TAMPA MUSEUM OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY
MOSI EXHIBIT BLOWS YOU AWAY

When television news depicts a hurricane pelting rain and uprooting palms, do you wonder how it feels to be buffeted by the furious wind?

At Tampa Florida's Museum of Science and Industry (nicknamed MOSI by the locals) you can actually experience a simulated Gulf Coast hurricane in comparative safety.

Flying objects

The adventure is not without its hazards, however... namely flying objects. Personal belongings have blown away, several times, at Gulf Coast Hurricane, the museum's popular exhibit. The chamber buffets visitors with 120 kilometer-per-hour winds, generated by a 100 horsepower turbine engine.

"Chewing gum flies out of people's mouths and sticks to other people's hair," says one employee. "Earrings and eyeglasses have also flown away," he adds. "We must have the largest lost and found department of any U.S. museum."

Enter at your own risk

Not that visitors aren't warned. A sign at the entrance reads: "This exhibit involves loud noise and high speed air up to 75 mph. Persons with sinus or respiratory problems or persons with sensitive hearing are advised not to participate. Enter at your own risk."

Nonetheless, line-ups are long. "We put through 126 people per hourly show," says the employee. (The hurricane chamber seats 18 at a time.)

"The only difference between it and a real hurricane is that there is no rain," he adds. "And it lasts only 10 seconds."

Watch Beaufort scale rise

Participants receive goggles to protect their eyes. Comfortably seated, they can watch the Beaufort Scale on one end of the chamber rise from a light breeze to a strong gale to a full-fledged hurricane.

Hair flies, skirts blow up and bits of foam (designed to mimic debris) whiz by. So does anything else not tied down.

The experience certainly does give one an appreciation for the violence of a hurricane. Visitors also learn how to prepare for hurricanes, which can have winds exceeding 200 kilometers per hour.

The Gulf Coast Hurricane is only one of MOSI's interactive exhibits that invite visitors to learn by doing.

Hurricane board game

The museum's gift shop is as educational and entertaining as its programs and exhibits. Amid the magnet games and plastic dinosaurs (embedded in soap eggs) one item, in particular, caught our attention.

"Hurricane — The Game of the Tropics," we read on the box. "This board game takes you traveling to the Caribbean, buying, selling and renting the most exclusive resorts aboard your personal yacht. All the while, the dangers of a hurricane are present. The object of Hurricane is to be the wealthiest player at the end of the game and to learn something about hurricanes at the same time."

Like anything not permanently attached to you might blow away???

TRAVEL INFORMATION

Museum of Science and Industry: www.mosi.org

More things to see and do in the Tampa area:

Busch Gardens Tampa Bay - Caring for Baby Animals

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