So it's quite the conundrum we find ourselves in. Pre-school teacher, 29, who lost one of her legs in Boston TIM SAMARAS: THE VALUABLE LEGACY OF A STORM CHASER, Isabel Oakeshott receives 'menacing' message from Matt Hancock, Dozens stuck in car park as staff refuses to open gate for woman, Incredible footage of Ukrainian soldiers fighting Russians in Bakhmut, Pro-Ukrainian drone lands on Russian spy planes exposing location, 'Buster is next!' 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. 'Our hearts also go out to the Carl Young family as well as they are feeling the same feelings we are today. The tornado then hurled the light Chevy Cobalt to the ground, leaving it looking as though it had been rammed through a trash compactor, police said. I had spotty phone connection with my husband watching TV in Kansas City, and my sister watching from Edmond, OK. Just as it was coming toward us, it turned south. Trooper Randolph said roadways quickly became congested with the convergence of rush-hour traffic and fleeing residents. 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. Police have a hard enough time now dealing with emergencies, the last thing they have time to do is stop to write tickets. Three veteran storm chasers were among the 10 people killed, Dallas Area Storms Cause Power Transformer To Explode. In his writeup of this event, meteorologist Paul Douglas made this point: Every time I went down to Oklahoma [with storm chasers] I was struck by the number of people tagging along. That is a real problem and has increased over time. Officials described parts of Interstates 35 and 40 near Oklahoma City as 'a parking lot.'. They look up that license plate in the DMV database and conveniently send the summons to you in the mail. That's why safety experts say you need a plan. Such a law or regulation could be more general, specifying that police have the authority to direct people generally in relation to emergency disaster zones that have not happened yet. And if public safety is truly the issue at hand here then instead of telling people to get in their cars and trying to figure out some sane and responsible way to evacuate from the path of a tornado mandate better public and privet shelters in areas more prone to this kind of weather. I can only assume that Tim Samaras had no intention of being in the path of the the tornado that killed him, his son, and his colleague, but was unable to get out of the way because of the traffic jam. Also, read the wikipedia on Tim Samaras for more details, and watch this YouTube video (embedded below as well). Probably not. Samaras was killed along with his son Paul and storm chaser Carl Young in Friday's tornado. Myers said the man left for work early Saturday and his vehicle was found empty near East Hefner Road and Dobbs Road just after 6 a.m. 'His vehicle was found washed off the road,' Myers said. And two, the chaser would have to carry a business license on his person to prove he had a need to be there for whatever his business reason might be. Tornado warnings were also posted Friday night near Tulsa and near St. Louis. Yes, they died, but there is ZERO evidence this law, if passed, would have prevented even one of them. But a law or explicit regulation, or even a well publicized set of best practices in the interest of public safety, might make the point that needs to be made, thus discouraging people from making decisions that endanger others. 'There was just no place to go. With the regulation that you are proposing, what would you suggest to someone who doesn't have the tools or money to contribute their chasing to science, but simply would like to witness the beauty of mother nature, and is educated enough on storms to make smart decisions to not pose a danger to others? .". The rest of the report deals with how we quantify El Reno, which surprisingly can be pretty subjective. A small tornado in Kansas, photographed during Tim Samaras's lightning expedition in August 2009. Debris: This aerial photo shows damage in the Rolling Meadow Estates neighborhood on Friday in Broken Arrow, Okla. after a tornado had passed the area, Dangerous: Forecasters warned of a 'particularly dangerous situation,' with ominous language about strong tornadoes and hail the size of grapefruits 4 inches in diameter. The reason that is bad advice is very simple. "We're trying to collect as many observations as possible, both from outside and from the inside. CBS from Dallas agrees with Dorothy from KC and OL from OKC. One of the first rules you hear about what to do in a tornado is "Do not try to outrun it." This is nothing new, and this really has nothing to do with someone on television telling them to do so. His video consisted of really high quality camera work of weather and the focus wasn't on him. [sic] I look at it that he is in the 'big tornado in the sky'. I'll take my chances sheltering in place, thank you. Until I see good evidence to the contrary, I will be strongly against regulations on this activity. 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." These skeletons may have the answer, Scientists are making advancements in birth controlfor men, Blood cleaning? Winds swept one vehicle with a crew from The Weather Channel off the road, tossed it 200 yards and flipped it into a field -- they escaped major injury. The forecast quality will always be better than for small-scale phenomena like tornadoes. The KFOR anchor should have said "if you are in your vehicle (head south). A finite resource. It wasn't what I would consider a traffic jam under normal circumstances, but when you have a tornado coming straight at you those seconds are important. "This is a very sad day for the meteorological community and the families of our friends lost. I think this tornado did some stuff we didn't expect. 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. Just then the power went out and I heard what sounded like a freight train. We are still burying children and victims, so our emotions are still strong,' he added. 