WEATHER: The Hole in the Doughnut

Northwestward between Bermuda and Puerto Rico, a hurricane was boring in on the U.S. coast. From San Juan, the Navy’s “hurricane hunters” skewered through its lethal winds in four-motored planes, probing for new weather information. On one flight last week, the United Press’s Milton Carr went along. His account:

“We battled the black, doughnut-shaped monster for more than two hours. . . . Winds of 140-mile-an-hour velocity slammed us once to within 250 feet of the churning seas. The pilot and copilot worked feverishly to pull out, but it was like trying to swim up a waterfall.

“For an instant, the plane was virtually stationary. We could feel it shudder as the engines clawed at the wall of rain and wind. Then it began to skid sidewise.

“After that paralyzing moment the plane gained forward momentum. Two hundred and fifty feet below, the sea looked like a huge vanilla milk-shake in a mixer. All around, for a hundred miles in any direction and for possibly 20,000 feet upward, was the hurricane. We were in the center.

“Then darkness closed in. It was three o’clock in the afternoon and above the swirling storm the sun was shining. Yet the plane wing, which seconds before I had watched flap like a bird’s wing, no longer was visible. The shriek of the wind drowned out the engines. Water began to pour in through the roof and sides.

“Forward, in the cockpit, the pilot and copilot were wrestling with the controls to keep the big ship’s nose up. They were flying blind. The needle registering altitude bounced crazily between 200 and 800 feet. The plane was bobbing too fast for the instrument to keep up. . . . I tried to swallow but couldn’t. . . . My legs were numb from the hips down, partly from the pressure of the safety belt cutting into my belly, but mostly from fear.

“Suddenly we were blinded by a bright glare. We had broken through into the center of the doughnut. It was like coming out of a tunnel. Wind velocity dropped at least one-half in the space of seconds. The plane righted itself and started climbing, but in a minute and a half we crossed the relative calm of the center and smashed into the other side. . . .

“Two hours after entering the storm we came out the other side. . . . ‘Whew,’ said the pilot. ‘I could certainly use some relaxation right now—with an olive in it.’ “