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- [00:01]
Emily Gracey
I'm Emily Gracey, meteorologist for the National Weather Desk and host of this podcast, off the Radar. Every week in 2024, we took a deep dive into weather and earth science topics you didn't hear anywhere else. You heard from unique experts like hurricane hunters as they flew into the eye of a category 5 storm. Normally when you pass through an eyewall.
- [00:22]
Andrew Buckmichael
It'S a couple of minutes you break.
- [00:23]
Emily Gracey
Out into the eye.
- [00:24]
Andrew Buckmichael
We were on this eyewall for 10 minutes.
- [00:27]
Emily Gracey
We uncovered the science behind popular movies like the Perfect Stor and Twisters.
- [00:33]
Andrew Buckmichael
There was a tremendous amount of effort put into it to make the film as real as possible. It ties into a lot of current real research that's going on in the.
- [00:43]
Emily Gracey
Scientific community and discussed how wind modeling in ballparks is changing the game of baseball.
- [00:49]
Andrew Buckmichael
Ted hit a ball really hard and it got up into this unabated stream of winds going super fast, and that wind carried it all the way to that red seat in right field.
- [01:01]
Emily Gracey
Today I'm going Off the radar with my colleague and fellow meteorologist Andrew Buckmichael. We are counting down our favorite podcast Moments of the Year. This special podcast episode has everything historic hurricanes, sports, science, scripted severe weather, and spacey sounds. I'm meteorologist Emily Gracey and you're listening to off the Radar, a production of the National Weather Desk. On the show, we dig deep into topics about weather, climate, the ocean, ocean, space, and much more. Our goal is to help you better understand the weather and to love it as much as we do.
- [01:41]
Andrew Buckmichael
Audible's best of 2024 picks are here. Discover the year's top audiobooks, podcasts and originals in all your favorite genres, from.
- [01:49]
Emily Gracey
Memoirs and sci fi to mysteries and thrillers.
- [01:53]
Andrew Buckmichael
Audible's curated list in every category is the best way to hear 2024's best.
- [01:58]
Emily Gracey
In audio entertainment, like a stunning new.
- [02:01]
Andrew Buckmichael
Full cast production of George Orwell's 1984 heartfelt memoirs. Like Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson's lovely one, the year's best fiction like the Women by Kristin Hannah and Percival Everett's brilliantly subversive James Audible. There's more to imagine when you listen.
- [02:21]
Emily Gracey
Go to audible.com imagine and discover all.
- [02:25]
Andrew Buckmichael
The year's best waiting for you.
- [02:30]
Emily Gracey
Hi everyone. It's been quite a year in weather and in science, and for this little podcast, I can't believe how lucky I am to do this. Every week I get to brainstorm ideas. I get to talk to experts and find creative ways to tell science stories that you won't hear anywhere else. Not Only that, but I'm lucky to have a great team of supporters both in you, the listener, but also at Sinclair Broadcast Group. Since the start of the show In April of 2023, we've released 88 episodes and have had over 200,000 downloads. If you haven't already, make sure you hit that follow button on whatever podcast platform you're listening on right now. I also want to hear from you. You can find me on social media. I'm Emily Gracie, meteorologist on Facebook. You can find me on Instagram on X. Reach out, say hi, tell me what you think of the show and let me know what science topic you want to learn about next. I also want to encourage you to follow the national weather desk on YouTube for great weather video content. There's a Weather Caught on Camera playlist. We have weather lessons which are great for your kids and more expert interviews. And Jay Mishkin from the National Weather Desk, along with many of Sinclair's meteorologists, have put together a great 30 minute special wrapping up all of 2024's biggest moments in weather. So make sure you check that out today. I invited Andrew Buckmichael to come on the show and we both picked our top 10 episodes of 2024. As we go through them, you'll hear some short clips from these episodes. Make sure you listen to the very end of the show today because I'm also going to replay a portion of one of my top episodes of the year. It was very impactful. I cry every time I listen to it, so I think it's worth a replay. Thank you so much. Weather nerds, science junkies, curious learners, and podcast fans. I appreciate you. And I'll see you in 2025 for some fabulous new episodes of off the Radar. Okay, Andrew Buck, Michael, so glad to have you on the podcast today. I feel like you are the most loyal of listeners, but after talking to you briefly, I realize it's because you spend, you know, like hours and hours a day running. So of course you have to listen to something. Well, welcome to off the Radar. You've been on a few times. Glad to have you back on again.
- [04:49]
Andrew Buckmichael
Thank you. It's an honor as always.
- [04:51]
Emily Gracey
All right, so I decided I needed to have you on to talk about the end of the year and go through some of our favorite podcast episodes of the year. But before we get into all of that, it's been a really big year as far as not only podcast episodes, like weather in general. Tell people who you are. You are one of our local meteorologists.
- [05:10]
Andrew Buckmichael
Yeah, so I'm the morning meteorologist for our ABC and Fox affiliate for the Sinclair stations in Columbus, Ohio. So weather has been a huge year. We have a record number of tornadoes here in Ohio this year, more than we've ever had before. Actually 15 more tornadoes in Ohio than the previous record. So it's been a very active year here in Ohio and just across the entire country with Helene and all of these other storms that were making national headlines not only for a day or two, but for weeks and months on end. And I'm excited to be here today to talk with you about this because as you mentioned, I run a lot. I do cheat, though. I. I do listen to it at typically 1.5 speed or a little faster, depending on the podcast.
- [05:51]
Emily Gracey
I've heard that trick. That's like a pro tip when it comes to podcast listening. Okay, so you've listened to every episode of off the Radar. Can't wait to hear your take on what's been going on this year. But you have a podcast too, right?
- [06:03]
Andrew Buckmichael
I do Weathering the Run. So I just talk with runners if I'm going out running with somebody. We typically, they always are hesitant to start talking about weather because they're like, I don't want to talk work with you, but I don't mind. We're just out there just running. So, yeah, I just basically talk to runners about the craziest weather that they've run through. So it's just called Weathering the Run. And it's just, it's a basically just a labor of love because it's not associated with work. I don't have any sponsors, don't get paid for it. But it's just me just chatting with runners and there have been some pretty crazy stories from them.
- [06:32]
Emily Gracey
Interesting, interesting. Okay. And then also we recognize you, of course, because of your bucket. You do this segment for the national weather does called Weather Bucket. Can you explain what that is for folks who don't know?
- [06:43]
Andrew Buckmichael
Yeah, my middle name's Buck and I answer a lot of questions. I mean, there's always questions coming in on Facebook and Twitter, just random weird questions like, why is there this halo around the moon at night? And so I was like, you know what, I should just answer these questions and just kind of devote some sort of channel or an outlet to answer the weather questions. So I do my best. Sometimes the questions not necessarily completely weather related. So I have to do a little bit of research and it just broadens my knowledge as well.
