Dawnsinger

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Phoning this one in . . .
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Lewis Carroll
(from Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, 1872)

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought –
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

“And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!’
He chortled in his joy.

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

WordPress 2.3.1 is now available. 2.3.1 is a bug-fix and security release for the 2.3 series.

2.3.1 fixes over twenty bugs. Some of the notable fixes are:

Tagging support for Windows Live Writer
Fixes for a login bug that affected those with a Blog Address different than
their WordPress Address
Faster taxonomy database queries, especially tag intersection queries
Link importer fixes
Unfortunately, some security issues were found in 2.3. Janek Vind found an XSS problem that can be exploited if your php setup has register_globals enabled. For this reason, upgrading to 2.3.1 is advised.

The full set of changes between 2.3 and 2.3.1 is available for viewing on trac.

Get 2.3.1 from the download page and enjoy.

WordPress 2.3.1 is now available. 2.3.1 is a bug-fix and security release for the 2.3 series.

2.3.1 fixes over twenty bugs. Some of the notable fixes are:

Tagging support for Windows Live Writer
Fixes for a login bug that affected those with a Blog Address different than
their WordPress Address
Faster taxonomy database queries, especially tag intersection queries
Link importer fixes
Unfortunately, some security issues were found in 2.3. Janek Vind found an XSS problem that can be exploited if your php setup has register_globals enabled. For this reason, upgrading to 2.3.1 is advised.

The full set of changes between 2.3 and 2.3.1 is available for viewing on trac.

Get 2.3.1 from the download page and enjoy.

I am making a post, because I can.

Unfortunately the idea of a po’ boy festival never materialized in food-crazy New Orleans until a couple of weeks ago, so my wife and I were thrilled to attend the first annual Po’ Boy Preservation Festival on November 18. The fest to “save our sandwich” was held on Oak Street, a funky lane in the Carrollton neighborhood near Tulane. When I say the street is funky, what I’m really saying is that it’s small, narrow and just a little dirty (but isn’t everything in New Orleans).

Because this was the festival’s first year and I hadn’t seen that much publicity for it, I assumed the Po’ Boy Festival was going to be an uncrowded, low-key affair with maybe a few hundred people wandering in and out throughout the day. The lack of some of the city’s best-known po’ boy joints (Domilise’s: Where were you and your amazing oyster po’ boy?) from the festival guide also led me to believe turn-out might be low. I should have known, however, that where there are po’ boys, any po’ boys, hungry bellies are never far away. Add live music, free admission and 60 degree weather, and it’s a wonder the fire marshal wasn’t called in to clear us all out.

What can I say, but I am making a post, because I can.

I don’t remember the five stages of grief . . . in fact, Google tells me that some experts dismiss them as psycho-babble. But I know how it starts.

At first, you scream.

Yesterday afternoon, 22-year-old Chris Sanders was in our front yard, chatting with my kids. He was like a brother to Amanda, and a classmate of Sarah, who had just flown in from her post-Katrina home of Philadelphia. He was a “don’t need to knock” family friend who helped my wife with handyman chores and borrowed family cars. Friendly, athletic, respectful. I last saw Chris easily fielding a football thrown by the kid next door. His little white bike was leaning against the side of the house beside our driveway.

Ironically the news came today as we were watching the wrap-up of the Jerry Lewis Telethon. The broadcast was showing a rolling memorial of victims of muscular dystrophy who had died during the past year. I was just starting a holiday duty shift for NOLA.com. Between the TV and rushing to get up the latest alert on Hurricane Felix, I didn’t hear the clamor from the street. My wife ran in and yelled, “Jon, something’s happening outside!” In our life, that means run and be prepared for anything.

I wasn’t prepared.

Cop cars are still squealing up, choking our narrow street between its deep storm culverts. Emergency crews are pulling gear from ambulance and fire trucks. In the front yard of the house next door - repeatedly vacant since the owners gave up on our town after Katrina - officers are trying to contain a woman screaming in a voice that doesn’t seem human.

My daughter Amanda makes it to the milling mob before I do . . . then she is screaming and pulling her hair. An emotional punch to the midsection as I finally understand the woman’s shrieks, “Chris . . . Dead!” Things are spinning, and my wife is crying out.

First you scream.

Nausea comes as we discover that Chris’s mother, alone and searching for a son who never came home last night, is the one who found him. Steps away from our driveway, behind the house next door. Her anguished screams drew neighbors. I can’t bear to think about a parent living through that.

I run up my driveway, and see easily into the back yard.

Chris is lying on his face alongside the patio, feet drawn up slightly, hands drawn up and head twisted at a grotesque angle. Several cops are searching his pockets for ID. An officer pulls Chris up by one shoulder, and the whole body rises, in full rigor. His head, neck and arms are dark, purpled. I’ve done crime scene police photography. There’s no need for paramedics here.

