LELAND — As a kid growing up in New Bern, N.C., Mark Sudduth always had a fascination with hurricanes. Although life initially pulled him in a different direction, that fascination would stick with him, eventually leading him to begin his own storm tracking and disaster mitigation business, HurricaneTrack.com.
Sudduth, a graduate of UNCW and resident of Leland, originally went to school as a music major. But, after taking a meteorology course, he switched gears, and two years later, he returned to his passion, seeking a geography degree, focusing on the way hurricanes affect people and communities along the coast.
After graduation, Sudduth took on an internship with a Wilmington-based economic development group, which asked him to produce a report on southeastern North Carolina’s vulnerability to hurricanes.
According to Sudduth, his director believed there was no hurricane threat to the state. However, Sudduth disagreed, putting together a presentation that showed the state was in a lull, and that the number of storms would increase.
“I studied what’s called return periods; how often they come, the history and the effects,” he said. “So, I told him, ‘no, no, no, no, it’s fine, they can relocate here, you can recruit them all you like, they just need to have something called mitigation.'”
Thinking that he might be onto something, the next year, Sudduth started his first business, called Hurricane Maps Enterprises, essentially looking to become a hurricane PR firm.
“I wanted to approach these storms the way people approach a summer blockbuster,” he said. “Not because they are pleasant, they are anything but. But, because it’s a really big deal. We focus everything on them when they’re coming, and everyone talks about them, businesses shut down, then they hit, and everything’s messed up in the aftermath. It’s a huge process, and very few people get it.”
Being a geographer, he decided the best course of action was to produce large, foldable, hurricane tracking maps that would not only let people know what to do during a major storm but also how to react in the aftermath.
The very next year, Hurricanes Bertha and Fran struck the Carolina coast, and his phone began ringing off the hook.
Pioneering hurricane research
As Hurricane Maps grew and expanded, Sudduth’s work in disaster mitigation began attracting attention. He began creating storm surge maps with the Army Corps of Engineers, as well as working with FEMA and the Clinton administration to help construct “disaster resistant communities.”
At the same time, Sudduth was working to get into the thick of it, beginning to build what would later become HurricaneTrack.com, one of the leading research, advising, and storm-chasing organizations in the U.S.
“The Weather Service doesn’t really have anything like this, unfortunately,” Sudduth said. “They have enough for what they do, but there’s no landfall program within the Weather Service per se, it’s usually taken up by universities, or what people have come to know as ‘hurricane chasers,’ or ‘storm chasers,’ and I wanted to fall somewhere between all that, and kind of make it a combination.”
Sudduth frowns upon the modern interpretation of storm chasing. While he understands the need to make a living, he disagrees with the approach of people who stand out in the storm for the sake of “fame,” and chooses to instead approach the tracking from a scientific angle, collecting hard data to aid in the understanding of these events.
In 1999, he purchased an Isuzu Rodeo, and began acquiring the necessary equipment to collect data from storms. In 2001, Lowes Home Improvement approached Sudduth about providing “hurricane preparedness PR work” for the company.
After solidifying another partnership, this time with Sprint, Sudduth had the most up-to-date technology, allowing Hurricane Track to update from the location of these storms, aiding the National Hurricane Center, media outlets and residents with close to real-time coverage as events unfolded.
“I wanted to collect data, and be able to tell a story,” Sudduth said. “We learned very quickly that video is data as well. Until 2004, you had to be there in person, when we had lots of hurricanes in the southeast. There were four of us down in Punta Gorda, Fla., for Hurricane Charley, which was a Category 4 storm. It went right over us, and it was just absolutely terrifying.
“I realized, there’s got to be a better way to do this, as exciting as this was, there had to be a better way, we couldn’t keep sitting out here or something is going to happen,” Sudduth said.
The group began “accelerating” the idea of using the old Isuzu as a “crash test dummy” of sorts, leaving it out in storms to transmit data remotely, keeping the Track team safe and documenting the storms at the same time.
Working with a scuba company, the team developed dry cases to keep its cameras and sensitive relay gear safe in the harshest of conditions, since there would be no crew to evacuate the vehicle to higher ground once conditions got out of hand.
Later that year, the team got the chance to test out its new methods when Hurricane Ivan approached the mainland United States in the Gulf of Mexico.
“We put the truck on the beach in Gulf Shores (Alabama), and had all the equipment and cameras on it and inside of it. We worked with the police department, who let us stay in their facilities, and it was absolutely incredible,” he said. “It came right over us, there was massive surge, the vehicle was destroyed. The surge had moved the car several blocks north, it was in four feet of sand, just crazy.”
The experiment was a resounding success, with the equipment still ticking inside the battered and broken vehicle, waiting for pick-up and broadcast.
Tracking in the modern age
By 2005, Sudduth felt the team was ready to begin live updates, broadcasting up-to-the-minute information for citizens to follow along with in the middle of the storm.
The team developed three boxes, called “bullet boxes,” that allowed it to safely place cameras and upload footage from the impact sites. These “Surge Cams” could be operated remotely and placed directly in the path of the storm.
While the team thought it was prepared for the season, what came next almost stopped them dead in their tracks.
Hurricane Katrina was making a beeline for the Gulf Coast. The team battened down the hatches in Gulfport, Mississippi, preparing its cameras for what was anticipated to be a Category 3 storm.
“We went to bed and it was a Category 3 storm, and that was bad enough,” Sudduth said. “We woke up the next morning and it was a Category 5, with 175 mph winds.”
The team lost almost everything, with the storm either destroying or displacing all of the equipment it owned.
“But you live and you learn,” he said. “That season was epic, and we had plenty of financial help from our partners, so we were ready to go for Ophelia, Rita and Wilma. And Wilma really proved itself.
“We had three cameras in Southwest Florida, and the one in Everglade City captured that surge live, and they were able to watch it live and call their EOC (emergency operations center) at the Hurricane Center,” he said.
This footage is still used today by the NWS Hurricane Center to show people what storm surge looks, and how to handle it in the event of an emergency.
The next few years saw what Sudduth describes as a “hurricane drought,” without much in the way of storms forming. In the interim, technology improved, allowing the Hurricane Track team to shrink their equipment to the size of a “lunchbox,” covering a much larger area than ever before.
Now, the team works with organizations like the National Weather Service, CNN, and The Weather Channel to help accurately predict storms tracks, as well as potential damage on landfall. The team currently has 12 cameras, two “state of the art” weather stations, and now, something new: a weather balloon system named HURR-B (Hurricane Research Balloon), which will become the first balloon to fly through the eye of a storm.
After testing the system in the Midwest the past couple of years, Sudduth believes that this year his team is ready to deploy the balloon in a real hurricane.
“All along the way, we’ve tackled the sea, and the land, the surge, the wind and the impacts from these storms,” he said. “But, we’ve yet to take to the air.”
Using a box similar to their “Surge Cameras,” the rig will be equipped with two GoPros, a microcomputer, and a GPS system. That will allow the team to get footage through the eye of the storm, up past the 60,000-foot-high walls, up to 100,000 feet to provide a point of view of a hurricane, “never seen before,” Sudduth said.
“Here we are in the age of social media, in the age of climate change,” Sudduth said. “And here we are, ready to provide the most unbelievable coverage you’ll ever see.”
Now, all the team needs is the right storm.
For information on Hurricane Track, and for daily coverage of Hurricane Season, visit the website at HurricaneTrack.com. To keep up with Sudduth and his team, follow them on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Youtube.
Get in touch with Reporter Cory Mannion: follow him on Facebook, Twitter, or send an email at cory@localvoicemedia.com.
