by Joe Wilhelm Jr.
Staff Writer
Most of Connie Cummings’ time is spent making sure gasoline doesn’t seep into the city’s water table, but it was her work keeping City employees out of hazardous weather that earned her the City of Jacksonville’s “Goal Star” award.
Cummings has plenty of work to keep her busy as an environmental engineer/scientist for the City. She oversees the cleanup of petroleum contaminated sites and has a list of about 40 locations under her watch.
“I make sure that petroleum doesn’t end up in the city’s drinking water,” said Cummings, who has worked for the City for over 17 years.
While the responsibility may seem heavy, Cummings also looks out for her fellow employees by keeping an ear out for weather alerts on the radio and checking the Internet for inclement weather.
“I had no idea I was getting the award,” she said. “You have all this knowledge, and it seems a shame to let it go to waste. And taking care of the people I work with is something I think is important.”
Weather forecasting isn’t just a hobby Cummings picked up: it’s been a passion for most of her life. She earned a bachelor’s degree in meteorology from the City College of New York in 1967.
“Weather is a part of science,” said Cummings. “These scientific principles govern what you see and what happens around you. I think that’s pretty cool.”
The Queens native remembers some of the forecasters she watched while studying in New York.
“We would go to the Weather Bureau office in Rockefeller Center as students,” said Cummings. “One of the forecasters would get his ear up against the window to look up at the sky to make sure what they forecasted was happening.”
The fascination with weather led Cummings to get a job with the Federal Government’s Weather Bureau shortly after she earned her degree, where she then worked at Washington National Airport in Washington, D.C.
The Weather Bureau, founded in 1870, has become a part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association.
Cummings met her husband, Patrick, while working for the Weather Bureau and it was his transfer to Jacksonville in 1978 that brought the Cummings family to the First Coast.
Both Connie and Patrick may be passionate about weather, but this same enthusiasm didn’t rub off on their two boys, Sean, 30, and Brian, 36.
“Those poor kids,” said Cummings with a chuckle. “Every dinner table discussion was about the weather.”
Cummings now uses that passion to help her working family with the City.
“As soon as I hear the weather radio go off, I’ll check the Web sites to see what’s going on,” she said. “The thing is to keep our guys safe. (The City) is making decisions that affect a lot of people’s lives, so you need to know what the weather is doing to make good decisions.”
A system is in place that allows Cummings to send out a mass text message to all City employees’ cell phones to alert them if they are in danger from approaching weather.
She also sends out a 7 a.m. bulletin every weekday to let City crews know what to expect from the weather.
“She’s an integral part of the department,” said Allene McIntosh, the City’s Environmental Program Supervisor. “She functions in a unique capacity that keeps us all safe.”
Cummings will start thinking about teaching Hurricane Preparedness seminars now that hurricane season is officially over.
“I teach a hurricane preparedness seminar for City employees in May every year,” said Cummings. “A hurricane kit is expensive, so it is good to accumulate items over a couple of weeks.”
She prepares a list of items that should be included in a kit that will help people survive for 72-hours after a hurricane has struck and posts it on www.coj.net.
356-2466