired. I asked why we were not taking one of our nice late model 4wd vehicles? Apparently, if this one gets damaged by the storm, it won't be missed. That's encouraging.

I've been impressed by how dedicated the scientists are that are involved in this study. It's a lot of work. We loaded the van to the hilt with 36 sinter blocks, 14 car batteries, generators, and an assortment of other heavy equipment for the experiment. I have a very rough idea how this will all go together. The principal scientist and another team member are flying in from Idaho tonight. This is their project, and there is another team from Texas that has a large amount of these ET wind probes (ET for extreme turbulence) as well.

While I was checking in, about 30 Asplundh tree clearing trucks arrived with their crews. They've been cleaning up after hurricane Frances, and are getting ready for Ivan. It's ominous, destruction seems imminent, especially if it remains a category 5 storm. To me it's very interesting to see the weather on the TV and the satellite images on the internet. But, it does not seem real, that this storm is on the way. I can understand why people don't take the warnings seriously, it's easy to ignore (like Y2K). Thank goodness for the ability we have to predict where these storm will hit. I can't imagine what it was like to be surprised by these storms.