SLIDELL (WGNO)— Living in Louisiana and dealing with hurricanes—the Mayor of Slidell, Greg Cromer wanted to learn more about hurricanes and how to prepare for them.
Mayor Cromer headed to the Climatology Center at Colorado State University where researchers predict how many major storms we could see this year.
WGNO’s Kenny Lopez spoke with Mayor Cromer about his experience!
“They are the ones that do it. They are the smart guys that track all that stuff,” Mayor Greg Cromer said.
Slidell’s Mayor wanted to get more knowledge about hurricanes so he headed west to Colorado State University’s Climatology Center in Fort Collins.
“I thought after Hurricane Ida that this will be good to visit the Climatology Center. They are doing their best to help make good predictions to help us prepare,” he said.
Every year, CSU predicts the number of named storms, hurricanes, and whether it will be an active hurricane season. 2022 is predicted to be an above average hurricane season.
“We went through the whole process of how they track the storms and how they make their predictions and how they do their data analysis,” Mayor Cromer said.
Cromer said that learning from CSU researchers for him was eye-opening.
“We are all trying our best to prepare for these things and put our best foot forward,” he said.
Mayor Cromer now feels that CSU researchers could learn from experiencing a storm on the Gulf Coast.
“I offered them if there’s a named storm or activity in the Gulf baring down on us, if they’d like to come down and imbed with our teams, see what our police, fire, and public works do during a storm and after a storm,” he said.
Although hurricanes are unpredictable, preparation for Mayor Cromer is key.
“It was really cool, and it was enlightening to better understand,” he said.
The connection with Mayor Cromer and CSU was made because Mayor Cromer is friends with Wade Troxell who is the former mayor of Fort Collins, and he now works at CSU.
Mayor Cromer headed to CSU last year after Hurricane Ida.