Standing water was several feet deep, and in some places it looked more like a hurricane had passed through than a tornado. All rights reserved. At Will Rogers World Airport, 2,000 people spent the night sheltering in underground tunnels, reported News 9. 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. 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. Though the state's transportation authorities strongly advised citizens not to drive, some interstate highways in Oklahoma were jammed with stalled traffic, as heavy rains drenched roadways and flooded low-lying areas. This is an enormous loss for his family, his wide circle of friends and colleagues and National Geographic.'. 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. 'I'm not sure why people do that sort of stuff, but it is very dangerous. 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. 3) "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." The Friday storm, however, brought with it much more severe flooding. I was visiting OKC from Kansas City that day. 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. The complexity of the kind of law your advocating is also extremely hard to defend in court. These conditions being a tornado being the widest in history (with only one other tornado in recorded history coming close to the same size) and the abnormal path the tornado took. The rain was coming down horizontally in front of my car.'. Which travel companies promote harmful wildlife activities? Many still believe mountains and rivers save towns. Driving away several hours ahead of time is one thing, but this guy was telling people to drive at the same time he was saying the tornado was impending! Samaras, 55, his son Paul, 24, and Young, 45, were all killed while trying to document and research the storm. I've been in a tornado, when I was six! I doubt that it would even have a measurable positive effect. 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." Other professional meteorologists, from The Weather Channel, were injured. 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. A father-and-son team of storm chasers and their long-time partner were heard screaming 'we're going to die, we're going to die' on highway patrol radio moments before they were killed by one of the savage twisters they'd devoted their lives to following. Having been in law enforcement some years ago I don't think you understand how unenforceable those laws would be. Pete, Born: I think this is a difficult question. Samaras' car was perhaps too slow and too light, and the road was not amenable to fast driving. 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. This advice sounds reasonable, but it really isnt. Nine were confirmed dead in the Oklahoma City area on Friday evening, though the death toll has since risen, and flash floods in Arkansas caused additional fatalities, including a sheriff trying to rescue people from rising waters. Very few professional storm chasers "work for the government" really, none. 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. They were essentially targets just waiting for a tornado to touch down,' Ms Randolph said. At the end of the day this is just a silly notion. " 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. In Fridays storm, many of the deaths were caused by heavy flash flooding following the storms. Probably many thing contributed to what happened. Police have a hard enough time now dealing with emergencies, the last thing they have time to do is stop to write tickets. This report indicates he's more right than he could have known. >>> What they're doing is seeking fame and fortune by selling their videos to various websites and television stations. That area might include three or four of the several states that make up Tornado Alley. However, within that area, the exact location of a killer tornado isnt predictable at the scale of several hours. Gone. 'We're never going to know, because they're not here to tell us,' Mr West told The Post. 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. Samaras submitted this footage to National Geographic in the weeks leading up to his death,. Sometimes, a mismatch indicates the need for something new, like a new planet or a, "A cloud is made of billows upon billows upon billows that look like clouds. I've looked at video and have counted 458 people outside their vehicles in that small strech of road. It is probably true that Samaras abandoned attempts at dropping probes more often then strictly necessary, cautiously avoiding rain-wrapped tornadoes where they would not have been able to see where the tornado was, in order to be extra safe. 'Some tornadoes are wrapped in rain, so it's basically impossible to see, which is extremely dangerous,' said Bruce Thoren, a meteorologist with National Weather Service in Norman. Friday night's victims included a mother and a baby sucked out of their car as the EF3 hit near El Reno. 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. Once it's used up and gone, it's .. gone. Troopers requested a number of ambulances at I-40 near Yukon, west of Oklahoma City. The storm path could have gone many other directions. 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. So it's quite the conundrum we find ourselves in. 2023 NYP Holdings, Inc. All Rights Reserved. ", Copyright 1996-2015 National Geographic SocietyCopyright 2015-2023 National Geographic Partners, LLC. To make this point, here are photographs from major media of a handful of examples of cars that got hit with the vortex, most but not all from this latest tornado: I admit that a flattened house may look pretty bad, may even look worse than a mushed up car, but generally speaking the interior lower floor room in a house that is badly messed up by a tornado is a survivable shelter, while there is no such shelter in your car. Biography - A Short Wiki 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. Specious arguments at best. 'The fact that it could happen to someone like Tim, it could happen to me, it could happen to anybody. 