'The car was probably about 60 to 70 per cent of its normal size because it had been pushed and mauled and compacted as it was tumbling down the road. That is not my argument either, it is simply what all the experts say. It needs to be taught in public schools, teachers also need to take these courses. You are absolutely right, that this tornado was a particularly monstrous one. Our community has suffered a terrible loss and our thoughts and prayers are with their loved ones. Making a law which makes it illegal to chase storms will make it practically impossible to get enough data to understand tornadoes. You argued that your car could become a dangerous projectile if you intentionally drive into a strong tornado, but so could cars in parking lots. ', Danger: A series of violent storms and tornadoes have killed nine people as they swept through Oklahoma City and its suburbs on Friday, Damage: People survey the damage at the Canadian Valley Technology Center's El Reno Campus after it was hit by a powerful tornado on Friday, Crash: An airplane from the Aviation Technology department lies upside down on the lawn at Canadian Valley Technology Center in El Reno. The complexity of the kind of law your advocating is also extremely hard to defend in court. 10th St. and Radio Rd. If you know several hours in advance that there is a high probability that a tornado will come through your area, then it is a good idea to just go away and be somewhere else. I would say to such folks the same thing a fire chief would say to people who are not trained, qualified, or equipped to study burning office buildings but feel that somehow being close to one would help them provide insights about fire safety: "Move along, you're not helping but just getting in the way here. 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. The Oklahoma State Department of Health reported on Saturday that Oklahoma City-area hospitals treated 104 people. Yes, lets get the facts straight, which the comments below and the information added here help do. Lucky escape: A meteorologist from The Weather Channel was injured after his car (seen here) was thrown 200 yards by the storm, Waterway: A man uses a jetski to travel between his home and Osage City, after Missouri was affected by severe flooding, Storm damage: Navy veterans inspect the washed out road where they pulled a woman and her daughter to safety after their car flooded, A family in El Reno, Oklahoma inspect what is left of their home after Friday night's tornadoes battered the local area, Rain: Parts of Oklahoma City experience extreme flooding after multiple tornadoes passed through Central Oklahoma, For more videos, please go to the Long Center Austin. Its very scary I dont think a normal person can fathom just how scary. Tornado watches tend to cover a larger area, and the lead time is much shorter. People who tried to get away in their cars faced potential dangers from flash flood waters as well as tornado-force winds. So, if you live in Oklahoma City and figure there may be tornadoes coming later in the day, there is nothing to guarantee that driving north to Aunt Millies house in Enid, OK will not put you in the path of one of the tornadoes that happen to form that day. the same thing happens every year with both tornadoes and hurricanes, how many people ignore the wanings and do not evacuate coastal areas, to only try to call 911 in the middle of the storm panicking and 911 tells them sorry cant help you. Storm chasers being killed by storms isn't even a problem. We MUST conserve every bit of helium that we can get our hands on. Another two sets of storm-chasing meteorologists had lucky escapes on Friday night after their vehicles got too close to the multiple tornadoes that hit the Oklahoma City area. Of the mother and baby who were tragically killed, Betsy Randolph said: 'We know that the storm picked them up and swept them away.' I did not make the argument that storm chasers cause cars to fly through the air and hurt people (though that could happen) I made the argument that amateurs who are just out to see the tornado jam traffic this is not something I've discovered, it is something that professional storm chasers have claimed to be true. And what of its width? The tornado caught up with him and his crew and ended them. It is not inforceable. An engineer by training, Samaras was known for devising instruments that offered the first views inside live tornadoes. Since I wrote this post, I've received many emails telling me that the premise is wrong, that traffic from too many storm chases did not contribute to the death of Samaras and others. Two other victims were found in a car in Union City, another was found on a road in El Reno. Oklahoma schools are not properly educated on how to shelter children. "I don't know if I would say I worried about it because one of the biggest things he stressed was safety. Why wetlands are so critical for life on Earth, Rest in compost? Looking at where he was, I don't think evacuation traffic would have had much of an impact, if any. I don't think so! If you are worried about the roads being clogged during a tornado then don't drive or don't live in tornado alley. I was in Warr Acres, just next to Bethany in OKC on Fri. May 31. Following their passion: Storm chasers Tim Samaras (right), his son Paul Samaras (left) and Carl Young (second left) were killed on Friday by a tornado. Take multiple pictures of vehicles "in the way" of emergency responders at tornado or other emergency sites. Here's the before photo, of Mr. Samaras' car. It will NEVER happen. Any house would have been completely swept clean on the foundation. 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". Tim Samaras, 55, along with his son, Paul Samaras, 24, and Carl Young, 45, died on Friday in El Reno after a tornado that packed winds of up to 165 mph picked up their car and threw it,. (Football, Lacross, Motorcycle, Bicycle etc). I do regard some of the complaints I've gotten, especially some of the really nasty ones I've gotten by email, to be excuse making. Samaras, a tornado scientist for over 25 years, founded and ran a scientific field research program dubbed TWISTEX (Tactical Weather Instrumented Sampling in Tornadoes EXperiment). Tim Samaras, 55, along with his son, Paul Samaras, 24, and Carl Young, 45, died on Friday in El Reno after a tornado that packed winds of up to 165 mph picked up their car and threw it, somersaulting, a half a mile. I know this from my own children being in Norman public schools. Tornadoes happen in bunches and clusters. 'My car was actually lifted off the road and then set back down,' Ms Black said. Very few professional storm chasers "work for the government" really, none. The Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., said it believed the deaths were the first time scientific researchers were killed while chasing tornadoes. Turner High School, Texas Bill Would Make Illegal Voting a Felony, City Council To Discuss Allowing Neighborhoods To 'Opt-In' for Short-Term Rentals in Dallas. would have made the storm hard to recognize up close. 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. 