- [07:12]
Emily Gracey
Yeah, you know, I do that too. Like when I'm coming up with a video idea or something for the podcast or something from the national weather desk. I have to do research too, but that's kind of the job as a meteorologist, especially the TV station, because you are the only scientist generally at the TV station. Right. So everybody comes to you with all science questions, even though we have these degrees in a very specific field.
- [07:32]
Andrew Buckmichael
It's true. And I have gotten a lot better this year and I've kind of warned my co workers. I was like, if I don't know an answer, I'm going to tell you I don't know. And I'm just. I've gotten a lot more comfortable with that. I can go look it up and I'll research it, but if you put me on the spot, I'm not going to make a lie because. Or make something up because I don't want that to happen. I want to let you know that I don't know this, but I'll look it up.
- [07:52]
Emily Gracey
Right. And the benefit of having like a scientific background is knowing where to look it up. Right. Like reputable sources or like a scientific journal. So we know the places to go even if we don't know the exact answer.
- [08:03]
Andrew Buckmichael
Absolutely.
- [08:04]
Emily Gracey
Cool. All right, so let's talk about the podcast. This is. We're almost two years into off the radar at this point, so I think, you know, in like a month or two, I'm coming up on the 100th episode, which I'm very excited about. So I want to count down with you. We kind of each went through and came up with our top 10 episodes of the year. Do you want to start or do you want me to start?
- [08:25]
Andrew Buckmichael
I'll go ahead and start because this one is something. I just read this book and that probably gives it away a little bit.
- [08:31]
Emily Gracey
Well, first, before you say that, are you starting with 1 or 10? Are you gonna go?
- [08:35]
Andrew Buckmichael
I'm starting with 10, I want to work. Is that fine?
- [08:37]
Emily Gracey
Yeah. Should we do like you do 10 and I do 10 or should we. You go through all 10 and then I go through all 10.
- [08:42]
Andrew Buckmichael
Let's go. I. I like it if we both do 10 and then we kind of work together towards one.
- [08:47]
Emily Gracey
Perfect. I love it.
- [08:48]
Andrew Buckmichael
So number 10 for me is going to be the last train to Key West.
- [08:53]
Emily Gracey
I just got goosebumps. I love that episode. In 1935, Life in the Florida Keys was a unique blend of natural beauty, maritime traditions, and a laid back vacation lifestyle. Despite the Depression, tourists flocked to the Keys by way of Henry Flagler's overseas Railroad. But with that tranquility comes the ever present danger of tropical cyclones. On Labor Day 1935, that fear became a reality for. For tens of thousands of residents and guests of the Keys when a catastrophic hurricane struck the archipelago. Today we are going off the radar and back in time to relive one of the most intense hurricanes in American history.
- [09:37]
Andrew Buckmichael
It's a great episode and I love Key west. And there's actually a keys 100 race where you start in Key Largo and you run all the way down to Key West. So I want to do that one day. It's kind of on my bucket list to go and do bucket. But I love the episode. I. You know how I listen to podcasts. I also requested the audiobook. It took about eight or nine weeks to finally get the audiobook, but I just finished the book as well, probably about a week ago.
- [10:03]
Emily Gracey
I love Key west as well, but I actually grew up going on vacation to the Keys. So all of the spots were like, I knew of them, but I didn't know all these facts about them. And I really didn't know that much about that hurricane and like the historical influence there of the post World War I. So I, I love that you picked out. It didn't make my top 10 list, mostly because it was actually a rerun from the previous year. So I guess on a technicality, I decided not to include it in my top.
- [10:30]
Andrew Buckmichael
Well, I included it because I read the book this year, so it made.
- [10:33]
Emily Gracey
So it's a. Yeah, it's a this year, basically. All right. So my, my number 10 was actually a very recent episode and it was humanizing hurricane forecasting with the deputy director from the National Hurricane Center, Jamie Roan. And the reason I picked this one was I actually didn't go into this episode thinking it was going to be like an amazing episode. But because of Jamie, it was because we kind of took this turn in the conversation and we didn't really talk as much about the 2024 hurricane season as much as we did like hurricane forecasting in general and what we do wrong and how we don't factor in like the human influence. And, you know, I feel like we hear it over and over again when they talk about impacts, impacts, impact forecasting and, you know, hazards and focusing on that instead of the cone. But the way that he talked about it in terms of like, consequence and.
- [11:25]
Andrew Buckmichael
The communities, you got a hurricane of X strength that's moving in in this community. What are the consequences?
- [11:34]
Emily Gracey
Right.
- [11:35]
Andrew Buckmichael
And depends on infrastructure. It depends on the socioeconomic Aspects of the community. It depends on the breakdown of the community. Is it. Is it more elderly? Is there a higher percentage of people with disabilities? I mean, there's like all these new variables that meteorologists have not been used to thinking about. We're trying to factor in these different elements. Not so much in the forecast. They don't change the forecast, but they change the messaging. Right. The words that you use, how you use them, who you're reaching out to in a storm, they sort of change your strategy. It's a new frontier for the meteorological community, and it's an exciting one. But I think we got a lot to learn in this journey.
- [12:26]
Emily Gracey
And also we talked about kind of the shift in the messaging coming from the hurricane center. I don't know if you remember that one statement they put out where they said, this hurricane is going to be unsurvivable. And it was a term they'd never used before. And it was so impactful because it was the first time they used it. So messaging, very important.
- [12:44]
Andrew Buckmichael
Yeah. I learned a lot from that episode. And just because it's not just knowing the weather, it's also communicating it and letting the public know what to be prepared for. And with hurricanes, it's not just the rain. It's not just the winds. There's so many aspects to it. It's the heat and the power outages after the storm's over. So there's some things that you don't think about. And I learned a lot from that episode.
- [13:08]
Emily Gracey
Yeah. And also that. That period of time five to 10 years later after a hurricane and how people can still be impacted at that point. Fascinating. Okay, number nine. What you got?
- [13:18]
Andrew Buckmichael
Number nine is the day the clock stopped. I grew up really close to Xenia. My dad is also a meteorologist. He went to Purdue University.
- [13:27]
Emily Gracey
Your dad is a meteorologist?
- [13:29]
Andrew Buckmichael
He went for agricultural meteorology. So he spent his, I guess, career farming rather than on tv, like myself. So he's told me stories about watching the clouds that day. He was probably about 40 miles away from where the storm was, the Xenia tornado, the F5 that hit there back in 1974. But he's told me stories about it. I grew up hearing just other stories and just growing up in the area, just about the Xenia tornado and how deadly it was, how unique that situation was. And the Dayton station did a very. Our Sinclair station there did a really good documentary on the 50 year anniversary of that Xenia 5 tornado.
- [14:09]
Emily Gracey
Yeah, they did. And. And they came to me and said, you know, this would be A great episode. And I watched the documentary and I. I couldn't believe I'd never heard of it before, but it was so well done. His name is Blanking on me. Adam. Yes. Did an amazing job with that. And he's the news director there now. Did you see that?
