Or, perhaps, you are driving down the highway at 40 mph along with a dozen other cars also driving down the highway and suddenly you are all flipped. All rights reserved. The last people out will be stuck in traffic. That's why safety experts say you need a plan. The scale is based on observable destruction, and little was damaged as it tracked through the remote, relatively featureless farm country. It will NEVER happen. The last time we had a tornado warning where I live (July 2008), several people who work in my building actually went outside to look; luckily, the tornado never came close to us, because it was the worst one in state history (it was an EF-3 that had a 50 mile ground track). People who tried to get away in their cars faced potential dangers from flash flood waters as well as tornado-force winds. Using the unfortunate but unrelated deaths of well known storm chasers to rail against people trying to seek safety from a storm by getting out of the way strips any slight merit or credibility from your already weak and less than well thought out argument. More than 100 people were injured by swirling debris, most with puncture wounds and lacerations, authorities said. One thing that makes tornadoes so dangerous is the speed at which they hit. When she realized she was a sitting duck in bumper-to-bumper traffic, Ms Black turned around and found herself directly in the path of the most violent part of the storm. The comments below have not been moderated. The Weather Channel's severe weather expert, Dr. Greg Forbes, knew Tim personally. Oklahoma City has a similar population level to Cairns and Brisbane. They were probably thinking, somebody should do something about this situation.". In fact, we probably need more professional storm chasers, and among storm chasers my feeling is that we need a better more comprehensive research design. Take note at 3:09 - that's the edge of the tornado visible in the right side of the frame as it grows to nearly 2.6 miles across - the largest ever recorded. Dan Robinson had a clear view of their white Chevy Cobalt in his rear facing dash cam as they pulled up to and crossed Hwy 81 until their headlights fade behind the outer wall of the suction vortex that killed them. Take multiple pictures of vehicles "in the way" of emergency responders at tornado or other emergency sites. The Death of Tim Samaras, Lightning Chaser. I would like to see some repercussions for the idiotic weather personalities who suggested running away. 1) "Three experienced tornado chasers actual meteorological scientists were killed when their truck (one of the vehicles depicted above, probably) was destroyed by the tornado." Any house would have been completely swept clean on the foundation. Academic Postmortem of Tornado that Killed Tim Samaras Is Chilling Brantley Hargrove October 1, 2013 1:50PM The American Meteorological Society has released a preliminary version of its. She quickly regretted it. And now >>> What they're doing is seeking fame and fortune by selling their videos to various websites and television stations. This probe registered a world-record 100-millibar drop in pressure inside the twister. Just then the power went out and I heard what sounded like a freight train. They look up that license plate in the DMV database and conveniently send the summons to you in the mail. Renowned researcher and storm chaser Tim Samaras, 55, his son Paul Samaras, 24, and his chase partner Carl Young, 45, passed away after they were overtaken by the multiple-vortex tornado, which appeared to be in the midst of a sharp change in direction. Discovery Channel said it will honor the three veteran storm chasers, who regularly appeared on its show Stormchasers, with a special airing this week. "We still don't know why some thunderstorms create tornadoes while others don't," he told National Geographic last month. 'My car was actually lifted off the road and then set back down,' Ms Black said. I won't be joining them on the roads. I can at least understand why news crews were in the vicinity, but they didn't really need to be there either. Im not sure how many people actually got in their cars and drove south. We do know, however, that the highways in the area became jammed with cars, and the vicinity around the intersection of I35 and I40 was described as a parking lot. One thing we do know is that many people who drove south to get away from the tornado in fact drove directly into its path, created a traffic jam, and most of the deaths associated with this tornado were among those people in those cars. 