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For those who knew Peter Dodge, it was only fitting that his ashes were scattered in the eye of a hurricane.
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Dodge, a meteorologist who died last year at age 73, was hit by 386 storms during a career that spanned more than four decades.
On Tuesday, a crew from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration helped Dodge get one final flight. NOAA's Hurricane Hunters released his ashes into Hurricane Milton's eyewall in a tribute to Dodge's life and love of meteorology. The ashes were wrapped in the flag of Dodge's home state of Florida, along with his flight suit badge and a sticker indicating his hundreds of flights on his eyewall.
Dodge's close friend and colleague Frank Marks said releasing his ashes in Hurricane Milton was “a total honor and a great tribute to Peter and everything he did for us.”
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Marks, former director of the hurricane research division at NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory in Miami, where Dodge worked until his death, described the meteorologist as one of the “glue guys” — someone who made his job look easier. , even in the face of terrible natural disasters.
The pair met in the early 1980s when Marks hired Dodge to help develop radar technology that would be used to study storms.
Dodge, who at the time had just completed his master's degree from the University of Washington in Seattle, was “one of the first people I was told to hire,” Marks said. A colleague who taught Dodge told Marks he was very good.
Much of the technology used to track storms today, Marks said, began with programs Dodge wrote over the years.
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As they worked together, Marks quickly learned that when Dodge laid out his ideas via email and wrote “IMHO,” which stands for “in my humble opinion,” Marks should heed them because “that meant I was screwing up,” he said. .
Dodge was a problem solver, Marks said, a smart, no-nonsense scientist who loved flying.
On September 15, 1989, the pair were part of a crew of more than a dozen people who flew over Hurricane Hugo.
They had just entered the Category 5 storm when one of the plane's engines caught fire, throwing the mission into chaos, Marks recalled. The aircraft eventually emerged from the storm unharmed, but later some of the crew decided to return home.
Marks and Dodge flew into the Hurricane together two days later.
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During federal hurricane hunter missions, Dodge often served as an onboard radar scientist. Over the course of his career, he received the Department of Commerce's Bronze Medal and the Army Corps of Engineers' Patriotic Civilian Service Award.
'PETER WAS UNFORGETTABLE'
“Peter was unflappable,” Marks said. “That’s the best thing I can say.”
Dodge maintained this spirit in the last decade of his life, even when he lost his sight.
He requested accommodations from NOAA, using a Braille keyboard so he could continue working. He could no longer fly into storms, but he helped with missions in other ways, such as refining the programs that future crews would use.
“He loved what he did,” Marks said. “I don’t think he could think of anything else.”
And he didn't need to.
Around 11pm on Tuesday, hurricane hunters inside Milton placed the package of Dodge's ashes inside a ramp of their aircraft, releasing it into the storm. The release of his ashes was marked in the mission's vortex message, which records the main parts of a flight.
“PETER DODGE HX SCI (1950-2023),” the message said.
The ash probably took about eight minutes to reach the ocean's surface, Marks said.
And in those minutes, Dodge finished his last mission. The vortex message recorded its final flight record – 387.
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