- [14:26]
Andrew Buckmichael
Yeah. He and I first started in Columbus the exact same day. We worked on the weekend shift together. So he and I go back a long ways, and we had a lot of fun when we worked the weekend shift.
- [14:36]
Emily Gracey
You guys kind of look alike, too.
- [14:38]
Andrew Buckmichael
We have been told that before.
- [14:41]
Emily Gracey
All right, My number nine is another recent episode, Rivers in the Sky. It was all about atmospheric rivers. And this one I chose mostly because of feedback I've gotten from other people. I guess I didn't realize that it was going to be as impactful when I did it and put it out, but I heard from so many people that they loved this episode, and I was trying to figure out why before I got on here today. And I think part of it is just the lack of knowledge about atmospheric rivers. I think people were interested in learning about it. And Marty Ralph, the guy that I interviewed, such an important person in, like, the weather world and. And making this term known to people, so that's why I included it. And then, you know, the biggest compliment, you know, this is somebody who interviews people. We got off the call, and Marty told me that it was one of the best interview. He said he does interviews all the time, and it was one of the best conversations he had. And I was, like, blown away that he would think that. So I think just the feedback from that episode is the reason I chose it. And then also, I want to fly. I want to go on a reconnaissance mission.
- [15:45]
Andrew Buckmichael
Yeah. And it was interesting, too, because you think of the hurricane hunters that are now flying in these atmospheric rivers. They're flying through an eye wall. There's a lot of turbulence. There's a lot of things going on. But to fly through an atmospheric river, it's something. It's not new, but the research in it and everything, him trying to describe of where they're trying to drop those instruments in the storm and everything, it was really interesting to hear what they're doing to help predict those.
- [16:09]
Emily Gracey
All right, what you got for number eight?
- [16:11]
Andrew Buckmichael
Number eight, I have Helene surviving an inland hurricane. Obviously, the storm was very deadly. It was in national headlines for weeks. I mean, it still is. They're still going to be cleaning up for quite a while. But to get the perspective from a meteorologist that was on the ground there covering the storm and how he said there's been times too, where you have a lot of power outages. He's like, who are we on TV for right now? No one's got power right now. So how. They kind of pivoted and tried doing a lot of social media, YouTube, Facebook and other things to make sure that they're getting the message out to the public. So it was really insightful to listen to that from a different perspective. It does wear on you and. And you start going back and replaying everything you said and, you know, what. What did you say? What could you have said differently? Would it have made a difference? You know, things like that. You question it. It's just human nature. Those that live here do know that it's. It's forever changed in a way that it's like a scar, you know, and you're going to be reminded of that scar.
- [17:16]
Emily Gracey
That episode is one of my favorites, as you will see in a few minutes as well. So, yeah, we could talk more about that one coming up in just a second. But I 100 agree. Jason was a fantastic interview and he's a great meteorologist, and I've known him for a very long time because I interned with him. Okay. Number eight for me is Love is in the air pressure. And I chose this one because it's a little bit different from some of the other stuff that I've done. But it's. It was really. I. So this one came out Valentine's Day, and I wanted to do something kind of like cute for Valentine's Day, so I thought I would do a little investigation to see if weather affects sexual behaviors of humans and animals. And kind of the short answer is definitely animals, because they're doing it for like one reason only, right to reproduce. And humans operate a little bit differently. But it's a fun episode. Definitely worth a re. Listen or a listen for the first time if anybody hasn't listened to it. Some fun discussions.
- [18:14]
Andrew Buckmichael
I liked how to kind of looked at the calendar dates too. When most humans are born around September time frame.
- [18:22]
Emily Gracey
I know. Spoiler alert. There's a lot of babies that are conceived around Christmas time, which we got coming up.
- [18:27]
Andrew Buckmichael
Right.
- [18:28]
Emily Gracey
I think it just has to do with time off more than anything.
- [18:31]
Andrew Buckmichael
A number seven.
- [18:33]
Emily Gracey
Number seven. Go for it.
- [18:34]
Andrew Buckmichael
Meteorologist moms. Yay.
- [18:36]
Emily Gracey
Lots of co workers in that one.
- [18:39]
Andrew Buckmichael
Yeah. A lot of coworkers in that one. And it's interesting too, because I've covered some maternity leave before and, you know, it's just kind of part of the job. And at times, that was actually how I got some freelance jobs because they needed some extra help. So.
- [18:53]
Emily Gracey
Yeah, me too.
- [18:54]
Andrew Buckmichael
It's. It's interesting to get the perspective. And I was really blown away with some of the stories that, like Shakage, how she. Her water broke while she was at work.
- [19:04]
Emily Gracey
I know. I think they say, like, only 10% of births, the water breaks. Not at the hospital. And I bet so many people I know that it happens. She's not the only person I've heard that that's happened before, but it's wild that she was literally on tv.
- [19:18]
Andrew Buckmichael
What about review for number seven?
- [19:21]
Emily Gracey
Number seven. I have baseball's meteorological mysteries. So this one I love for a couple of reasons. One of my very best friends was on it. Morgan at is the sports anchor in Baltimore, Maryland, at our. Our station there. And her and I used to work together. So I had her on for the beginning. But then I interviewed the MLB scientist, which is a thing apparently, and he was talking about the. This new model that's being used, Weather Applied Metrics. They use this wind model in ballparks, and it helps determine, like, the speed and trajectory of what balls might do. And it's really fascinating. And not only are they using it to forecast games coming up, they look at old situations. And I just. I love, like, forensic meteorology and historical events. Gettysburg was another of those episodes that didn't make the list for me, but I really loved. So this one was all about Ted Williams and that famous home run and the Red Sea to Fenway. We talk about that and kind of go through some conspiracy theories and there's some cool answers that they came up with that they were able to solve with this new weather modeling.
- [20:28]
Andrew Buckmichael
I'm giving away my number six, but that was my number six.
- [20:31]
Emily Gracey
Gettysburg.
- [20:32]
Andrew Buckmichael
No, the. The baseball.
- [20:33]
Emily Gracey
Baseball.
- [20:34]
C
Okay.
- [20:35]
Emily Gracey
Oh, good.
- [20:35]
C
Yay.
- [20:36]
Emily Gracey
Okay, so that lined up perfectly.
- [20:38]
Andrew Buckmichael
It did. And I actually contacted one of my friends, and he's more into the computer modeling and stuff like that. And I told him, I was like, man, what if you could take a stadium, say football stadium, and you map it 3D, the buildings around it, and then you say, all right, for every direction the wind's coming and for every speed, what's going to happen inside that stadium for the kickers, whether they're kicking a field goal, a punt, it could really impact what's going to happen. And he burst my bubble. And he's like, all right, there's the company that's already doing this weather Applied Metrics. And I was like, man, this would have been a great idea to come up with this company. So it was really interesting to hear about that because I didn't know about it until I heard the episode. I just found out about it before I heard the episode. So it was like serendipitous that I heard the came up with the idea. And also. Well, I guess somebody else's idea that's already been out there, but also heard the episode.