'I started seeing power flashes to the north, and I said "screw this." Police believe the woman was driving an SUV near El Reno when the powerful twister flipped the vehicle over. Because of your action, your car has become a very large and dangerous projectile. But that brings in another issue doesn't it? I was in Warr Acres, just next to Bethany in OKC on Fri. May 31. I have not suggested that storm chasing be illegal. Hard to know what to do. This is nothing new, and this really has nothing to do with someone on television telling them to do so. Mr. Robinson also had forward and side facing dash cams operating that day and the Twistex crew's Chevy is the only other vehicle visible in any direction on Reuter Rd for the last 15 or 20 minutes of the chase. Another thing I noticed that was looked over in this article was the unique conditions that were present at the time that Tim and his crew were killed by the storm. The article was entitled, disturbingly, Scientists, Give Up Your Emails. Note the comments that 22% of the fatalities at Tuscalousa were head injuries and in general a majority of tornado fatalities where head injuries. Finally do what we did in California for earthquakes. But please, do we need new laws? Were all the people blocking the road amateur chasers? - Toxicology results have revealed the cause of death of a well-known storm chaser. 'The trees were leaning literally to the ground. Also my brother was forced to move to Oklahoma for a job just last week only days after the tornado in this article struck Oklahoma city. A Carrollton High School Claims Employee Gave Student Prescription Drugs, Rep. Nate Schatzline, Under Fire for 'Drag' Video, Accused of 'Doxxing' Keller ISD Mom, Another Carrollton Fentanyl Arrest and an On-Campus Overdose at R.L. I do find it sad that that few if any of your statements regarding how the Twistex team was killed was accurate. On her way home after the worst had passed 'the roads were like rivers,' she said. Bart, the fact that the tornado was extreme is certainly the biggest factor, but I did not overlook the fact that this event (these storm chasers getting killed as well as three others luckily surviving a badly rolled over car). "We're trying to collect as many observations as possible, both from outside and from the inside. The chaser can be quite the problem but yet quite the provider of care in a situation where the emergency scene can span a few hundred yards to over a hundred miles. He had a road map spread across the kitchen table! The tornado was unpredictable. @Hamish: One reason that can work in Australia is because most of the region that is vulnerable to tropical cyclones (a hurricane is a tropical cyclone with sustained winds of at least 64 kts/74 mph/118 km/h) is sparsely populated. Alliteratively, if you are in a car and hit by the vortex of an F3 or stronger tornado, your chances of survival are much lower. I also think that storm chasing is not necessarily a bad idea, of course it has its risks but imagine the benefits we could reap if we understood these monsters enough to harness the energy they release rather than letting it do nothing but cause a mess. The other victims' bodies were found half a mile to the east and half a mile to the west, Canadian County under-sheriff Chris West said. Storm chasing is definitely in the "Don't try this at home, kids!" The apparent fact that individuals don't take on the personal responsibility of doing the sensible thing is a tragedy. Here's the before photo, of Mr. Samaras' car. This is a free country and public space is public. There are many chasers who do stop to render aid and time and time again they are often the first to reach the victims in crucial first moments with skills to save lives. I think it's exactly as you said; these are bona fide emergencies and thus are precisely the situations that they should already be empowered to act in. The debris field created by Samaras' wrecked car, the report concludes, corroborates the footage, which shows the subvortex moving across the face of the larger tornado at about the time Samaras' headlights disappear. Meteorologist Mike Bette is nursing minor injuries after his 'tornado hunt' car was thrown some 200 yards by the storm. Samaras, 55, his son Paul, 24, and Young, 45, were all killed while trying to document and research the storm. Stop having idiots chase things. In this country, if a cyclone alert is issued, all roads are closed. The scene was eerily like that from last week, when blackened skies generated a top-of-the-scale EF5 storm with 210 mph winds. If it was two more miles this way, it would have wiped out all of downtown, almost every one of our subdivisions and almost all of our businesses, White said. I'm Sooner born and Sooner bred and I learned early that a car is one of the most dangerous places to be in a tornado. Your freedom ends at my nose if your presence endangers me. . and help keep the future of the Observer, Use of this website constitutes acceptance of our, Dallas Observer's The Morning After Brunch, The Last Ride of Legendary Storm Chaser Tim Samaras. The men worked as a team and Tim Samaras had received 18 grants from the National Geographic Society for work in the field. Eye of the storm: Tornado researcher Tim Samaras monitors the radar (left). Very few professional storm chasers "work for the government" really, none. 'That's a very unwise thing to do because it's the absolute worst place you can be during a tornado.'