A Mandeville officer walks up along my driveway, unrolling crime scene tape around the house, stretching it across the white bike and all the way to our side fence.

Beside Chris’s right hand is an aerosol can.

My wife runs up. I start to stop her . . . spare her the sight . . . but I drop my arm. There’s no way to avoid this.

Chris was as far into the justice system as he could be without being behind bars. On probation, he was subject to frequent, tough drug testing. He couldn’t do drugs . . . he couldn’t even drink without going to jail.

Chris turned to possibly the most dangerous way to get high: “huffing” - inhaling various vapors. He huffed alone, in cars, in hiding places. He was found frequently reeling or convulsing in the grip of the intoxication. The high came quickly and powerfully . . . but when it passed, Chris seemed clean and sober . . . and came up clean on drug tests. It wasn’t a secret . . . his mother, friends and neighbors had tried desperately to get him committed, arrested, anything. Police were called repeatedly, only to find a sober young man whom they released. Family friends had twice taken Chris to the parish coroner, the official who can order an involuntary commitment.

On this Labor Day 2007, the parish coroner was called a third time - to declare Chris dead.

The can lying beside Chris’s hand was fully legal. You may have used it to blow dust from your computer keyboard.

As the sun starts setting, one of the cops removes the crime scene tape. He takes Chris’s small white bike and rolls it toward Chris’s house.

The mother asks my daughter Amanda to get rid of the bike. It’s leaning against my garage.

I don’t remember what’s next . . . I’m still hearing the screams.

NOLA Video: Hurricane Hunters fly into Hurricane Dean>

Photo Gallery: Hunting Hurricane Dean

—————————————-

KATRINA DAY, Aug. 29, 2007 - It hardly seems that two years have gone by since Katrina crushed us. The city is still numb and battered. Our new pioneers work feverishly and defiantly to keep from sliding into a dark whirlpool of melancholy.

The network satellite trucks are back this week, some of the same ones that packed the Canal Street neutral ground in the weeks after the storm. Politicians, from the president on down, have returned to use us as a backdrop for their campaigns.

Once we measured Mardi Gras by the tons of garbage picked up on Ash Wednesday; now we measure recovery in terms of the debris removed, the percentage of population that’s returned, the number of permits issued. And the frightening body count from the Post-K street wars.

Two years ago at this hour, I was squatting on the second-floor landing of the Times-Picayune building, eating a small plate of red beans and rice, watching the trees twist and crash outside, and trying to muffle the ear-splitting whistle of wind playing eerie three-note scales as the wind rose and fell.

Back at my desk in the “hurricane bunker,” I was surrounded by a perfect storm of Katrina-induced horror. The generator-powered floor fans in the computer-packed room just pushed wilting hot air in our faces.

From every mail link on our site, on every forum, pleas were pouring in for help. My scattered staff - along with reinforcements from other Advance Internet web sites - were working nonstop around the clock to post locations of victims in our “Cries for Help” blog, hoping that somehow, rescue teams would get the message.

Former NOLA Managing Editor Cory Haik describes this vividly in a Seattle Times front page story today:

“We were cutting and pasting to beat the water. And when I force myself to think about the faces behind those messages, I still break down.”

At some point, in response to mail from a reader in fear for a relative, I posted that I understood . . . my daughter was missing, too. For those who are praying, I said, her name is Sarah. Later that day, networks had picked up her photo as a face of the storm. Some family members first learned of her peril on cable news. Days later, I was on a live call on network news when my daughter was delivered to me in Baton Rouge. The newscaster and I both cried. (Listen to Sarah’s story)

A week ago, in preparation for this week’s anniversary of Katrina, I found the perfect place to reflect on the storm and it’s aftermath, flying with the Hurricane Hunters into the heart of Hurricane Dean.

A WEEK EARLIER, Aug. 21, 2007 . . .

“What’s your total weight?”

Airman First Class Tabitha Spinks looks at me encouragingly, pen poised over the clipboard, smile as sweet as a Ponchatoula strawberry beignet. I’m flummoxed, but figure that when they’re calculating out how many pounds I’m packing onto a plane headed into a hurricane, it’s probably best to tell the truth.

“Ah, that’ll be a total of give or take two-fifty,” I mumble. “One-fifty for me, and a hundred for my gear . . .”

She chokes back a snicker.

“We’re not keeping records,” she says.