- [21:32]
Emily Gracey
Yeah, it's funny because I found out about the company, I don't know, maybe like 10 years ago. They've been around for a while. I met somebody at a conference who is one of the owners of the company. And I kept going back to it and thinking. And then I never really did more with it. And then just recently, MLB brought in the modeling. So it's. It's more recent, just in the past couple years that they started actually using it. But yeah, I've been wanting to do that episode for a while and it turned out even better than I could have imagined. Okay, so that was your number six, right? All right, my number six. And I didn't even know if you've even listened to this one yet because it just came out with the tsunami episode. So it's 20, 24, 20 years ago. Hard to believe was the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. So I did a whole episode on that and really it was the story of survival. And this is part one of two. I've got another episode coming out in January, but Dwayne Meadows survived it. He worked for Noah at the time and he tells his whole story of survival, which is just wild, horrifying, heart wrenching, heartbreaking. So that is one of my favorite episodes. But also it was. It was definitely a tough one to edit and put together.
- [22:38]
Andrew Buckmichael
Yeah, just that one. I started that one. But I was trying to cram the other ones that I might have missed through the year. I was like, oh, I got about three. I need to. That I happen to miss this. I started that and I didn't know if it was going to apply to the top 10 here because it was a two parter. You're like, this is two parter. I was like, oh, she won't include that because we won't get to part two.
- [22:56]
Emily Gracey
Psych. I did. It was.
- [22:58]
Andrew Buckmichael
But yeah, there was a lot of motion to that episode.
- [23:00]
Emily Gracey
It's a long episode, but it's worth it to go to the end too, because there's a lot of talk of kind of the emotional and mental recovery coming out of natural disasters and how it's different from, you know, other trauma. He discusses that a lot, and he was very, very open with me about it, which I really appreciate it. So he was great.
- [23:17]
Andrew Buckmichael
Number five, what you got? All right, Number five, I have Storming the Digital world.
- [23:23]
Emily Gracey
Yay. I love that episode.
- [23:25]
Andrew Buckmichael
It's something that I've thought about just. Just in the sphere that we're in now, it's not broadcast only. I have my certified broadcast meteorologist seal from the American Meteorological Society, and I've thought about, should I go for the digital seal, too? And we do so much on the digital spectrum. I mean, look at us right now. That's not on tv, and the people are consuming it in way more ways than just tv. So it was interesting to hear all of the inside baseball talk with that. Yeah.
- [23:56]
Emily Gracey
And you know, the two guys that I was talking to on that episode, since that came out, their company shut down their portion of their weather enterprise portion of the company, and they lost their jobs. So they no longer have those jobs or that podcast, which is awful. But they're both certified digital meteorologists, and hopefully we'll find something else. And also they can do stuff on their own with that seal. And also since that episode, I got my cdm. So my plan, you know, and my role is certainly different from yours. You're still on tv, but I'm not anymore. So I'm going to let my CBM expire here at the end of the year, and I'm going to just have the CDM going forward. So, yeah, it's a. It's a shifting world.
- [24:39]
Andrew Buckmichael
Yeah. And it helped drive home how quickly things are changing and there's so much information out there, how important it is to make sure that you're getting it from a credible source. So, again, that's the big reason why the American Meteorological Society came up with this idea, is to make sure that, you know, whoever you're getting this information from is a credible source that actually has spent years studying and researching what's going on with our weather.
- [25:00]
Emily Gracey
Yeah. Isn't true, Sierra? Just checking. I. I had that originally on my top 10 list, and it kind of got bumped, but I'm really glad it's on yours because that's one of my favorites as well. I just love the format, too, of just talking, kind of like you and I are now, you know, and not just being an interview. All right. My number five, which is like a personal favorite of mine, is reliving Twister. So Twister was such an influential movie in my life. Huge. I mean, it's the reason I became a meteorologist. So when I slid into the DMS of a few Twister stars and one of them got back to me and said, yes, yes, yes, I was so thrilled. Wendell Josepher, she played Hanes on the original Twister movie. She was one of the storm chasers. She was so, so nice. She gave me such a long time. I mean, we talked for like two hours. I edited it way down, but she was fantastic. And it just made me want to go watch the movie again, listen to the soundtrack again. And it was fun to hear the perspective of somebody who's not a meteorologist, who was like thrown into this world of weather and storm chasing and, you know, had to learn about weather. Whereas we tend to look at these movies like A critical eye and talk about what's not accurate. So it was cool to get a different perspective from an actor. Everybody poured their heart and soul into it.
- [26:15]
Andrew Buckmichael
People just have so much gratitude for us.
- [26:20]
Emily Gracey
It's humbling.
- [26:21]
C
You know, we did it to make some money as an actor and because.
- [26:24]
Emily Gracey
When you get a job, you say.
- [26:26]
Andrew Buckmichael
Yes, and then it became something, you know, bigger and bigger, beautiful and wow, that's always amazing.
- [26:33]
Emily Gracey
It doesn't happen most of the time.
- [26:36]
Andrew Buckmichael
That was a fun one. I really enjoyed that. It didn't make my top 10, but I really did enjoy that one.
- [26:41]
Emily Gracey
Yeah, I think there's a certain generation of us that were highly influenced by that.
- [26:46]
Andrew Buckmichael
So that's a big reason. My wife got into meteorology as well.
- [26:48]
Emily Gracey
Wait, your wife is a meteorologist?
- [26:50]
Andrew Buckmichael
Yeah.
- [26:51]
C
Stop it.
- [26:52]
Emily Gracey
Is she on tv?
- [26:53]
Andrew Buckmichael
No, she does real estate appraisal now.
- [26:55]
Emily Gracey
Did she? She used to be on tv. Is that you guys met?
- [26:58]
Andrew Buckmichael
No, she. We both just went to Ohio State together and that's where we met. Thankfully, she's been pretty flexible with where she can work and stuff. So she works from home now and does real estate appraisal.
- [27:09]
Emily Gracey
Wow, so it's like a whole family affair for you?
- [27:12]
Andrew Buckmichael
Yeah.
- [27:13]
Emily Gracey
Cool.
- [27:13]
Andrew Buckmichael
My daughter's name is Summer Rain, but we're not forcing her into weather. We thought about naming my son something weather related, but everything was just so cliche, like, we're not going to do storm or thunder.
- [27:24]
Emily Gracey
And now a quick break. We'll be right back with the rest of that top 10 list. Most weight loss plans are one size fits all, not taking into account each person's individual needs.
- [27:39]
Andrew Buckmichael
Noom, on the other hand, is built.
- [27:41]
Emily Gracey
For your psychology and your biology, meeting.
- [27:44]
C
You where you are.
