SURFSIDE BEACH, SC (WBTW) – Hurricane Dorian continues up the eastern coast and not everyone is participating in the same kind of preparation procedures as this father and son.
While most are escaping, Michael and Richard Koch are chasing.
Richard and his son Michael Koch are storm chasers and say the father-son hobby has created a special bond between the two that is unique to any other.
They have shared a passion, thrill, and excitement for weather since Hurricane Gloria in 1985 when Michael was seven.
Now, for more than a decade, the father-son duo has been chasing storms side-by-side for over a decade.
Hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards. You name it, they chase it.
“It’s amazing. It’s created a bond between me and my son that we probably never would have had,” Richard Koch says.
Hurricane Gloria, Matthew, Florence, and now Dorian… a few of many memories they have shared that most sons can’t say they get the opportunity to experience chasing with their father.
Both say chasing storms is a feeling like no other.
“It’s hard to put into words. It’s such a feeling, an internal feeling. People ask me all the time why I do what I do. It’s not a choice. It’s just in me. It’s in my blood and in my bones,” Michael says.
Michael’s fascination with weather and storms at an early age led him to his school and job career in meteorology.
“He is really the one who got me into it. We joke all the time. I always say to him did you ever think just taking me out in a storm at seven years old was going to set me on a path for the rest of my life,” Michael Koch says.
From father and son, to best friends, to business partners.
Michael and Richard started a storm chasing business called ‘Weather Going Wild’ as a way to be recognized in communities.
Michael and Richard’s season for chasing hurricanes begins as they are out in Hurricane Dorian and plan to follow it up the eastern coast.