The GPS tracking screen shows the route of our Hurricane Hunter flight as it criss-crossed Hurricane Dean over the Bay of Campeche. Photo by Jon Donley

It’s about 1430 on Aug. 21, 2007. Some 700 miles south, Hurricane Dean has hammered ashore in the Yucatan Peninsula as a monster Category 5 storm. Four journalists - a two-person team from NOLA, a guy from CNN and a Houston correspondent for Televisa - are ready to board a WC-130J Hurricane Hunter from Keesler AFB (Biloxi) and catch Dean coming off the Yucatan into the Bay of Campeche. We’ll be tagging along as the Hurricane Hunters fly repeatedly across the heart of the storm, collecting vital readings used to help the National Hurricane Center develop its forecasts and tracking maps.

In late August, two years after Katrina, it’s been a little creepy watching the far-flung bands from Tropical Storm Erin drift overhead, while Dean steamrolls through the Caribbean, picking up strength. Dean is moving at breakneck speed for a hurricane, and there is no chance it will threaten New Orleans. But there are flashbacks to Katrina. Obviously the best cure for flashbacks is hitching a ride with the Hurricane Hunters and paying the storm a visit.

———–

My last trip with the 53rd Weather Recon Squad was four years ago, flying into then-Tropical Storm Claudette as it emerged from the Yucatan Peninsula, somewhat disorganized with several centers of circulation. Claudette strengthened into a hurricane before striking the Texas coast around Port O’Connor.

In 2003, I was struck by the contrast between the partygoers along the casino beach with its bright neon and music - and the somber aircrews flying around the clock across the Gulf of Mexico, back and forth through the storm, and passing the next plane on the way home. Two different worlds.

Now, however, while some casinos are open, disaster is a shared reality. Biloxi, like the rest of the coast, is shredded. Searching for lunch - even fast-food - entails a drive almost to Gulfport. Aboard our flight this evening, a number of crewmembers remember me from four years ago. Many had flown into Katrina repeatedly as she neared landfall.

Maj. Matt Baker, a veteran pilot, flew my Claudette mission. This evening, he’s spending much time napping and reading on the way to Dean. While he was flying missions into Katrina, his wife and daughters fled to Alabama. The family lost everything in the Biloxi area, and they were finally due to return to the Mississipi Coast around the two-year anniversary of the storm.

———–

With the weather briefing and mission huddle finished, Airman Tabitha escorts us out to the WC-130J numbered “3508.” We clamber aboard and buckle ourselves to the canvas seats attached to the walls. There are delays . . . some equipment not working. Maj. Matt squats beside us to explain.

“This plane is just a big computer,” he says. “Basically we’ve got to reboot the plane.”

The dropsonde operator’s station features a computer screen. There’s a Windows welcome screen. Reboot is a familiar concept, and not a comforting one.

The plane “shuts down” like a giant PC that’s gotten a CTRL/ALT/DEL. Then it starts the reboot.

More discussion from the crew. Evidently the reboot doesn’t work. Off to the side, I hear one of the pilots say we can’t fly into a hurricane without de-icing capability.

True dat. Ice seems a remote probability in the choking heat of this August afternoon. Nevertheless, I’m thinking, de-icing capability is a good thing.

In the end, we wait while a tanker loads 25,000 lbs of fuel and prepares the second plane down the line - “3506″ - for takeoff.

We clamber up drop-down steps - wrestling my “hundred pounds” of gear through the small hatch - and move into the cargo area, where we have our choice of red canvas seats. The tail ramp is open, and I joke about hooking up the static line and making a parachute drop.

The WC-130 is about to plunge into dark clouds as it descends from its cruising altitude of 26,000 feet to begin its runs through Hurricane Dean at 10,000 feet. Photo by Jon Donley

There are no parachutes, of course. Earlier in the day, after we signed waivers absolving the government from liability for our carcasses, MSgt. Randy Bynon, the flight’s loadmaster, cheerfully sketched the procedures for an emergency. The procedures involve lots of prayer as you ride the plane down to the storm-tossed ocean, at which time MSgt. Randy will help you into a life raft.

That evidently has never happened, however.

Wired.com this July rated Hurricane Hunting as the No. 3 “Best Dangerous Science Job.” (The little icon of a plane with its wing ripped off, spinning down into a vortex is a little over the edge.)

MSgt. Randy notes that the hurricane-force winds aren’t a problem - and says that the bigger, stronger storms can actually provide a steady ride. A C-130 flying 300 mph on a calm day, for instance, is already facing “wind” at double the strength of a major hurricane.

What gets you, though, is the turbulence . . . the mismatch of winds and currents.