- [27:45]
Emily Gracey
Noom weight uses psychology. And that's why they say losing weight Starts with your brain, but it also takes into account your unique biological factors which also affect weight loss success.
- [27:57]
Andrew Buckmichael
The program helps you understand the science.
- [27:59]
Emily Gracey
Behind your eating choices and why you have cravings.
- [28:02]
Andrew Buckmichael
Stay focused on what's important to you with NOOM Psychology and biology based approach.
- [28:08]
Emily Gracey
Sign up for your trial today@noom.com that's n o o m.com.
- [28:23]
Andrew Buckmichael
Number four. This one goes really well after your twister one. It's behind the scenes of Twisters.
- [28:30]
Emily Gracey
It's a great episode.
- [28:33]
Andrew Buckmichael
One of the professors at Ohio State and also ou Ohio University, she was actually one of the consultants to make sure that the movie was scientific. And there was a lot that went into it. I think this time when they made Twisters to try to make sure that everything was about as accurate as they could make it. Obviously it's a movie, it's Hollywood, but that was really insightful to hear that and just how much goes into those movies and how much excitement there was from the weather community. I mean we obviously saw it. We have friends that were, you know, at the premieres or other things like that. It was really cool to go and see that. And I watched it twice in the movie theater and countless times since.
- [29:10]
Emily Gracey
Yeah, I've seen it a few times too. And it's funny though. I think my heart still lies with number one. Like even though scientifically it was not nearly as accurate. But that was kind of the fun of it. It was had a little bit more of like a cheeseball factor about it. You know, the little one liners and the cliche.
- [29:26]
Andrew Buckmichael
The original had so many one liners.
- [29:29]
Emily Gracey
Okay. My number four was, and it was kind of a two parter Science moms. So this one really part one, but part two as well was with one of the actual science moms, this organization of climate scientists that's trying to educate mothers about climate change. And you know, when I was going into this episode, I was trying to think of something unique and different I could put into it. So I put a call out to like a lot of fellow mothers friends and I said, what questions do you have about climate change? A lot of times when I do that with podcasts, I get absolutely nothing. But this one was overwhelming. I got so many questions from people and they recorded them, they did voice memos, they sent in emails, texts and videos. So I had Melissa answer all those questions. Melissa Burt. And it was hard. Like when I was editing this one, I feel like I cried several times because they were people I knew. There were voices I knew, like very heartfelt. Concerned voices. In our lifetime alone, we've seen a huge shift in the Earth's climate. Record heat waves, rising sea levels, more severe weather. It can feel like the world is becoming a scarier place by the minute. As parents, you have questions, and one group of climate scientists is hoping to give you some answers. One of the best things that you can do as a mother is to share, you know, facts, your concerns, some solutions that are out there with your family, with your friends. Today I'm going off the radar to talk to the science moms, women parents, climate educators who want to raise kids that are informed and inspired, but unafraid. We owe this to our kids and our grandkids and our great grandkids. We'll be diving into your question about how and when to talk to your kids about the world we live in. I don't ever want to make my.
- [31:17]
C
Kids afraid, but I do want them.
- [31:19]
Emily Gracey
To know that they have the ability to make a difference.
- [31:24]
Andrew Buckmichael
I love that one, too, because it. It opened the door to learning how you can communicate with your kids about climate change or other things like that. Because I talked to my kids, I was like, what do you guys know about climate change? And just to try to get their perspective on everything. So that was. It was definitely very insightful episode.
- [31:45]
Emily Gracey
Cool. Cool. All right, we're headed into the top three. What you got for number three?
- [31:50]
Andrew Buckmichael
Number three is surviving more A young girl's journey from a tornado survivor to meteorology student. I think that a lot of us that are in meteorology have something that they can pinpoint what brought them into weather, what kind of spark that creativity or the thirst for knowledge or just understanding. And I vividly remember the Moore tornado. I was working here in Columbus at the same station, and the video started coming in. Our chief meteorologist started crying because he was like. Like he put himself in the. The mindset of what if that was my kid in some of these schools? Like, we're seeing the damage from the schools and whatnot. And I reported on it what we could report at the time. And I also had a handful of friends that were students at Ohio State. They were wrapping up their time there, and they were out chasing that tornado. And they were there when the tornado started to form, basically when it was just the funnel and they continued to track it into more. They were really excited, you know, posting these pictures and stuff from it. And once they realized what came of that tornado, they were like, all right, we got. We got to dial back how excited we were to see this tornado because that Was such a deadly tornado. I mean to hit two schools like that, absolutely heartbreaking.
- [33:04]
Emily Gracey
On May 20, 2013, second grader Aria Vargas was headed off to school at Briarwood elementary in Moore, Oklahoma. It was a normal day. It was sunny, it was hot. At 2:40pm a tornado warning was issued for Moore. Just a dangerous tornado heading right into Moore.
- [33:20]
Andrew Buckmichael
So the whole tornado now you need.
- [33:22]
Emily Gracey
To be taking cover. I black doubt during part of it. All I really remember is insulation getting in my mouth and then straight black. When I woke up, I was being pulled out. A very hard day, A tragic day of tremendous disaster that has hit this community of more 24 people lost their lives that day, including Aria's two sisters. In the years that followed, Aria became infatuated with weather. Was a love hate relationship for a good amount until it turned into full on love. From tornado victim to meteorology student. Today we are going off the radar to hear Aria's story of terror, heartbreak and resilience. For anybody who didn't listen to that episode, you know, the silver lining is it's about this girl who survived and she lost two of her siblings in the tornado. She's now becoming a meteorologist. She's a meteorology major at Texas A and M. So a little story of inspiration kind of woven through the, the tragedy of her story as well. So that's definitely an important episode. My number three was also, I feel like an important episode. An important one for people to hear. It was weather wars and the future of Noah. It spawned from a lot of misinformation and rumors that were online among like the meteorology world and among the Noah world about Project 2025. You know, there people are throwing this out here. You know, this is what's going to happen in 2025. There's a change with the administration. So fortunately I was able to get an interview with Neil Jacobs who actually used to run Noah. He used to be the head of Noah and so he no longer works for Noah so he can speak about it. Noah, you know, at the time was like, we can't talk about this. This is not something we can talk about. So he, being a former employee, was able to talk about it and he was very candid with me, super nice guy, really laid back and I think it answered a lot of questions about the structure of Noah, the history of Noah. There's still a lot I don't understand about like politics and structure of government. So I learned a lot from that episode and it gave me a lot of hope for the future as well.
- [35:27]
Andrew Buckmichael
That was a good one. And yeah, I mean, especially now with the new administrator, new administration wanting to do Doge, you would think that. I mean, a lot of times it seems that whether some people view it as something where we can trim back a little bit, but the fact that Elon Musk is part of that, leading it up, I mean, he runs SpaceX. I mean, weather is extremely important with launching rockets, whether they can launch or not. So hopefully he sees the value in the National Weather Service at least as much as what I feel the values there. I. I was very enlightened with that episode as well. And sometimes, if in the term people use in the industry is good get. And that was a great git for that.