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. Anything else is just going to lead to panic like the panic that killed people on the 31st. Thanks for contacting us. I am not a believer in public shelters, so we need more people to take advantage of state and county rebate programs to get their own shelters. Were all the people blocking the road amateur chasers? This is a free country, or at least we want it to be a free country, and being able to freely travel on public thoroughfares is part of that. 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. Enough said. Many of us were fortunate to have worked with them and have great admiration for their work. It encouraged all, including the media and amateurs, to chase safely to avoid a repeat of Friday's deaths. Numerous vehicles were damaged in the storm and that many motorists were left stranded. Timothy Michael Samaras (November 12, 1957 May 31, 2013) was an American engineer and storm chaser best known for his field research on tornadoes and time on the Discovery Channel show, Storm Chasers. to get jammed up. That might be preferable because making a new law to address particularistic new circumstances that are already covered by existing law, regulation, and best practice is probably a bad thing. But that brings in another issue doesn't it? 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. Chaser traffic, maybe. I was in the northern part of the metro and we were nervous because most tornadoes through here track NE eventually. I decided to let the comments speak for themselves, because, after all, this post was written three or four days after the event, and the comments reflect more recently available information and analysis. Waiting: Oklahoma City's Will Rogers World Airport was evacuated. I think the only way to deal with these weeks-long tornado outbreaks is to build high-quality shelters in every community and make sure people know where they are. meteorologist. I do find it sad that that few if any of your statements regarding how the Twistex team was killed was accurate. Tim shared data and results. "We still don't know why some thunderstorms create tornadoes while others don't," he . This is an enormous loss for his family, his wide circle of friends and colleagues and National Geographic.'. 'He was either washed off the road or tried to get out of his car. Here is a compilation of broadcasts and events documenting this: I have no idea how many of the people in the viewing area of this station saw or heard this report and responded by driving into the path of the tornado. Storm chaser Tim Samaras died Friday doing the work that made him so well-known: following tornadoes. 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. There are places in this country that I have almost no tornados This law would only allow people who "***work***" for the government to be there. "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. It would have been a major problem. I don't think the scientists who died in this storm would agree with you on that. 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. When she emerged from the freezer her car windshield had been shattered by the hail. His pioneering work has made it easier to warn people about tornadoes. Meteorologist Mike Bette is nursing minor injuries after his 'tornado hunt' car was thrown some 200 yards by the storm. In many cases, a law is unenforceable at face value, but when something goes wrong it suddenly becomes part of the equation. He will be missed. "We still don't know why some thunderstorms create tornadoes while others don't," he told National Geographic last month. Though we sometimes take it for granted, Tim's death is a stark reminder of the risks encountered regularly by the men and women who work for us. At the same time, many helpful comments have been added to the post. Smith said the storms 2.6-mile path besting a record set in 2004 in Hallam, Neb. It isn't just the clouds that appear smooth, but aren't if you zoom in close. 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. Police believe the woman was driving an SUV near El Reno when the powerful twister flipped the vehicle over. In the future I will be blogging at Greg Laden's blog, located at its original home at gregladen.com. It may well be that entirely different approaches are better. Biography - A Short Wiki Also we MUST push for adqueate shelters. please note that I did not claim in my post what you claim I claimed. 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. Was the chaser causing harm? For example, most storm chasers are individuals or small teams, and they benefit with direct contacts with actual tornadoes, and often fund their work this way as they sell their video to news outlets. And now Samaras' car was perhaps too slow and too light, and the road was not amenable to fast driving. It made all the difference that it was out in the country.'. From the Texas border to near Joplin, Mo., residents were told to keep an eye to the sky and an ear out for sirens. 'For reasons that are not clear to me, more people took to the roads, more than we expected. There is only so much space to get away and so many roads to use, many in poor repair. Joel Taylor starred . More than 210,000 customers lost electricity in the areas affected by the storm. Most of the difference in predictability of tropical cyclones in the North Atlantic and the waters around Australia is that the North Atlantic has both a longer climatology base and a higher density of surface observations. Heres why each season begins twice. Those media outlets need to do a more professional job and take their responsibility as journalists rather than entertainers more seriously (generally, not just with respect to tornadoes). The rain was coming down horizontally in front of my car. I also think its called natural selection. 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. Local news reported an estimated 1,200 people were at the airport and were herded to the basement to wait out the storm. It's just news. The storm was headed toward Oklahoma City, which has more than a million people in the metro area. 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. He did not say "don't get in your car" and he did not say "a car is a bad place to be, and if you find yourself in a car do this and that" which is what he should have said. I do not understand the need for 'storm chasers' when we have the 503 WRS that routinely punches holes in tornados and drops sondes. The weather service determined that the storm packed winds reaching 295 mph.
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