There’s been at least one close call, as a Hurricane Hunter flight - in a P3 aircraft - narrowly escaped disaster during Hurricane Hugo in 1989. An NOAA article describes the scare:

That day, one of the P-3’s four engines started spitting fire; the plane was caught in a tornadic updraft and spun about. Those aboard feared structural failure, with potential loss of a wing or other essential part. With the P-3’s nose pointed downward and just 700 feet above the ocean, the pilot was able to regain control and pull the aircraft up intact to 1,000 feet. An Air Force Reserves C-130, which was also flying the storm, led the crippled craft back through the eyewall to safety.

On this flight, after a tranquil glide over a sunset-painted ocean, we began feeling the turbulence as we descended to 10,000 feet, somewhere north of the Yucatan. Then we began a steady roller-coaster ride, rocking from side to side, dropping suddenly, giving a feeling of weightlessness, then bounding upward, pushing us down into our seats.

Flying through the storm is a bit like sitting on a washing machine on spin cycle with a slightly off-center load, while a shop vac howls next to your ears. Ear plugs are provided.

The worst turbulence comes several hours into the flight, as we punch out of the eye into the northeastern eyewall. I’m standing behind the weather officer, watching the windspeed move from dead calm back to hurricane strength. My “sea legs” are keeping me steady as the plane bounces. I’m one cool dude.

Suddenly the plane jerks upward, as if I’m on an elevator that suddenly leaps ten stories. I collapse straight down into a sitting position. I nonchalantly look about as if nothing has happened. The dropsonde operators and media look at me. I grab a headset and hear the flight desk asking if everyone is all right.

“We’ve got one down,” says MSgt. Randy looking at me. “But he’s OK.”

Guess I’m not fooling anyone.

————–

Measurement of the hurricane is an intriguing process . . . if you’re hooked on tracking hurricanes on your refrigerator map, this is your cup of tea. This is where the dropsonde operators and the weather officer do their stuff.

In the movie “Twister,” the team of storm-chasers race madly around Tornado Alley, trying to position a cannister full of sensors into the twister’s path. Once they’re sucked into the vortex, they send out information vital to studying tornadoes.

The Hurricane Hunter’s a bit like that, only the plane flies directly into the storm and shoots an electronic-packed cylinder called a dropsonde out of its belly. As the dropsonde descends by parachute, it spits out streams of data that are relayed to the dropsonde station, then to the weather officer, who translates the numbers into critical information about the storm’s severity and path.

There are two boxes of dropsondes strapped in behind the operator’s station. Each instrument is encased in pink bubble wrap and a metalic anti-static bag.

Tech Sgt. Vincent Burden prepares the first half-dozen cylinders by carefully unwrapping and setting them into slots above the computer screen. The instruments are connected to the computer one at a time for activation and tracking. As the plane approaches the area believed to be the eye of the storm, the dropsonde is placed into the launcher, a five-foot tube pointing up from the floor of the plane. Dropsonde operators load it by pulling handles to “cock” the spring-loaded launcher, inserting the instrument and pushing downward on the handles to lock things into place.

Fully locked and loaded, the launcher is ready to lay its first egg.

On one screen, we watch the plane’s avatar pushing through familiar color-coded doppler radar bands. Watch the wind speed, the operators tell us.

The wind speed outside shows 89 knots . . . then 60 . . . then 29 . . . then 2 knots . . . almost dead calm. We’re in the eye.

The dropsonde operator pulls up his launch screen, complete with a click-to-launch button.

WHANG!

The first drop comes as a shock . . . sounds like someone slamming a cinder block onto the hood of a car. Oh my gawd, I think, we lost a wing!

The jumpiness doesn’t leave . . . you know the WHAM! is coming, but you’re never quite prepared.

Data is now streaming in. I have no clue. But as I stand behind the weather officer, eventually he massages the data into reports I’ve seen coming from the National Hurricane Center . . . still in techno-gobble, but recognizable as weather data.

————-

The wind speed leaps back into life . . . 4 knots . . . 26 . . . 73 . . . 87 . . . and the plane is buffeted by turbulence as it adjusts to the newly strengthened wind.

The long night is just beginning, as the Hurricane Hunter flies in giant triangles covering the entire Bay of Campeche, crossing the eye time and again.

WHANG!

WHANG!

WHANG!

The dropsondes continue, while the plane leaps in the up- and down-drafts for about six hours. At some point, all the media folks and our escort, Airman Tabitha, are sleeping the long watch away.

I’m not sleeping. I’m laying on my back, alternately weightless and pressed hard into the red canvas, eyes closed and reliving the desperate days of Katrina and our hard-fought survival. This is the perfect place to remember.

Every so often, at least for a moment, we find peace in the center of the storm.

Back home after its long flight through the dark, our WC-130J sits on the tarmac at Keesler AFB. Another flight is already on the job tracking Dean on its last hours before landfall in Mexico. Photo by Jon Donley

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