Matt Lanza

The peak of hurricane season is August and September.

Usually the last couple of weeks of August and the first couple of weeks of September are usually the most frenetic.

I grew up in southern New Jersey, just outside of Atlantic City.

I remember when I was three years old, we had Hurricane Gloria come up the coast.

This was 1985.

And we had to evacuate my grandmother, who lived in Atlantic City on a barrier island, to bring her onto the mainland.

And just something about that moment, I think, triggered my interest in meteorology and hurricanes.

And, you know, I guess it's kind of fate that I'm here in Houston now.

Yes, regularly by everything, not just hurricanes, but all sorts of weather and hurricanes just are kind of the top of the pyramid for us in terms of threats.

Yes.

Last year, Hurricane Beryl 2024 was, I'll use scare quotes, only a Category 1, but it was a nasty Category 1 storm.

Did a lot of damage, knocked out a lot of power.

It was interesting to go through because I had actually not been in an actual hurricane.

I've been in some tropical storms before, but going through a hurricane was kind of a whole other experience.

Not necessarily one I want to go through again.

Yeah, it felt different.

You know, when you think of a hurricane, like you think of, it's just a constant ferocious wind that's like continuously coming.

And it wasn't that like there were gaps where it was calm.

And then all of a sudden, you would just get these nasty wind gusts.

And that's what knocked down tree branches and limbs.