Hurricane Season is here: What is your best storm story?

Hurricanes? Those fruity tasting pink drinks with little umbrellas?

I got caught in one driving back to my HOR. I was in Pennsylvania with 2 young kids and when I realized I couldn't even see the wiper blades, I had no choice but to creep along to the next exit which luckily had hotels where we could bed down for the night. I've also been at the epicenter of an earthquake, experienced several more, been in a building torn apart by a tornado 3 feet from where I was standing and the planes were thrown about like darts, blizzards, white outs, Duststorms, etc. I have yet to experience a tsunami and will be perfectly happy if I never do. So the takeaway from this little blurb is as long as you are within 3 feet of me, you are safe.

My best “storm story” tells the tale of a submarine that wanted to be something else. It lasts only about 45 seconds in real time. But, since I like to hear myself talk…

We (USS Permit, SSN-594) were on assignment in the North Pacific. This starts with the TDU (Trash Disposal Unit) on a sub. You can’t throw stuff overboard, so we had a “mini torpedo tube” in the galley. You’d load up your garbage into nylon mesh bags in the TDU, load a few 8’ weights in the bag, and, like a torpedo, use water pressure to “shoot” the garbage out the bottom of the boat. Over and over again, until the garbage is all gone. There was a maximum depth allowed for using the TDU, so we had to come close to the surface.

So we’re at 120’ shooting TDUs. We’re rockin’ and rollin’, doing up to 35 to 40 degree rolls. I’m on watch as the Throttleman in the Maneuvering Room. I never minded the rolls so much, it was all the alarms going off intermittently - howling and screaming at us - as the contents of tanks and stuff were sloshing around.

In Maneuvering we have a digital depth detector so we know how deep the sub is. (We don’t want to “cavitate” and give away our position.) Because of the horrible waves above us, we’re watching the depth swing all over… 60’… 90’… 120’… 80’… But, although we’re rolling port and starboard, there’s no “angle” on the sub. Suddenly (isn’t it always “suddenly”?) we see 150’, then the indicator starts flashing “9999”… OK. Either we’re gonna die real quick, or…

BOOOM!!!

The whole ship shudders and we all get walloped around in our chairs. That can only mean ONE THING… We “broached” the sub. The impact was the Sail Planes smacking into the water as the sub slams back underwater. The depth detector comes back to life… 0’… 60’… 90’… 190’!!! and settles out at 210’.

The waves were so big that we DROVE OUT OF A WAVE… We went from 150’ to “airborne” (well, the front of the boat was out of the water, anyway) without changing depth!

The Officer of the Deck secured TDU ops immediately, and down we went to wait out the storm.

That was pretty cool – afterwards.

I should have been in the Navy. I had grown up sailing. I was a Sea Scout. When I turned 18, I earned my Coast Guard license to operate vessels for hire on inland waterways and coastwise. But they were too slow processing my application and I ended up in the Army. Thus, my storm story comes from a time before I entered the military. We were crossing the Chesapeake Bay in a war surplus 42' Army Air Force Crash Boat. We had almost arrived at Cambridge Md when we received word that a 24' Chris Craft with a young family on board had lost power and were foundering in the middle of the bay. There was no one else available and we went back out for them. I will never forget hanging onto the hand rails on the bow pointing out crab pots to the skipper as we plunged through enormous seas. (In the bay, unlike the ocean, the waves don't spread out as they get larger - they just get steeper). It was a helluva ride for a 14 year old kid...