Jun 30, 2008 12:45 pm US/Eastern
New National Hurricane Center Dir. Marks Milestone
Atlantic Hurricane Season Run From June 1 - Nov. 30
MIAMI (AP) ―
When hurricanes and tropical storms threaten the U.S., a self-described "weather geek" will let the nation what the dangers are.
National Hurricane Center Director Bill Read marked a small milestone Monday. He's one month into the Atlantic hurricane season, with five more to go.
So far, there has been only Tropical Storm Arthur, which formed in the Atlantic the day before the season officially started June 1 and soaked the Yucatan Peninsula. Ahead, however, are typically the season's busiest months, August and September.
With things quiet so far, the center has had more time to adjust to Read, who took over following the contentious departure of his predecessor, Bill Proenza. He was on the job only six months before he was placed on leave last July. The center's staff urged his dismissal, saying he exaggerated problems with a satellite and undermined forecasters.
Read said when he took over that he was a little more laid back than Proenza. His hurricane kit contains "Ritz crackers and peanut butter" and his son's cell phone plays The Doors' song "Riders on the Storm" when he calls.
Like other center directors, however, Read said he expects to spend a lot of time talking about hurricane preparedness, including making homes secure against storms, urging families to create a storm plan and encouraging people to have sufficient hurricane supplies.
"It just drives me nuts that we haven't solved that problem," Read said in describing the challenge of getting people to prepare.
In particular, Read said he wants to try to understand the psychology behind why some people or neighborhoods evacuate and others don't. Then, he wants to tailor his message to individual communities. In places like New Jersey, which hasn't had a hurricane make landfall since 1903, there should be a different way of talking about preparedness than in places that have seen hurricanes more frequently, he said.
"The one pamphlet response to hurricane preparedness is not going to work," Read said.
Born in South Weymouth, Mass., and raised in Delaware, Read said he knew he loved weather early on -- he'd press his face up against the windows of his house to watch snow fall.
He went to Texas A&M to study meteorology and then was drafted into the military. He served as a meteorologist flying aboard Navy hurricane hunter aircraft for two seasons. Though at the time he had been on only a handful of airline flights, it was his job to control the plane's path through the storm at low altitudes of 500 or 1,500 feet.
"I think I gave religion to a lot of people," he said.
After finishing with the Navy and going back to Texas A&M for a masters degree, Read joined the National Weather Service in 1977, serving in a number of posts before being picked to lead the weather service's Houston-Galveston office in 1992. He held that job until moving to Miami and the National Hurricane Center.
If his job in Texas was like a steak dinner, heading the National Hurricane Center was the "extra piece of key lime pie afterwards -- not expected but enjoyed nonetheless," Read said.
People who know him say he's well equipped to deal with the job's pressures.
Paul J. Croft, a meteorology professor at Kean University in New Jersey, succeeded Read in 2004 as president of the National Weather Association. Read always tells people what he does and does not know, Croft said.
"He's always been one to give it to you straight," Croft said.
Read, meanwhile, said he's already gotten advice from former center director Max Mayfield, who held the job from 2000 to 2007. Mayfield told him if he stayed on the job more than five year his gray hair would turn white. Read said he'd stay until "it's no longer fun."
For a weather geek, that could be a while.
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