Storms Spur Teenager’s Weather Career
Elizabeth Pogue was only 7 or 8 when she became interested in severe weather. Surviving two major weather events — including the Goodman tornado — fueled her fire to track storms.
A severe thunderstorm that ripped through her grandmother’s neighborhood in Memphis, Tenn., destroyed trees and took down power lines. Elizabeth suspects a tornado was tucked within that thunderstorm, though it was never confirmed.
As a young girl at her grandma’s house, she saw the devastation a storm can bring.
Her mom, Sandra, said her husband, Scott, was on the back porch and they beckoned him to come inside. A tornado warning had been issued and conditions were deteriorating.
Right after he came in through the back door, a terrible rush of wind came through, causing a grill and a swing to fly in the air. If Scott wouldn’t have come in when he did, Sandra doesn’t believe he would be alive today.
The suspected tornado took off the top of her grandma’s poplar tree. Neighborhoods were without power for two weeks.
“I saw what the weather could do,” Elizabeth said.
“It sparked that curiosity for sure,” Sandra added.
Fast forward 10 years, to springtime in Goodman.
Seventeen-year-old Elizabeth watched the weather turn from bad to severe, then to downright scary.
The radar was lighting up and weather conditions were quickly tanking. She knew that conditions were deteriorating rapidly, so she called her mom at work and told her she needed to come home.
Arriving home around 6:20 p.m., she took the children across the street to the Goodman Emergency Management Office.
The wind picked up and the skies turned a strange color. It was then that emergency management director Denis Kolb locked the door, keeping the family safe from what soon became tornadic winds.
“(Before we went in) the clouds were turning green and the clouds were swirling,” Sandra said.
Kolb pressed against the door to keep the storm out. The door was pelted with debris. After the winds died down, a metal roof was found under Kolb’s car in the driveway.
Surviving the EF-2 tornado that ripped through Goodman on April 4 definitely catapulted Elizabeth in her desire to learn more about weather spotting.
Since that fateful day, she has trained with Kolb and assistant director Keith Kohley to learn more about tracking weather systems.
Elizabeth has her own desk at the Emergency Management Office and has been in the office on several occasions to track storms. She’s asked questions and learned right along with the team during weather situations.
Elizabeth knows that when weather conditions get dicey, she doesn’t ask questions and mainly observes, Kolb said.
Sandra is grateful for the assistance the two have provided her daughter. “What they’re achieving over there is fascinating,” she said.
Elizabeth is a good fit for a meteorology career, Kolb said. She’s grounded in information and also can control her emotions during an emergency.
“We’re very proud of her,” Kolb said. “We feel she has a good temperament. She has a very good future.”
Elizabeth isn’t certain of her career path. She sees a career in weather as a storm spotter, an emergency management director or a storm chaser.
For now, she’s learned more about local weather spotting and is undergoing further training through the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
As a senior this year, Elizabeth is making decisions about her career path.
No matter which direction she takes, she knows her interest will keep people safe.
“Tornadoes and other weather phenomena are so destructive,” she said. “I want to help people.”
Though her mother may worry about her daughter’s safety, she knows she’s cut out for a career in storm spotting.
When a weather warning is issued, Sandra tries to get Elizabeth to take shelter from the storm before it turns destructive.
“She’ll tell me, ‘I just want to watch the radar one more time.’”