BY TOM NUGENT '65
William and Mary Alumni Magazine | Spring/Summer 2006, Vol. 71, No. 3/4
Photo by Patty Gonzales/NOAA
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| Frank C. Lepore Jr. '65 |
One cloudy, blustery morning in August 2005, a 64-year-old resident of Palmetto Bay, Fla., slid behind the wheel of his Honda and took off for a well-known landmark in the city of Miami, about 15 miles to the north.
The man in the driver's seat that morning was Frank C. Lepore Jr. '65, the longtime public affairs director for the National Hurricane Center (NHC), which was at that moment carefully tracking a minimally powerful Category 1 hurricane named Katrina. If the current forecast held, Katrina would be coming ashore in South Florida around suppertime and would pass almost directly over Lepore's office.
Lepore piloted his Honda into the crowded lot flanking the gray-painted NHC complex -- a sprawling, warehouse-like building with walls and ceiling made of 10-inch thick steel-reinforced concrete and crammed with state-of-the-art satellite imaging systems and chattering computers. The primary center for hurricane forecasting in the U.S., the complex is operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
As he parked, Lepore caught a quick glimpse of his own visage in the rearview mirror. Normally upbeat and gregarious, the round-faced hurricane-media guru with the booming, signature laugh was a little surprised to see how grim and anxious he looked.
During some tense discussions the previous day with NHC director Max Mayfield -- a household name in America, after his almost nightly appearances on the major TV networks during the extraordinarily busy hurricane seasons of the past few years -- Lepore's boss had made it quite clear that the Miami area faced relatively little danger from the approaching storm.
With sustained winds of only 80 miles an hour and a tiny eye that measured no more than about 15 miles in circumference, Katrina would likely prove to be little more than an irritating blip on the radar screen for South Florida. So as he slipped his NOAA ID card into the electronic lock at the front of the NHC complex, Lepore wasn't overly concerned about the fact that he and his colleagues were sitting smack in the middle of Katrina's Florida bull's-eye.
But what would happen if the storm re-emerged over the Gulf of Mexico?
If the smallish storm headed west-southwest over the water-laden Everglades -- her likely path, according to current projections -- she would then begin passing over the heat-filled surface of the sun-walloped Gulf. "If you think about it, the Gulf of Mexico is like a bathtub," Lepore says, "which means that heat from the sun gets trapped in there, all summer long.
"When a hurricane or a tropical storm rolls over that water in September, the heat acts like high-octane fuel. Within a few hours, even a small tropical storm can gain power dramatically. And if you put a small or average-sized hurricane over that water under the right conditions, it can turn into a beast within the space of a day."
The events that followed Frank Lepore's arrival at the National Hurricane Center in Miami last Aug. 25 are now a matter of history.
Four days after Lepore strode into his buzzing office that morning, Katrina blasted into Buras, La., with 126-mile-an-hour winds and a storm surge that quickly overtopped the fragile system of levees protecting the city. During the nightmare that ensued, more than 1,400 residents would lose their lives -- and another 1,500 would vanish without a trace. If the missing are counted as dead (a logical assumption, according to disaster experts), Katrina easily matches 9/11 as one of the worst catastrophes in the history of the United States.
"One of the most heartbreaking things about Katrina was the loss of life despite the heroic efforts at many levels," says Lepore "We had a dozen different weather forecasters working on it, and they came up with a forecast that pinpointed Katrina's landfall and intensity with remarkable accuracy.
"We also did everything humanly possible to get the word out," Lepore adds, describing the 19-hour days of media coverage that Hurricane Center staffers put in during the last few days before the storm struck the Big Easy. "Our forecasters at the center gave more than 400 TV-radio interviews over four days, and the director [Mayfield] was so concerned that he personally called the Louisiana governor [Kathleen Blanco] and at her suggestion the mayor [Ray Nagin] of New Orleans to warn them that they faced a potential catastrophe. We also alerted FEMA [the Federal Emergency Management Agency] and the White House, and provided them with special briefings in which our forecasters stressed the potential for disaster.