. Why are you so quick to blame the TV and not the idiots living in the heart of tornado alley who chose to get in a car when they knew there were already tornadoes in the area? It is fairly safe to say, that Mr. Samaras, his son, and Mr. Carl Young, sustained injuries when the sub-vortex of the El Reno storm directly impacted their vehicle on Reuters Road, west of the intersection with Radio Road. The Storm Prediction Center in Norman predicted a slight chance of severe weather in the Northeast on Sunday, mainly from the Washington, D.C., area to northern Maine. Their car was found upright in a ditch with its wheels blown off and the engine a quarter-mile away. Until proven otherwise, I will assume that the special category of people known as Professional Storm Chasers like Tim Samaras and his crew as well as Reed Timmer, and others, are risking their own lives to make observations and collect data that help us understand tornadoes better, to make better predictions about storm behavior, and thus to make better predictions about unfolding storms. In the future I will be blogging at Greg Laden's blog, located at its original home at gregladen.com. At the same time, many helpful comments have been added to the post. Tim Samaras sits with instrument probes he used as part of his TWISTEX field research program. But it is a free country, and if people want to be foolish then so be it. Roughly speaking, this is the equivalent of driving down the highway at several tens of miles an hour and suddenly flipping, three or four times. In Missouri, areas west of St. Louis received significant damage from an EF3 tornado Friday night that packed estimated winds of 150 mph. Troopers requested a number of ambulances at I-40 near Yukon, west of Oklahoma City. Salvaging: A chef at Gilmore's Kitchen at the OKC-West Stockyards, is framed by the kitchen pass-through window on the only kitchen wall still remaining as he checks tornado damage in El Reno, Childcare center: The devastation caused by Friday's storms included a wind turbine blade crashing into a daycare center, fortunately no children were inside, Remains: A man looks for items in what is left of a house in El Reno, Oklahoma on Saturday, Damage: A family inspect the office of what is left of the livestock auction business near El Reno, Oklahoma. He said "you need to be below ground [pause] if you can drive south bla bla bla", Does this mean "you need to be below ground, but if you are in you car in the path of the tornado you can drive south", Or does this mean "you need to be below ground or if you can drive south, go and drive south". But that. These skeletons may have the answer, Scientists are making advancements in birth controlfor men, Blood cleaning? I don't know what Reed has ever done for science with his stuff. It's just news. Please be respectful of copyright. Here's a new law we can make: Whenever there is an emotional tragedy, no laws related to it can be made for at least 5 years. Personally it does anger me when you see chasers, pro or amateur, driving past people who may be potentially injured and most certainly in need just to keep getting the shot. They were caught off guard not by traffic, but by an extremely powerful and erratic multi vortex tornado that grew from a mile wide multivortex into a 2.5 miles in diameter behemoth as it also accelerated and turned north toward the ill fated chasers. I think that Tim Samaras knew what he was doing. 'There is very low visibility with the heavy rain so we're having trouble getting around. An element. The Life and Death of Legendary Storm Chaser Tim Samaras Books The Man Who Caught the Storm Tim Samaras was a legendary storm chaser whose work informed what we know about tornadoes. I refer you'all to this: http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/06/19/pilger_nebraska_torn, I think the only thing storm chasers should do is be apart of the new pioneering field of tornado disbursement, its a idea I had years back in the field of weather modification using scaled up drone quad copters to deliver large quantities of helium gas to new forming tornadoes. What this weather forecaster just did was to advice a couple/few tens of thousands of people in the path of a tornado to get in their cars and drive in the same direction. Run them through the DMV and send out those tickets. His pioneering work included the development of probes which when left in the path of a tornado, can measure pressure drops. As you come closer to a cloud you don't get something smooth, but irregularities at a smaller scale." Then we get the micro information they are hunting, reliably and in a timely manner. Saying "Stay out of moore" wold just turn the would-be chasers in another direction that a storm or twister could emerge from. Another two or three miles east and we would have been looking at a death toll in the hundreds. 