The lesson of helping to save the Hurricane Hunters

NPR recently featured a story on the Air Force Reserve 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron, better known as the Hurricane Hunters. The 10 aircraft that comprise the squadron derive their nickname from a 1943 incident in which a pilot-trainer, responding to a bar bet, flew into a Category 1 hurricane near Galveston, Texas.

The squadron’s WC-130J aircraft, based at Keesler Air Force Base outside Biloxi, Miss., have not been replaced since 1999. Their mission is to fly multiple times directly into a storm — for example, into the eye of a hurricane.

Not surprisingly, over the decades these planes have been battered by high winds and hailstorms. Yet they perform a unique function. Although satellites can detect cyclones, typhoons and hurricanes, only aircraft can measure accurate wind speed and directional data, critical tools for forecasters to gauge the size of storms and when and where they will make landfall.

The proliferation of the storms in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans as well as in the Gulf of Mexico have sorely stressed the squadron and its 100 pilots and aircrews, half of whom are active Air Force Reservists and the other half part-time Reserve. Their patrols have risen from six to 10 months annually, and they range as far north as Canada. As a result of climate change, major storms are expected to become even more frequent, and the pressure on the ancient aircraft and the people that crew them will increase as well.

Yet it was not all that long ago that the Defense Department sought to retire the Hurricane Hunters. Early in 2001, when I was serving as an undersecretary of in the department, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told me explicitly to drop the planes from the Fiscal Year 2003 budget. He saw no need to retain them, especially as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA) also had (and still has) its own Hurricane Hunter Squadron. In fact, the two squadrons take different sets of measurements, and both are needed for accurate storm forecasting.

When Sen. Trent Lott heard about Rumsfeld’s plans, he contacted me and invited me down to Biloxi. He made it clear that he was bitterly opposed to disbanding the squadron that was based in his home state. He argued that the squadron more than paid for itself. Lott had just relinquished his post as Senate majority leader, but as minority leader, and therefore the most powerful Republican in the Senate, he had massive political clout with the Bush administration. I therefore felt it imprudent to deny his request. I included the planes in the upcoming budget.

When Rumsfeld asked me if the squadron was gone, I told him that given Lott’s strong opposition to doing any such thing, it would take time to convince him to back down. In fact, I had no intention of doing so. Over the next two years, Rumsfeld would occasionally query me about the fate of the squadron, and I would simply say “I’m working on it.” He eventually stopped asking me about the planes, perhaps because, with ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, he had much more urgent concerns.

Two decades later, it is clear that in light of increasing demand for its operations, which has forced it to prioritize which storms it will penetrate, the squadron desperately requires additional resources, especially for a variety of technical upgrades. Thus far, those resources have not been included in DoD budgets. As a result, the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act called for a report to address the question of whether both the Air Force and NOAA Hurricane Hunters required additional resources to carry out their missions over the next 10 years. DoD has yet to submit its report to Congress.

Clearly, America is very fortunate that Rumsfeld did not get his way on the Hurricane Hunters. Their missions over the past nearly 25 years have saved countless lives and millions of dollars by giving forecasters the ability to offer sufficient advance notice for communities — and for military bases along America’s coastlines — to take precautionary safety measures.

The case of the Hurricane Hunters is not unique. DoD’s fiscal 2025 budget includes a provision to retire 10 warships well before the end of their service life and to drop seven more over the following two fiscal years. The proposal has stirred opposition in the Congress; given the threats that the U.S. now faces not only in the Pacific but once again in the Atlantic and the Middle East, now is hardly the time to reduce an already shrunken fleet.

The lesson of the Hurricane Hunters is clear, however. Sometimes, a budget cutting effort can prove far more costly if it succeeds, and far more beneficial if it fails.

Dov S. Zakheim is a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and vice chairman of the board for the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He was undersecretary of Defense (comptroller) and chief financial officer for the Department of Defense from 2001 to 2004 and a deputy undersecretary of Defense from 1985 to 1987.