- [36:06]
Emily Gracey
I know. Huge shout out to Erica Grow for that. She's a friend, a former TV meteorologist as well, and she works in Noah now. And she kind of. She was like, check, Check this one out. Just give this one a try. And he was responsive, which was great. So, yeah, that was my number three.
- [36:23]
Andrew Buckmichael
All right, number two. For me, this one is another great get. It's the turbulence one into the eye of Ian.
- [36:32]
Emily Gracey
Okay, so remind me, this is with Nick Underwood.
- [36:35]
Andrew Buckmichael
Yes. And it was basically the video that went viral where they're in the storm. The Dropsones are flying around everywhere. There may have been an expletive or not flown around in the video.
- [36:47]
Emily Gracey
On September 28, 2022, NOAA deployed their Hurricane Hunter aircraft into Hurricane Ian off of Florida's coastline. As it penetrated the eye wall, the crew on board started to notice this as a rougher than normal flight. And that's when Nick Underwood started recording on his phone. Over the next 10 minutes, this would become the most turbulent flight most of the crew had ever experienced. In the video, you can hear some nervous laughter as the ride starts to get a little wild. We're all right. We're all right.
- [37:17]
Andrew Buckmichael
Normally when you pass through an eye wall, it's a couple of minutes, you.
- [37:19]
Emily Gracey
Break out into the eye. We were in this eye wall for 10 minutes. Oh, there goes the sauce.
- [37:26]
Andrew Buckmichael
There goes the fence. Holy cow.
- [37:28]
Emily Gracey
And then.
- [37:31]
Andrew Buckmichael
Oh.
- [37:32]
Emily Gracey
This week, we are going off the radar to find out how that flight prompted one of the scientists on board to create a new way to quantify just how turbulent these flights into hurricanes can get. You got to be coming out of.
- [37:44]
Andrew Buckmichael
This, the amount of turbulence that they experienced in the storm. And then even since then, now they're starting, they have an algorithm to come up with how turbulent was it in that storm to kind of quantify how bad These planes are flying through the conditions. They're flying through how bad the conditions are. So that was one that most of the people I know probably seen that video and to get the behind the scenes take from him, because I've always wanted to fly with the hurricane hunters. There was one time when I had clearance from them to fly into a tropical storm while I was already in Florida and they were flying in and out of Tampa, but the storm fell apart while we were vacationing down there. So I was like, well, I guess that's not happening.
- [38:26]
Emily Gracey
Oh yeah. The stars always have to, like, really align to get on one of those media flights. And then there's this whole factor of, like, I am so scared of turbulence. I don't think I could actually do it. Like, I. I want to see the video, I want to hear about it, but I don't know that I could actually do it. Especially some of these recent missions.
- [38:43]
Andrew Buckmichael
Like, I don't like motion. I get motion sick on like, roller coasters. I won't do roller coasters, but in a plane. I don't mind the turbulence because I. I trust the engineers that put it all together, but it does. It would freak me out. I'm sure.
- [38:56]
Emily Gracey
I mentally do. And actually it was never a problem before I had kids, so I still blame them for that.
- [39:02]
Andrew Buckmichael
What do you have for number two?
- [39:03]
Emily Gracey
All right, number two is one we talked about already surviving Helene. So this one was about Asheville and the impact of Helene on Asheville. We spoke to Jason Boyer, who's the chief meteorologist there, about what he went through personally and professionally. I went to college in Asheville. I lived there for four. I interned at that station. And so I certainly, you know, am close to the situation and I have a lot of friends there still. So it was a hard one to kind of put together. And then what I really thought was great about this episode was the story at the beginning of it too. A woman that I found actually on Instagram named Ashton, who lives in Lake Lure, and she documented on Instagram, like, her story from start to finish. And it was really some of the first images that people were seeing on social media coming out of Lake Lure and Chimney Rock area. So the information she was putting out was so important. Her emotion, her storytelling was great. So editing together, it was almost like a seven minute audio package that I edited together. And I may actually rerun it in this episode if we have time because I just think, like, it's a really great story with a nice positive ending too. So that's my Number two, she was.
- [40:14]
Andrew Buckmichael
Good, too, because she kind of dictated what was happening. It wasn't just you're watching it happen. She kind of verbally told you what was happening. So it was. It almost like made it sink in even deeper.
- [40:27]
Emily Gracey
Yeah. And, you know, for a podcast. For a podcast, great as well, because, you know, listeners could hear it and not just see it.
- [40:33]
Andrew Buckmichael
All right, number one, can't wait. I love learning things. That's the main reason I listen to podcasts, is always just learning something. So mine was forecasting the future of golf because I felt like I could. I felt like I took away so much from this episode because you talk about some of the king tides flooding down there, and that played into this episode, and then just the way that the wind, the weather, the temperatures, the humidity all impacts somebody playing golf. And I learned a lot from it. And I don't think it's going to help my golf game, but hopefully it does. Hopefully I can apply that.
- [41:14]
Emily Gracey
This was on my top 10 list as well, and I got bumped, and now I feel really bad, mostly because my husband was one of the guests on that episode because he's a golf course architect, and we talked about kind of the changing, you know, landscape of golf course architecture with sea level rise. So, yeah, I'm really glad that's your number one. Did you know who Andrew Rice was before that episode?
- [41:33]
Andrew Buckmichael
I did not, but he was amazing to listen to. And his. His accent, I couldn't pinpoint his accent because it would change sometimes.
- [41:42]
Emily Gracey
I know. I think he's South African.
- [41:45]
Andrew Buckmichael
Okay. Sometimes I thought it was, like, English, and then it got like a little Southern draw a little bit. A couple of times it was. He was in the sayings that he had. Yeah, he. He would have these, like, little catchphrases and sayings. Like, it was a. It was very enlightening and a really fun episode to listen to.
- [42:02]
Emily Gracey
You know what? I like about him, too? And maybe you've experienced this when you interview people. He's one of those people I interviewed that said my name a lot during the interview, and that always makes me feel, like, really good about myself when people do that.
- [42:13]
Andrew Buckmichael
All of the information I'm going to share with you is very much what I term to be a rule of thumb, Emily.
- [42:19]
Emily Gracey
Okay.
- [42:20]
Andrew Buckmichael
It's not going to be exactly perfect, but it really is good enough for the vast majority of golfers out there to make better informed decisions as to what club to hit and how to.
- [42:31]
Emily Gracey
Play a particular shot.
- [42:32]
Andrew Buckmichael
So, yeah, I completely agree, Emily.
- [42:35]
Emily Gracey
I should do that with My guests, Andrew. Okay. Just feels awkward. All right, my number one, you ready for it?
- [42:42]
Andrew Buckmichael
Yep. Let's hear it.
