What is wind chill, and how does it affect your body? What do you think? Emergency officials reported numerous injuries in the area along I-40, and Randolph said there were toppled and wrecked cars littering the area. NBC News reported that the passengers were herded to the basement and told to put their hands on their heads as they waited out the storm. 'It was chaos Everybody was running for their lives,' Terri Black, who lives in Moore, said. 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. 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. I dont think they realize how lucky El Reno was.. Probably many thing contributed to what happened. I agree that telling people that the safest thing to do is to get in their car and drive is wrong. There is a large university team with a NASA/NOAA grant that I know of, and a number of professional chasers are grad students at a university, but that is not the same thing. One thing in your favor: Tornadoes do not have politically powerful, wealthy backing, so it should be easy to enact laws regulating how people enjoy them :-), "I suggest that law makers in tornado alley states consider legislation making it a violation to intentionally drive into or near the path of known or likely tornados. I assume those are passed to make legislators feel good about their jobs. I am thinking these scientists were blaming the storm track far more than the traffic. Samaras acknowledged the dangerous weather conditions Friday in his final tweet before his death: Individuals and institutions across the fields of storm-chasing, meteorology, and media expressed their sorrow and condolences to the victims' families Sunday. We are no longer accepting comments on this article. 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. There was no place to hide.'.
Storm chaser Tim Samaras doing the work that made him so well-known: following tornadoes. They were essentially targets just waiting for a tornado to touch down,' Ms Randolph said. People who tried to get away in their cars faced potential dangers from flash flood waters as well as tornado-force winds. Oklahoma City has a similar population level to Cairns and Brisbane. 'It's not even close to anything like what we had last week,' Smith said. Officials described parts of Interstates 35 and 40 near Oklahoma City as 'a parking lot.'. It is emotional to posit "people died, let's make a law" without really identifying a true cause. The men spent years capturing and sharing storm videos with TV viewers and weather researchers. But the hundreds, or even thousands of non-professional storm chasers are probably not contributing to the science of tornadoes and tornado safety. Friday night's storm formed out on the prairie west of Oklahoma City, giving residents plenty of advance notice. Samaras holds the Guinness World Record for the largest measured pressure drop inside a tornado. 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. Mike Bettes, a member of the Weather Channel Tornado Hunt Team, was driving in his SUV when it was picked up and thrown 200 yards by the monster rain-wrapped tornado near El Reno. You're an excellent writer. I was in Warr Acres, just next to Bethany in OKC on Fri. May 31. When the winds were at their most powerful, no structures were nearby, said Rick Smith, chief warning coordination meteorologist for the weather services office in Norman. CBS from Dallas agrees with Dorothy from KC and OL from OKC. One more thing: at the point the tornado lifted, it was heading more or less directly eastward along I-40 (again, Jeff Masters is my source here). This is an enormous loss for his family, his wide circle of friends and colleagues and National Geographic.'. In reply to by Tom McDonald (not verified). Meteorologist Mike Bette is nursing minor injuries after his 'tornado hunt' car was thrown some 200 yards by the storm. Numerous vehicles were damaged in the storm and that many motorists were left stranded. For example, it used to be hard to catch motorists running red lights in NYC. Samaras' Chevy Cobalt was traveling east down a dirt road with the tornado to his south. It will NEVER happen. 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. A new law or regulation merely needs to specify that tornado-related disasters that have not happened yet (because the tornado hasnt formed or has not yet arrived) can be considered in this public safety action. Storm chasers being killed by storms isn't even a problem. One is that people may have been encouraged via chatter in a number of places to use "driving away" as their strategy for getting away from this particular tornado. Watch: But if the Acme Office Building, on Main Street, is on fire, broken glass is blowing out of windows and fire trucks and other emergency vehicles are trying to gain access to the building and nearby fire hydrants, and ambulances are trying to get in to pick up injured, and out to bring them to hospitals, you cant walk down Main Street. Join the Observer community and help support During the United States tornado season, it seems that we experience repeated tornadoes and other severe storms in a given area over several days. "Tim was a courageous and brilliant scientist who fearlessly pursued tornadoes and lightning in the field in an effort to better understand these phenomena," the society said on its website. speaking of high velocity wind, that was the sound of the point flying by Dan L. Spell it out for me, Grant. It needs to be taught FREE for the public as well. Many still believe mountains and rivers save towns. Get the latest updates in news, food, music and culture, and receive special offers direct to your inbox. 'They were screaming, "We're going to die, we're going to die,"' she recalled to USA Today. Hail and heavy rain pelted the metro area to the point that emergency workers had trouble responding to 'widespread' reports of injuries. In 2013, Tim Samaras died in one of the epic storms he'd spent decades chasing. I would just add that other media outlets had apparently been talking about "outrunning" as a strategy for a couple of days before this particular tornado, so the idea was perhaps already in people's minds. Having grown up in Wichita, Ks., I'm well aware of the unpredictability of tornadoes; though technology has greatly improved forcasting, tornadoes will remain highly unpredictable. Actually there were other comments that could even make an above ground room safer. Also, there are nearly no public shelters anymore, due to liability issues. 