2023 NYP Holdings, Inc. All Rights Reserved. But before their stalking of the dangerous vortex turned deadly, their cries could be heard by Oklahoma Highway Patrol Trooper Betsy Randolph. Photograph by Carsten Peter, National Geographic. Long COVID patients turn to unproven treatments, Why evenings can be harder on people with dementia, This disease often goes under-diagnosedunless youre white, This sacred site could be Georgias first national park, See glow-in-the-dark mushrooms in Brazils other rainforest, 9 things to know about Holi, Indias most colorful festival, Anyone can discover a fossil on this beach. At the time that Samaras, his son, and his colleague, were crushed to death inside their tornado-chasing car, which was apparently rolled by the force of 200-300 mile an hour winds over a. For example, a highly irresponsible storm chaser endangers an innocent bystander, then that danger comes to fruition. I have stood up for professional storm chasers in this post. Belongings: A woman finds personal photos for a neighbor from the remains of her home destroyed by violent thunderstorms across the Midwest, Ruins: People walk near cars and trees damaged by a tornado at the Canadian Valley Technology Center in El Reno, Oklahoma on Saturday morning. Such a regulation or law would also require consideration of a certification of professional status for actual professional storm chasers. A small tornado in Kansas, photographed during Tim Samaras's lightning expedition in August 2009. Or was it a rotating thunderstorm (a supercell) with small- to moderate-sized tornadoes swirling about one another? And, just like a tornado, the last place you want to be caught in a fire is in your car. 'Mile Wide Tornado' originally aired Sunday and focuses on the May 20 tornado that devastated a wide swatch of Oklahoma. Mr West guessed the experienced storm chasers were attempting to parallel the storm on the county road and it either changed course or another vortex appeared. I also agree that people should not be allowed to drive through tornadoes for the safety of others, however if people were not allowed to escape I believe that more shelters should be provided for individuals in the path of the storm. Tim Samaras, a native of Lakewood, Colo., holds the Guinness World Record for the greatest pressure drop ever measured inside a tornado. It gets logistically harder to do this if the affected area includes Cairns or Brisbane, because if you are evacuating people from low-lying areas you have to leave the roads open long enough for them to get out. That sort of delay could have been the difference between the Samaras team escaping and being caught in the tornado. Emergency officials reported that numerous injuries occurred in the area along I-40, and said the storm's victims were mostly in cars. In Missouri three people died in three counties after rivers rose to dangerous levels, and in Arkansas a sheriff was killed by flooding in Scott County on Friday. I dont think the scientists who died in this storm would agree with you on that. When told to seek shelter, many ventured out and snarled traffic across the metro area - perhaps remembering the damage from May 20. The KFOR anchor should have said "if you are in your vehicle (head south). 'Our hearts also go out to the Carl Young family as well as they are feeling the same feelings we are today. Violent weather also moved through the St. Louis area. But the hundreds, or even thousands of non-professional storm chasers are probably not contributing to the science of tornadoes and tornado safety. Washington, DC: National Geographic. I'm not saying these circumstances are sensible or humane, but they are the case nonetheless. I can't imagine the trauma of living through a tornado strike. Would one less car have been on that particular road had your proposed law been in place? Early aerial images of the storm's damage showed groups of homes with porches ripped away, roofs torn off and piles of splintered wood scattered across the ground for blocks. Samaras' car was perhaps too slow and too light, and the road was not amenable to fast driving. Carl Young, a California native, joined Samaras in the field in 2003. The seasoned storm chaser had dedicated his life to extreme weather, following storms for a quarter of a century. The Storm Prediction Center issued a statementSunday, saying it was terribly saddened by Tim Samaras' death. It was over in just minutes, when we climbed the stairs half the house was gone but nearly all the houses on the street in back of us where gone! Specious arguments at best. The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline. The cause of his death remains unclear at this time, but several of his friends shared the sad news on social media, commemorating the. The newscaster's advice was appalling. Okay, fair enough. In other words, it is now probably legal and appropriate for police or fire departments to close off roads or direct traffic or tell people not to drive in a particular area where there is currently a major fire, explosion, storm devastation, and so on. This advice sounds reasonable, but it really isnt. A four-year-old boy died after being swept into the Oklahoma River on the south side of Oklahoma City, said Oklahoma City police Lt. Jay Barnett. In a separate incident, Brandon Sullivan and Brett Wright captured heart stopping footage of their exploits getting too close to the powerful twister near Union City, in southwest Oklahoma City. Damage: An Oklahoma home destroyed, its roof partially torn off after the tornado rips through, Salvaging: Residents retrieve belongings from a home destroyed by the tornados that tore through central Oklahoma. A National Geographic team has made the first ascent of the remote Mount Michael, looking for a lava lake in the volcanos crater. Samaras shows probes he uses to measure. I remember my wife telling me a few years ago about her retail stores tornado policy