BILOXI, Miss. (WLOX) - Lt. Col. Sean Cross is an evaluator pilot for the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron at Keesler Air Force Base. As a Hurricane Hunter, he flies straight into some of the biggest storms before they can make landfall.

One of those missions was Hurricane Katrina, which he explains he watched “blow up” into a Category 3 as it hit the Coast.

“We were sitting there loitering off the tip of Florida as she came off and rapidly exploded into a Category 1 hurricane,” explained Lt. Col. Cross. “We flew it all that morning and landed back here in Biloxi, and by the time I woke up that afternoon after flying all night long and into the late morning, she had exploded into the Gulf as everybody remembers. You could pull up and see those shots of satellite. it took up the entire

See Full Page