KEESLER AIR FORCE BASE, Miss. -- The Air Force Reserve’s “Hurricane Hunters” have faced countless storms over the years, but in late August 2005, as the Gulf of Mexico churned beneath them, Lt. Col. Sean Cross sensed that this one would be different. Hurricane Katrina was coming for the Gulf Coast.
As a pilot with the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron, Cross had flown into dozens of hurricanes, yet this mission carried an unfamiliar weight. “I told my wife and her friends a couple of nights before,” he recalled, “the Coast is about to be changed forever.”
After his initial reconnaissance flight, Cross and his wife Apryl, who was his girlfriend at the time, joined friends for dinner, their laughter unable to mask the tension. Cross sensed life was about to shift dramatically.
He urged his partner to prepare. Supplies needed to be stocked, and aircraft had already been moved from Keesler. Forecasters predicted landfall. By Aug. 27, 2005, Cross was focused on getting everyone ready. He organized logistics, monitored evacuations, and observed traffic clogging the routes.
His wife, however, wasn’t convinced. She, just like most people on the coast, assumed the worst would not happen.
That evening, two days before Katrina hit, Cross’ wife insisted they go have dinner with their close friends, but he hesitated.
“I didn’t think it was a good idea,” he said. “The Coast was about to get hit. Everyone should be preparing, evacuating, doing what they can to be safe.”
But she persuaded him, and they went.
They sat on the back porch of a local restaurant, the air warm but heavy with anticipation. His wife tried to explain to their friends why Cross was so anxious about the storm, and he finally broke in.
"Look, you guys don't understand. This is my life," he said. He recounted growing up in New Orleans, witnessing powerful storms since childhood, surviving Hurricane Andrew in South Louisiana, later moving to Florida and enduring Hurricane Opal's direct hit in the mid-1990s. "When a storm of this magnitude comes on land," he said, "it changes everything — the people, the structures, the land. It's mind-blowing what it can do."
Many locals underestimated the threat, shaped by memories of surviving Hurricane Camille, creating a sense of invulnerability.
This mindset made people skeptical of warnings, filtering Katrina through the lens of past experiences, not the current threat.
Cross looked at his friends and his wife, the weight of what was coming settling on him. “The coast is about to be changed forever,” he said. “It’s going to be completely different from the way you know it now.”
The calm before the storm faded. By the next morning, Aug. 28, 2005, the Coast was in a panic, said Cross, with mandatory evacuations were put in effect, roads heading east to the Florida Panhandle were blocked with traffic, leaving only one viable escape: north to Wiggins, Mississippi. Cross and his wife packed quickly and headed inland, hoping to find safety on his future in-laws’ chicken farm, far enough away to ride out the Katrina.
The storm hit like a freight train Aug 29, 2005. Katrina made landfall as a Category 3 Storm causing significant devastation in Biloxi, Mississippi, and along the Gulf Coast, with water levels reaching 20-30 feet due to storm surge and powerful winds.
In Wiggins, Cross and his group clung to each other beneath the dining room table. The walls shuddered with every boom. The roof moaned above them. Outside, massive pines snapped with deafening cracks. Transformers exploded in blinding blue flashes. The wind screamed, relentless and furious. It felt as if the world itself was being ripped apart.
"The sound was indescribable," he said. "It felt like the world was tearing apart."
After the storm passed, Cross found himself clearing roads in Wiggins on a tractor with a chainsaw, making paths for emergency responders. “I had to put the bucket on a downed power line, cut a tree loose, and back off as it whipped in the wind,” he said. “It was chaos, but someone had to do it so help could get through.”
With no power for several days, Cross and those sheltering in Wiggins were cut off from the outside world. Eventually, he found a small TV and, using a metal coat hanger as an antenna, finally caught a glimpse of the destruction along the Gulf Coast. The images confirmed what he already knew in his gut: he needed to get back to Biloxi.
