“In 1998, no one was hurt,” he said, “but in Katrina, 180 people died.” Tommy said that the weather team did their job, “helping people prepare through disseminating information.” In the midst of the storm, the weather team stayed put in that little building on Debuys Road, just a half mile form the beach. Tommy said that one of his proudest experiences working at WLOX was covering Hurricane Katrina. “I called it my Big Head Reality Check,” Mike said, because it reminded him how important his job is. Mike said for a log time he had the letter from President Reagan and the angry postcard displayed side by side on the wall above his desk. Mike recalls receiving one especially angry postcard from a local viewer who felt like his day was ruined when it rained when Mike had reported that it wasn’t too likely. But like most weathermen, Mike has received his share of “nasty” letters too. And of course, the chiding didn’t stop after Mike actually did receive a letter from the president commending him for a job well done. “I was ragged by my co-workers about those letters,” he said. One fan wrote to tell him that he was going to tell President Reagan about his heroism. He said that afterwards, viewers thought he was, “a real weather guru,” from then on. Mike spent the next 36 hours on the air non-stop covering the impending storm. Elena took a sharp turn and headed back toward the Mississippi Coast. But, when Mike took to the air waves for one last storm report, he told his viewers, “We’ll keep an eye on this storm in case it turns back.” And his suspicions were right. It looked like the Mississippi Coast would be spared. ![]() “We were watching Hurricane Elena, and it looked like it was going to turn toward Florida,” Mike recounted. ![]() “I was the weather guy that no one knew,” he said. ![]() In 1983, Mike came to WLOX as the weekend weather man.
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