Political Quotes

“Mr. President, for years, I have been working to make sure that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has reliable tools to forecast hurricanes. Today the Senate will come together on legislation to get us closer to that goal. In May 2016, just before the start of hurricane season, the Commerce Committee held a hearing on preparedness. At that hearing, I asked the then-Director of the National Hurricane Center, Dr. Rick Knabb, about the fact that NOAA has two P3 propeller aircraft that fly into the storm, but only the one Gulfstream jet that can fly high enough and long enough to get above the storm. Flying above the storm is critical because the scientists drop sondes out of the belly of the aircraft that fall through the storm sending measurements of the entire vertical profile. This is vital to telling us where the storm is headed and whether it is weakening or strengthening. Having only one Gulfstream is a single point of failure because, if the plane is out of commission, we do not have a backup ready to go. Unfortunately, my fears were realized a few short months later. During a Hurricane Hermine reconnaissance mission, NOAA had to ground the Gulfstream for emergency corrosion repairs. Luckily, a plane owned by the National Science Foundation and the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research was not on a mission at the time and was able to fill in for the NOAA Gulfstream, but you can imagine that this will not always be the case.…”