When Cross returned, devastation punched him in the chest. Streets vanished under tangled debris and shattered dreams. Downed power lines lay beside the lifeless bodies of those caught by the storm. Whole neighborhoods simply ceased to exist. Cars lay buried under twisted rafters, pianos dangled from scarred trees, and homes were annihilated, nothing but memories drowning in the surge that swallowed all.
“It was like Armageddon,” he recalled, voice raw. “Apocalyptic. People wandered like ghosts, filthy, lost, everything they’d known erased overnight.”
Water submerged entire neighborhoods. Rescue teams worked tirelessly to recover those trapped or injured.
Even amid the destruction, Cross saw the importance of preparedness.
“One of the hardest lessons from Katrina is simple: you must listen to emergency management officials,” he said. “People thought surviving Camille in the ’60s meant they could ride out Katrina, but every storm is different. Warnings exist for a reason—evacuation saves lives. Katrina proved that ignoring warnings can have tragic consequences.”
Despite the personal losses, the Hurricane Hunters’ mission could not stop. Cross and many of his fellow reservists, some of whom had lost everything, relocated to Dobbins Air Reserve Base in Marietta, Georgia. There, they continued nonstop storm reconnaissance flights. Some arrived with only the clothes on their backs, yet their commitment never wavered.
“They kept flying,” Cross said. “Even after losing everything, they didn’t stop.”
Retired Senior Master Sgt. Spring Walden, who worked in the 403rd Maintenance Group at the time, was an example of continuing the mission in the face of hardship. She had recently moved to Gautier, Mississippi, just months before Katrina. The home she and her family had bought on the bayou did not survive the storm.
“We ended up with about 10 and a half feet of water inside our house, and we lost everything,” Walden recalled.
On the fourth day after Katrina’s landfall, Walden joined the rest of the crew at Dobbins ARB. Despite losing nearly everything, they continued their critical work.
“While we were up there, we had rotations so the members that had damage to their houses could come back and fix it, and the rest of us stayed back and continued to work,” she said.
Even as they were piecing together their own lives, the Hurricane Hunters and members of 403rd Wing members supporting that mission remained on high alert. Hurricane Rita loomed behind Katrina, and the crews continued flying reconnaissance missions, gathering vital data to keep communities safe. They stayed at Dobbins until November 2005, working a record-setting hurricane season. In all, there were 28 tropical and subtropical storms, with 27 named storms and one unnamed system. The 2005 Atlantic hurricane season set a new single-year record for the most storms, surpassing the total of 20 from 1933. This record stood until it was surpassed by the 2020 season.
Walden’s experience highlighted the resilience that Cross had witnessed among the 403rd Wing: personal loss was heavy, but dedication to mission and to each other never wavered.
Even amid such widespread destruction, the 403rd Wing's spirit endured. Reservists who lost homes, possessions, and loved ones gathered at Dobbins ARB to work around the clock.
Fellow reservists supported them with donated supplies, temporary housing, and a sense of normalcy. Families stayed together in hotels, children played in lobbies while parents coordinated recovery efforts, and crews kept the mission alive.
Cross reflects on how Katrina reshaped the Gulf Coast and attitudes toward preparedness. “If you can see water from your house, have flood insurance. Make an evacuation plan. When warnings come, act immediately. Katrina taught us that respecting Mother Nature is essential, and that no structure or history can protect you if you ignore the risk.”
Twenty years later, Katrina’s shadow still stretches across the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Empty lots and stoic, leaning oaks stand as silent graves for so much lost.
“You don’t even have to say the name,” Cross said. “Everyone knows what storm that means. Katrina is the line. Everything changed afterwards.”
The story of Cross and the members of the 403rd Wing is one of courage, dedication, and resilience. “The lesson from Katrina is clear,” Cross said. “Communities must prepare, heed warnings, and respect the power of nature. Failing to do so risks everything.” Their actions during Katrina proved that duty extends far beyond the flight deck, and for the Gulf Coast, those lessons endure.