- [42:44]
Emily Gracey
All right. My number one is Listen to the Universe. NASA turns space images into sounds. Think about the last time you looked up at the night sky. The blackness of space adorned with the glittering radiance of countless stars. Peering into a telescope, you see distant planets and faraway galaxies. Now imagine if, rather than taking that in with your eyes, you were using your ears. Have you ever wondered what a black hole might sound like? What if these sounds were the only way you could understand what was going on in space? Sonifications allow the audience, including blind and bright visually impaired communities, to listen to astronomical images and explore their data. Today we are going off the radar and off the visual spectrum to listen to the universe. We'll learn about how data from deep space telescopes is being translated into sounds. You'll experience celestial phenomena through an entirely new medium that may upend how we perceive and see. Study the universe itself. So it's a really cool episode to, to listen to, but also kind of self indulgent. As a podcaster and an editor, it was really fun to put together.
- [44:10]
Andrew Buckmichael
You have a lot of science. I mean, you, you typically cover science, so I'm not surprised that it was a science. One is number one for you when you did the interview, because I listened to it while I was running. I couldn't see the photos. But when you were talking with her, did you. Did you. Were you able to see the photo with the sound as she was talking about it?
- [44:28]
Emily Gracey
Nope, I wasn't looking at anything, which I actually think helped. I looked at some stuff ahead of time, but her description of some of them kind of start from the middle and work their way out. Some of them would pan across an image. So her descriptions were really, really interesting. And the whole thing is kind of mind blowing to me. And as somebody who can see, kind of hard to grasp as well, you.
- [44:51]
Andrew Buckmichael
Know, while I was listening to it, I tried envisioning what the photos look like. And I did go back later to try to look at those photos. And it's amazing, just the sound, how accurately they were able to portray the image that I then tried to look at later.
- [45:05]
Emily Gracey
Yeah, and she said, you know, they, they did their best to make it like a pleasant sound because nobody wants to hear like a screeching noise, you know, so beautiful noises. So that one was a really fun one to put together. And I really like space. Another one of the episodes, you know, honorable Mention that got bumped from the list was the International Space Station episode because just think, space is so cool. And I was able to interview an astronaut, Stan Love, about his time on the iss. So that was another, another good space one that I like.
- [45:31]
Andrew Buckmichael
I was able to use the ISS podcast knowledge to talk about it on air this morning, actually.
- [45:36]
Emily Gracey
Well, yeah, what did you talk about?
- [45:38]
Andrew Buckmichael
How the two astronauts are stuck up there even longer now. And I was like, yeah, they're just, they're just trying to soak it in before the ISS is eventually decommissioned, just falling apart.
- [45:48]
Emily Gracey
The whole thing blew my mind too, as far as like, I thought they were just going to like slowly break it down piece by piece. He was like, no, we're going to crash it in the ocean.
- [45:55]
Andrew Buckmichael
Yeah, that would be something to go and try to watch if possible. I know you can't be running the crash zone, but as close as possible, because I'm assuming that that's just got to be an amazing thing to witness.
- [46:06]
Emily Gracey
I know. I'm sure we'll see some, some images. Okay, well, Andrew, this is awesome. And I want to give a little brief tease to some stuff coming up in 2025 as well, because the look, it's hard to think that we could possibly compete with these episodes from past years, but some stuff that I'm working on coming up. One of them being we talked about a part two of the tsunami podcast. So we're going to go deeper into the science of tsunami. Tsunami warnings. I'm going to talk to the Pacific Tsunami Warning center about that. That's one episode I have coming up. I know you'll like this AI. We've talked about AI and Google and DeepMind. I don't know if you saw the news about their 15 day super accurate forecast. So I'm talking to Google about that.
- [46:48]
Andrew Buckmichael
That's awesome.
- [46:49]
Emily Gracey
Yeah. Another one that I'm very excited about is because I'm dark. So climate change is unearthing bodies on Mount Everest. So there's been a lot of melting ice and all of a sudden these bodies are coming up because so many people have died since the 20s and 30s on Mount Everest. So talking to a climate scientist, some people who have actually been there to learn a little bit more about that. And it's kind of fascinating to me because they're like frozen in time. So you might get a climber from like the 30s who is like perfectly preserved when they died on Mount Everest. So I'm pretty fascinated with that. And then on that same topic of death, Sinclair's got a whole true crime unit. And so I did a collaborative episode with them because it's heat related. So we're going to talk about heat related deaths. And then also an episode coming up about fire weather prediction and how AI tools are going to be used for that. So some interesting things. What about you? You got anything going on in Ohio we should keep an eye out for?
- [47:51]
Andrew Buckmichael
No, I think earthquakes. We've seen to have a lot of earthquakes lately.
- [47:55]
C
It's.
- [47:56]
Andrew Buckmichael
I think, I don't know, we've had a couple of them here in Ohio that have been felt. So I think it's just, I don't know, something. Earthquakes have been a little topical lately around the area. So I think everyone's just.
- [48:08]
Emily Gracey
You feel them when they happen.
- [48:09]
Andrew Buckmichael
I have not. But I know that the southern part of the state had one the other day where even like the traffic cameras, the. The Ohio Department of Transportation cameras were able to catch some of the shaking and stuff. So I tried to kind of compare what our earthquake was versus the 7.3 magnitude earthquake that we had just a few days ago. So just kind of showing people like what we experienced was nothing compared to some of these other earthquakes.
- [48:35]
Emily Gracey
Yeah, yeah. We get them frequently here in South Carolina too. There's a fault line, I guess I've never felt one here. I have felt one in my life. And that was the one in the mid Atlantic back in like 2012, I think it was. And that was wild. I was in a pool when it happened. So that was a very strange experience. Especially never having felt the ground shake before. I think if you're on the west coast, maybe it's a little bit more common. Yeah, people are terrified. Understandably so. Well, that's all I have. Do you have anything else you want to add?
- [49:05]
Andrew Buckmichael
No. This has been a lot of fun. I will make sure that I do not skip any episodes next year where I don't have to binge. But it was kind of fun to just. I probably had maybe, I don't know, seven or eight episodes where I just binged over the last couple of days and it was fun. And I was like, why did I skip this episode? This was. This is actually like the golf one. I don't know why. I don't know if I was just busy that week, but I was like, man, this was probably my favorite episode in chat.
- [49:28]
Emily Gracey
You were probably watching the Masters because that's when it came out.
- [49:31]
Andrew Buckmichael
That may have been what I was doing. I could have listened to the episode while watching the Masters.
- [49:36]
Emily Gracey
I didn't think. I thought I was planning it perfectly.
- [49:38]
Andrew Buckmichael
No, this has been perfect. Thank you so much for having me on. It's been an honor.
- [49:41]
Emily Gracey
Yeah, let's do it again next year. And let's do a collaborative episode, too.
- [49:45]
Andrew Buckmichael
I'm down for that.