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. Tornado warnings were also posted Friday night near Tulsa and near St. Louis. The people who drove away did find shelter after what sounded like a very fearful drive. If you want to make this about Tim Samaras, how about you contact his family, colleagues, or friends and ask them what he would have wanted. An engineer by training, Samaras was known for devising instruments that offered the first views inside live tornadoes. The gas you'd save would easily pay for a shovel. This kind of movement is nearly unheard of in a tornado and that paired with the fact that the tornado was 2.6 miles wide, moving at an accelerating speed, turning 45 degrees suddenly, and had recorded winds of up to 295mph in it created the perfect scenario that no one could have predicted. Invoking the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, a federal conspiracy law devised to ensnare mobsters, the suit accuses the organizations, as well as several green campaigners. I agree, we only need laws if we need laws. Flash flooding accounted for some of the deaths, such as that of a 65-year-old man who died on Saturday when his car drove off a damaged bridge in eastern Oklahoma County. The family sheltered from the storm in a hospital parking garage. Tim Samaras, 55, was not known to be risky. More than 100 people were injured by swirling debris, most with puncture wounds and lacerations, authorities said. 10th St. and Radio Rd. 'It's not even close to anything like what we had last week,' Smith said. 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. What do you think? They went in the field focused on collecting data to enable meteorologists to further the science behind tornadoes which we know has and will help to save countless lives. I have lived in the Oklahoma City area for 37 years and have been professionally chasing storms for the last 18 years. 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. According to meteorologists about six to eight inches of rain fell in a 12 hour period between 7 p.m. Friday and 7 a.m. Saturday. We are part of Science 2.0,a science education nonprofit operating under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. And, just like a tornado, the last place you want to be caught in a fire is in your car. 528 people were killed by weather in 2012, of which about 200 were a result of high velocity air. They were screaming, Were going to die, were going to die,' Randolph told USA Today. 'He was either washed off the road or tried to get out of his car. This included CNN. Yes, lets get the facts straight, which the comments below and the information added here help do. In the future I will be blogging at Greg Laden's blog, located at its original home at gregladen.com. Laws are really challenging to enforce. I agree that telling people that the safest thing to do is to get in their car and drive is wrong. If you're prepared to fight fire and defend your property you have to be there before fire starts and stay there for as long as it takes. 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. Continuing on Helmets here is a link to a story on yahoo:http://news.yahoo.com/tornado-coming-grab-helmet-084500057.html. They can't have this, because the traffic is a factor, but yes, Samaras and his crew were not killed this way. Traffic will back up in the places rush hour traffic normally backs up, and some others that usually don't see such backups. 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. Their deaths may not seem surprising; storm chasing, as you might expect, has its risks. Old cells hang around as we age, doing damage to the body. 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,. He set a world record in 2003 which still stands today when he recorded an 100 millibar pressure drop from an F-4 tornado. This spring's tornado season got a late start, with unusually cool weather keeping funnel clouds at bay until mid-May. It's your life so guard it like you own it. Even with interstate highways out of town in six different directions, you wouldn't be able to evacuate all those people in a few hours. If you must call out Mike Morgan, then you must also call out Marc Dillard and Reed Timmer from KFOR for also suggesting people drive south. This would make it so a chaser has to stop to render aid along his path. Even if the people who are at risk of vehicular projectiles are innocent bystanders, chances are they're at more risk from the tornado than the cars in them. Enforcement is difficult, but not impossible. Yes, they died, but there is ZERO evidence this law, if passed, would have prevented even one of them. As you come closer to a cloud you don't get something smooth, but irregularities at a smaller scale." Tim shared data and results. 'The trees were leaning literally to the ground. I have stood up for professional storm chasers in this post. Having a law about something means that society wants certain things to happen or not happen. These devices, which he . Second, the point is still valid. 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 you cant walk down Main Street you are not really free to walk or drive up and down Main Street to take pictures of the event. According to his Discovery Channel biography, Young and Samaras tracked down over 125 tornadoes together. They need to better forecast for a chaser convergence and prepare to block roads. This is not an especially enforceable regulation but having such a thing on the books would probably encourage amateur storm chasers to think twice about putting others in danger by contributing to blocked roads. We cannot separate it from other compounds on earth (like we can, say, hydrogen), we cannot combine other elements to manufacture it (like we can, say, gasoline). The fact that they endangered something itself is a thing. Skip Talbot did an excellent analysis and can easily be found on youtube. speaking of high velocity wind, that was the sound of the point flying by Dan L. Spell it out for me, Grant. Sometimes accidents happen. The fact of the matter is, you just never know where they're going to hit. Injuries that were INCOMPATIBLE WITH LIFE. However the generic advice makes a lot of sense. Samaras was born November 12, 1957 in Lakewood, Colorado, to Paul T. and Margaret L. Samaras. 