"We were encouraged by the fact that there was a major evacuation taking place in New Orleans and all along the Gulf Coast. We were heartened by reports that about 80 percent of the public had evacuated the area -- but my God, that still left tens of thousands in harm's way!"
When Lepore and his colleagues at the Center checked in for work on Aug. 29, he was horrified to discover that Katrina was doing her worst and that the crucially important levees were being breached. "We knew it was going to be ugly, and we were full of dread," he recalled later. "We had studied the films and news reports of [damage from] Hurricane Betsy in 1965, and I knew what to expect if a major hurricane ever slammed into New Orleans.
"As we had all feared, Katrina turned out to be an immense human tragedy. That was very difficult to accept. When I went to bed the night before the storm struck the Gulf Coast, I knew we'd done everything we possibly could do to get the word out that this was an extremely dangerous, killer storm.
"Still, I didn't sleep a wink that night, knowing what lay ahead."
Spend a few hours wandering around the giant NOAA Hurricane Center with Lepore, and you'll soon find yourself wondering how in the world he manages to get through a single shift, much less the endless days of back-to-back storms that sometimes occur during the annual Atlantic hurricane season, which stretches from June 1 through the end of November.
For Lepore, a once-upon-a-time ROTC student who became an Army officer and wound up in Vietnam leading 64 combat photographers two years after graduating, the challenge that begins with the emergence of a major hurricane is "rather formidable, to say the least, and there are days when I wonder if I'm going to be able to get through it without a case of terminal exhaustion."
In his current position, Lepore manages two to three other media professionals who volunteer to assist in operations whenever a hurricane threatens. Otherwise, he works solo and coordinates all media coverage involving the 35 trained meteorologists and technicians who make up the staff of the Hurricane Center. "On a typical hurricane day, our forecasters will do anywhere from 80 to 100 TV interviews," he says, "while also fielding 200 to 300 phone calls. As you can imagine, this place lights up like Times Square during periods when we're issuing regular bulletins. Katrina required 714 interviews.
"Over the years, we've managed to develop a pretty efficient system for getting it all done. On a really busy day, we can conduct a TV interview every four minutes -- and never fall behind, all day long. When we finally head for home, most of us at the Center will admit to a special, very special kind of tired -- part physical, part intellectual and part emotional.
"And when a storm lasts for 10 days or so -- the way Hurricane Georges did back in 1998, taking nearly two weeks to get from the Windward Islands to landfall in Mississippi -- that daily grind of scheduling interviews really takes a toll. By the time Georges finally petered out in the southeastern United States, three of our guys were so hoarse they could barely talk."
Although his professional life during hurricane season can be "extremely grueling at times," Lepore says he was never tempted to call it quits during the past 11 years on the job, and will continue to work at the Center "at least through the current hurricane season." Why does he keep coming back for more?
Ask the gruff-voiced but amiable media guru that question and he'll hesitate, Yoda-like, for a moment before explaining:
"Really, I feel very privileged to have been able to spend the past decade in this job. The way I see it, my task here is to do my utmost to get information to the public in order to save lives.
"How do we accomplish that? It's simple: We do everything we can, day in and day out, to educate the public about hurricanes before, during and after the hurricane season. We emphasize practical things, such as the need to pay attention to hurricane warnings, and to make sure you have at least a one-week supply of necessities on hand, if you're anywhere near an approaching hurricane. Our message is always clear: you, your business, your family and your city need to have a plan for what to do when a hurricane threatens. As Katrina demonstrated: Don't wait for the government to save you -- you have to take the steps necessary to save yourself until the cavalry arrives.
"Getting that kind of message out to the public has been my reward on this job. I know we've saved some lives, over the years, and that's the greatest feeling a communicator can experience."
Freelance journalist Tom Nugent '65 is the the author of Death at Buffalo Creek and writes often for the Washington Post and Chicago Tribune.
