Into The Eye Of The Storm
As Florida residents scattered to escape the path of Hurricane Ivan, Concordia-Moorhead English professor W. Scott Olsen prepared for an eye-to-eye encounter with it. The travel and adventure writer joined with the Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunters to experience the storm firsthand.
The Hurricane Hunters gather and interpret data that helps the National Hurricane Center predict a storm's path and strength. Promising to write about his experience, Olsen secured a rare seat on the flight, riding with a CNN television crew and a local television crew as the only civilians.
Olsen will include his hurricane flight in a new anthology about severe weather and travel. The trip is also proving a powerful learning tool for his composition students.
"The trip with the Hurricane Hunters presented some interesting writing challenges and the process of working through these is something I bring to the challenges my students face in their work," says Olsen. "Writing instruction is mentoring, experience talking to ambition, and this trip gave me a lot of experience."