- [49:46]
Emily Gracey
Awesome. Andrew Buckmichael, thank you so much.
- [49:49]
Andrew Buckmichael
Thank you.
- [49:53]
Emily Gracey
Before we go today, I'd like to replay a portion of the Hurricane Helene episode. You heard me telling Andrew why. This episode was one of my top picks. And this story of Ashton Rice in Lake Lure, North Carolina, is why. On Thursday, September 26th, the Category 4 hurricane was moving onshore near Perry, Florida. About 400 miles north of there, heavy rain was starting to fall in Lake Lure, North Carolina, where Ashton Rice and her husband Nick own a pottery.
- [50:26]
Andrew Buckmichael
It might come in this building.
- [50:32]
Emily Gracey
They had heard on the news that Hurricane Helene would be impacting the area.
- [50:37]
C
So I got here and I told my husband, I said, I heard on the news that the hurricane would might possibly affect Chimney Rock. And he looked at me, he was like, that's crazy. There's no way that a hurricane is going to come to this area. So Thursday, we actually were in here doing pottery, and we were sitting at the table, and it was like about 6 or 7, and it was already raining. And I think we finished painting our mugs about an hour or two after. And when we walked to the front, the rain was already at our little sidewalk that you walk up to get into our studio. Look at that on the road.
- [51:15]
Emily Gracey
Holy cow. As the evening went on, conditions started getting worse. That's when they decided to leave their home and go seek shelter with friends.
- [51:30]
C
So finally, I think it was like 1am we went to sleep, and when we woke up to sirens, it was the sirens off of the dam. You couldn't really hear exactly what he was saying off of the siren because of how loud the wind and the rain and the water rushing was. But it was something along the lines of seek higher ground, evacuate now. Well, we couldn't. My gosh, you can't even see the table now. Look, this is just for reference. That's a door. The landslide had already, like, took the road with it around the dam because it had gone six feet out up side of the dam. The water had. So it was flowing around it and it took that road with it. So we couldn't get out because the only way in was going across the dam. Oh, my gosh. Oh, yeah, look at your stairs. Just in case you want to go down on your dog. So we walked up the road a little bit, and Nick was like, maybe we can Go the back way. Well, there were trees down as far as the eye could see and there was no going the back way. Seeing all of the things we saw in the water. That's the roof of it. It's sunk. Things were going over the dam.
- [52:49]
Emily Gracey
Oh, it's a.
- [52:50]
C
No, look, it's on. It's a trailer. It's a trailer. It just fell over. It started sinking in around like lunchtime. That things were not going to get any better anytime because of how many people were on that road. And we were the ones with the generator. We were feeding everybody. We were running out of food and water and me and my husband looked at each other. We were like, we're going to have to kayak to our studio to get the food that we know we bought.
- [53:20]
Emily Gracey
So they made the difficult decision to leave their nine year old son with friends and kayak across the lake to get supplies from their studio.
- [53:28]
C
I definitely felt weird leaving Liam, but I knew I didn't want him in the kayak with us. I think that probably upset him a little bit just because he didn't know like if mom and dad were coming back or what was going on. So we kayaked across the lake to our studio, which was. It took a good like 30, 45 minutes to get here. Of course there was a lot of things in the water. There were some things that we didn't know what they were.
- [54:00]
Emily Gracey
They made it to the other side of Lake Lure and started the trek up the mountain to the studio.
- [54:06]
C
There were trees and power lines down everywhere. Like we had to climb over some, climb under some.
- [54:11]
Emily Gracey
Oh yeah, it, it's gone, it's gone. You can see.
- [54:16]
C
No, it's not, it's not live.
- [54:18]
Emily Gracey
What made you decide to pull out your phone and record?
- [54:21]
C
I honestly thought, I'll record this and send it to my mom because I knew that she lived in Trousers Rest, South Carolina, and I knew she would have been worried. So I was like, I'll just send these to her when I get cell phone service and it won't be a big deal. Well, honestly, I never thought recording it all, that I would be putting it together piece by piece for people to watch and that it would get that much attention because I really didn't think that. I thought everyone would already know. I thought like news crews would be required recording. I just thought that I would just be another person telling someone a story. But to know that nobody even knew this is so crazy what was going on. And they were seeing it firsthand through my videos.
- [55:04]
Emily Gracey
The whole I Know the whole.
- [55:06]
C
And also when I got out and got service and saw other pictures and videos, it just. It broke me. I finally had a moment to myself where I could just sit down and take it all in. And it's definitely devastating. It's heartbreaking. There's no sign of life. There's nobody outside. You don't hear birds. You didn't hear anything rustling in the leaves. You didn't hear anything. All you heard was helicopters and sirens. And honestly, this might sound crazy, but I still hear that siren in my head that was playing on the dam every day. It's just crazy to think that something so structural, as far as a house built on a firm, solid ground can be taken away by water is.
- [56:05]
Emily Gracey
It's just.
- [56:06]
C
It's terrifying, really. After the hurricane, there has been so many people helping people that it just gives you faith in humanity again, if that makes any sense. There will be people going down the road, and they'll just stop and say, are y'all okay? Do you need water? There's been plenty of people that have reached out to me that don't even live in North Carolina, that want to send things to us via post office, or they'll drive three hours. I'll drive three hours to bring you a blanket. Like, it's just so nice to know that strangers are willing to put their best foot forward to help other people.
- [56:47]
Emily Gracey
How's your son doing?
- [56:50]
C
He's afraid to let me out of his sight. I'm assuming that's from when he went on the kayaks and the canoes and left him there with Frank. I'm assuming that probably is what caused all of that. It's almost like he's afraid another shoe's gonna drop. It's really hard to, I guess, pick your life up where it left off. It's almost like we woke up and our world was turned upside down. It's almost like we're afraid to even watch tv, for instance, because it feels weird finding joy in watching tv. It feels like we're not supposed to be happy yet.
- [57:27]
Emily Gracey
Each day is getting a little bit easier in Lake Lure in western North Carolina, on day 15, at Ashton's home, she got some good news. We have power.
- [57:39]
C
We have power.
- [57:41]
Emily Gracey
We have shoes. We have clothes.
- [57:45]
C
We ate a warm meal. But to have power is like, Honestly, I know this is probably a stretch, but like, a miracle because they have so much work to do that I'm just blessed that they got our power back on. I'm trying to hold it together, y'all. I don't even have words. No words. Just grateful, humble, grateful. God is here, y'all.
- [58:17]
Emily Gracey
Foreign is a production of the National Weather Desk. Make sure you're following the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. New episodes publish every Tuesday. Also, if there are any episodes that you heard about today that you want to go back and listen to, make sure you check those out. If you know someone that's interested in weather and earth science, please share the show with them. Special thanks to Andrew Buck Michael for joining me today. Make sure you check out his podcast Weathering the Run on any podcast platform. I'm meteorologist Emily Gracie. Happy New Year.