Hurricane Carmen quickly became the strongest hurricane of the 1974 Atlantic hurricane season as it reached Category 4 status not once but twice. Like most hurricanes, the system began off the coast of Africa on Aug. 29 as a tropical depression quickly becoming a hurricane as it passed south of Jamaica on Sept. 1.
From there, the hurricane went through rapid intensification and became a Category 4 hurricane before slamming into the Yucatan Peninsula.
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Carmen weakened a bit but didn’t stop. As Carmen moved into the northern Gulf of Mexico, it regained Category 4 status headed for Louisiana. Initial tracks had the monster storm projected to hit New Orleans.
Carmen shifted more northwest and weakened to a Category 3 before slamming St. Mary Parish, Louisiana, spawning numerous tornadoes and causing devastating flooding that spread into southeast Texas.
Carmen was the only tropical cyclone to impact the U.S. coast that year but for Judith Neuffer, it was a defining moment in her career.
Neuffer was one of six female naval aviators in training when she got the call to fly into the eye of the hurricane alongside Commander Dick Sirch. Neuffer a 25-year-old graduate of Ohio State at the time, had been in the Navy for four years when she became the first female naval aviator to fly into the eye of a hurricane as well as held the title for the first female P-3 Aircraft Commander.
On this historical flight, data recorded showed winds at 175 mph while flying through Hurricane Carmen. The storm name was retired, but Neuffer’s career kept going. She served 28 years in the U.S. Navy before starting another career path with NASA in 1981 as a senior systems analyst on the Hubble Space Telescope mission through a contractor for UNISYS Corporation.
Eight years later, Neuffer officially joined NASA as the implementation manager on the Earth Observing System satellite missions before selected to head the Spacecraft Control Center Branch. Now, she is the director of the Safety and Mission Assurance Directorate at Goddard Space Flight Center. Neuffer has received numerous awards for her work in aerospace including the Exceptional Service Medal and the Exceptional Achievement Medal.