2006-2020 Science 2.0. Finally do what we did in California for earthquakes. In fact, while writing this post I wondered what the three scientists were thinking as their car, and other cars, were hemmed in with a traffic jam that seems to have been caused by inappropriate reactions by a large number of people. I've literally sat bumper to bumper with chasers on a five mile strech of road. 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. 'If you live in downtown Oklahoma City, please go below ground. So, the driving away several hours in advance isnt really smart, because you dont know that far in advance where away might be. Three veteran storm chasers were among the 10 people killed following Friday's EF3 tornado in El Reno, Okla. It's just news. >>> What they're doing is seeking fame and fortune by selling their videos to various websites and television stations. All this about tornadoes is very reminiscent of fires in Australia. Tim Samaras, 55, was found dead still belted into the mangled wreck, while the bodies of his son, 24, and Young, 45, were flung a quarter-mile away in opposite directions. When the NWS uses phrases such as "You will not survive, neighborhoods will be flattened" no one in their right mind is going to stay at home and wait out the tornado in their bathroom or closet above ground. Troopers requested a number of ambulances at I-40 near Yukon, west of Oklahoma City. Samaras was born November 12, 1957 in Lakewood, Colorado, to Paul T. and Margaret L. Samaras. That would also be my preference, so we are in agreement. This is an . With all due respect, Mr. Laden's article suggesting outlawing or making storm chasing illegal and only permissible for the "authorities" is a typical misguided response after a emotional tragedy. But seriously, I'll be talking about the story of the current, In every area of life, but especially in the overlapping realms of technology, science, and health, misunderstanding how things work can be widespread, and that misunderstanding can lead to problems. Hoadley has been in the business for 57 years and pursued the El Reno twister. 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. Actually, to get my point all you really have to do is read the post but to restate the idea: Jamming a county road or a state or federal highway during an emergency is a public danger. That is the speed at which they rotated around the tornado, not their recorded windspeed. 'I'm wondering if the tornadoes from a couple of weeks ago didn't frighten people so badly that this time they were taking no chances and trying to evade it by car,' said Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett. This advice sounds reasonable, but it really isnt. In many cases, a law is unenforceable at face value, but when something goes wrong it suddenly becomes part of the equation. And if people are close enough to a tornado so that a car gets thrown at them, then that might just be natural selection as well. - IMDb Mini Biography By: Anonymous. But what I would really like to ask is this. The shredded pieces of the car hook to the south then across the road to the northeast: I have difficulty fathoming the violence implied in that paragraph. Can we bring a species back from the brink? With the severe weather knocking out power to nearly 120,000 customers in Oklahoma, according to electricity provider OG&E. I doubt it. It truly is sad that we lost my great brother Tim and his great son, Paul. The latter group tend to get in the way. The scale is based on observable destruction, and little was damaged as it tracked through the remote, relatively featureless farm country. Bats and agaves make tequila possibleand theyre both at risk, This empress was the most dangerous woman in Rome. This is nothing new, and this really has nothing to do with someone on television telling them to do so. 10th St. and Radio Rd. Storm chasers with cameras in their car transmitted video showing a number of funnels dropping from the supercell thunderstorm as it passed south of El Reno and toward downtown Oklahoma City. Their car was found upright in a ditch with its wheels blown off and the engine a quarter-mile away. It would have taken out everything. His body was found but the wildlife officer is still listed as missing. Then we have police in the mix attempting somehow to cite the stupid? Terry Garcia, executive vice president of the National Geographic Society, said: 'We were shocked and deeply saddened by the news that longtime National Geographic grantee Tim Samaras was killed in a tornado in Oklahoma on Friday, along with Tim's son Paul and their colleague Carl Young. Was El Reno a giant tornado populated with powerful subvortices? News casters were telling people in the direct line of the tornado do drive south. But then the tornado made a turn and headed straight for the south that people were being told to drive to. So, I think this particular weather caster did come up short in his responsibilities to provide good safety information but I'm not sure that his comments in and of themselves constituted explicit instructions to leave one's house, get in a car, and drive. They are pictured along with fellow storm chaser Tony Laubach, Avid explorer: Emotional tributes have been made to scientist and storm chaser Tim Samaras, who died doing what he loved, friends said, Destroyed: The Chevrolet Cobalt, pictured, driven by Tim Samaras was thrown half a mile in the terrifying storm, Tragic: Tim Samaras was found dead inside the car, pictured, while the other storm chasers' bodies were discovered half a mile in either direction. I recently found the article on the el Reno tornado you wrote several years ago and I was struck by the naivety of your arguments on laws banning chasing.