Follow the Storm

By John Haughey | Contributing Writer

Two months after the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Aircraft Operations Center moved into its new headquarters at Lakeland Linder Regional Airport, there are unopened boxes in empty cubicles in hush-quiet offices above a cavernous hangar, where a lone technician wheels a toolbox about, tending to the Lockheed WP-3D Orion, Gulfstream G-4 Jet and De Havilland Twin Otter parked there.

On a recent August afternoon, glare from the sun-blazed tarmac radiates into the aircraft center, where Lt. j.g. Billy Bonner is the only NOAA officer in sight. “This is only the second week that everybody is here,” he said.