NOAA servicing data buoys at Port of Gulfport

A very important mission docked at the Port of Gulfport.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, also known as NOAA, picked up and serviced five weather buoys from the Gulf of Mexico.

The buoys offer critical measurements during the hurricane season and year-round data for forecasting, marine research, and maritime safety.

NOAA is also repairing a tsunami buoy which is able to detect subtle changes in water pressure which could indicate an incoming tsunami.

Director of the National Buoy Center Bill Burnett wants people to know how neat it is for this to be happening on the Gulf Coast. “We operate a buoy network of 240 stations. Weather buoys, tsunami buoys, climate buoys, and they go from the Atlantic all the way to the western pacific in Japan, and from Alaska in the Bering Sea all the way to the south pacific, and there’s not a nation in the world that can even attempt a third of the amount of buoys that we have here, and it’s all done in South Mississippi.”

Electronic Technician Cole Stewart said, “They get all the buoys built and ready and send them down to us and we install the electronics and do all the testing back at the shop and then out here it’s kind of all one big team effort. It’s not like you do this, you do this… everybody does it as a team.

Maintenance Machinist Jim Turner said, “It feels good to see the things that we do and the impact that is has for all the local communities. Me myself, I like to fish a lot and I know a lot of fisherman rely on it, so it’s a good thing to see something like this and be a part of it.”

All the data gathered during this process is monitored and sent out world wide to inform people about complex activities that happen in the ocean.