which was contrary to everything I knew about safety during a storm. I havent seen any good arguments yet that storm chasers and others on the road during a tornado are posing a danger to anyone but themselves. A total of five tornadoes struck the Oklahoma City metro area, the National Weather Service said. Here is all you want to know, and more! Actually there were other comments that could even make an above ground room safer. Birth Name: Tim Samaras Occupation: Meteorologist Place Of Birth: Colorado Date Of Birth: November 12, 1957 Date Of Death: May 31, 2013 Cause Of Death: N/A Ethnicity: Unknown Nationality: American Tim Samaras was born on the 12th of November, 1957. The authors are Joshua Wurman, Karen Kosiba and Paul Robinson with the Center for Severe Weather Research, and Timothy Marshall of Haag Engineering, a damage-path surveyor from Flower Mound whom I interviewed for our cover story on the tornado. I've always been told never to try and outrun a tornado, it is one of the most dangerous things you can do. He earned his Master of Science degree in atmospheric science from the University of Nevada. The Storm Prediction Center said scientific storm chasing is performed as safely as possible, with trained researchers using appropriate technology. Their deaths may not seem surprising; storm chasing, as you might expect, has its risks. Bolstering your argument by supposing the dead agree with you indicates how weak your initial argument is. Yes, chaser convergance has been a huge problem over the last few years. This was one of the highways that really did have a traffic jam thanks to the TV people who encouraged locals to attempt to flee in their cars. The thing is, this tornado was heading roughly from west to east into a highly populated area. Jim Samaras said his brother, nephew and their colleague were dedicated to avoiding trouble while chasing storms, and that the family wasn't worried about whether he was taking care of himself. I don't think so! I also think its called natural selection. They said to stay at work if you had better shelter there. Dallas' independent source of Tornado warnings were also posted Friday night near Tulsa and near St. Louis. The storm was headed toward Oklahoma City, which has more than a million people in the metro area. I was in the northern part of the metro and we were nervous because most tornadoes through here track NE eventually. Chasing Tornado's. He skipped out on chasing the massive tornado that flattened Moore, Okla., because it was too dangerous. Another example of this on a NATIONAL level and not just a local level is Season 5 episode 6 of Storm Chasers (The discovery channel show that followed three chaser groups) where Joel Taylor, Reed Timmer, and Chris Chittick all call friends and family on their cellphones advising them to drive away from Yukon, OK and Norman, OK. Actually pointing those in Yukon into the path of the Pidemont, OK tornado. He set a world record in 2003 which still stands today when he recorded an 100 millibar pressure drop from an F-4 tornado. Absolutely educate people on the safest way to ride out a storm. Two and half miles has been the widely accepted dimension, but if you measure wind speeds, the tornado could have been anywhere from three to 4.5 miles across. . I will not comment at all in regardess to the death of Tim, Carl, or Paul, as they were close personal friends of mine and I am not reading to speak on that subject currently. More than 210,000 customers lost electricity in the areas affected by the storm. I'm not sure about your claim that there was not a traffic jam, that conflicts with everything else I've heard. We need infrastructure built! (Though I'm not so sure that restrictive law re tornadoes is the first or best strategy - simply ensuring that emergency personnel of all kinds have the authority to control traffic might be OK so long as they are adequately trained and backed up with good links to forecasters.) We are no longer accepting comments on this article. Helium is a precious, non-renewable resource. In his twenties, he began to chase tornadoes for the science and humanity's safety every spring all over the United States until his tragic death. A storm chaser who heeded the bad feeling in his gut and decided to hang back that day told me the tornado was "designed to kill storm chasers." Don't create a law just to feel better because people died. Before the horrific events of May 31, 2013, when the huge El Reno tornado took the lives of scientist Tim Samaras and his crew, a twister had never killed any chasers although several had died. An outright ban is prolly a bad idear too. Deadly profession: Storm chasers Tim Samaras (center) and crew member Carl Young (right) were killed on Friday in a tornado that ripped through El Reno, Oklahoma, Dangers: Paul Samaras, 24, (left) and Carl Young, 45, (right) were killed as they conducted research during the tornadoes in Oklahoma this weekend, On the edge: The storm chasers were killed as they followed the tornado in Oklahoma on Friday as the death toll rose to 18 today, Deadly twister: Three storm chasers were among at least 18 people killed following the tornado which touched down near El Reno on Friday.