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 article was entitled, disturbingly, Scientists, Give Up Your Emails. 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. El Reno Mayor Matt White said that while his city of 18,000 residents suffered significant damage including its vocational-technical center and a cattle stockyard that was reduced to a pile of twisted metal he said it could have been much worse had the violent twister tracked to the north. Twistex Memorial dedicated to 3 killed in El Reno. But, since we (we here discussing this) don't really know the laws and how they work regarding emergency response, traffic, etc. Emergency officials reported numerous injuries in the area along I-40, and Randolph said there were toppled and wrecked cars littering the area. Tim Samaras, his son Paul and colleague Carl Young died Friday night when an EF3 tornado with winds up to 165 mph turned on them near El Reno, Okla. After years of sharing dramatic videos with. One simple idea was to have either a hard hat or some sort of hard shell helmet to wear. Bats and agaves make tequila possibleand theyre both at risk, This empress was the most dangerous woman in Rome. He designed, built, and deployed instrument probes to measure atmospheric variables such as pressure and wind in the path of tornadoes. When does spring start? The deaths of Mr. Samaras, his son, and Mr. Young had absolutely nothing to do with the horrendous traffic affecting other parts of Oklahoma on May 31. 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. 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. These animals can sniff it out. The officers had to contend with hail and strong winds as they worked to help motorists. They all unfortunately passed away but doing what they LOVED. '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. Of those areas mentioned in this quote, Downtown OK city has about 7,600 people living in it. Any house would have been completely swept clean on the foundation. Samaras' Chevy Cobalt was traveling east down a dirt road with the tornado to his south. "This is a very sad day for the meteorological community and the families of our friends lost. I'm not saying these circumstances are sensible or humane, but they are the case nonetheless. Were looking at extremes in the rare EF5 category. They never follow the same track. Bolstering your argument by supposing the dead agree with you indicates how weak your initial argument is. Later analysis of the situation indicates that there was indeed a traffic jam enhanced risk for several storm chasers, caused by the ill advised comments from local media (as described below) but that this happened after Samaras and his crew were killed, in a different location, and that this happened to not cause any deaths. The kitchen windows blew in and Pa slid across the kitchen floor and we hid down under the stairs! After a large and violent tornado went through Moore Oklahoma a few days ago, several people in various media outlets including CNN mentioned that given the (seemingly enigmatic) lack of good shelter in homes and public buildings in Oklahoma, that a good option to protect yourself in case a tornado comes your way is to drive away. Were 20 of those people storm chasers? Now they've got cameras that take a picture showing the red light, showing your car going through the red light, and showing the license plate on your car going through the red light. Sher told ABC News: 'When the troopers found them, they were both deceased.'. Your argument that talking about a way to address a situation in which people lose their lives is inappropriate because the situation is an emotional tragedy is actually the misguided reaction. As we wrote a while back, the National Weather Service downgraded the tornado from an EF-5 to an EF-3. 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. Police/authority do have the power to stop vehicles/storm chasers from continuing down a road if there is an immanent threat. So, that apparent fact was part of the underpinning of the original post (below). Reed Timmer and Sean Casey and their crews modified vehicles that successfully survived being in powerful tornados (for Mythbusters fans, you may have seen these two teams vehicles go head to head with a jet engine to see how they would survive tornado strength winds on the episode Storm Chasing Myths). 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? Our community has suffered a terrible loss and our thoughts and prayers are with their loved ones. More than 210,000 customers lost electricity in the areas affected by the storm. 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 distance of a half mile or so, it was said by numerous news sources that this car had been trapped by a traffic jam caused by looky-loos who wanted to see the tornado and/or people sent out on the roads by a local weather reporter to "escape." 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. At 6:23 p.m. on May 31, 2013, Samaras, his 24-year-old son Paul (a photographer), and TWISTEX team member Carl Young (a meteorologist), 45, were killed by a violent wedge tornado [19] with winds of 295 mph (475 km/h) near the Regional Airport of El Reno, Oklahoma. Our hearts also go out to the Carl Young family as well as they are feeling the same feelings we are today. And again. I have not suggested that storm chasing be illegal. 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. October 31st 2015, 7:11 PM PDT. I think it's an abomination that news forecasters suggested people drive away that temporally close to a suspected tornado touchdown. So in a free country, it is possible to do as you suggest. Emergency officials reported that numerous injuries occurred in the area along I-40, and said the storm's victims were mostly in cars. #2. the storm went from a mile wide wedge to a 2.6 mile record breaking monster in an extremely rapid time, usually people 1 mile away from the storm would be safe or even 2 miles away but in this case it dropped on people 2 miles away, more so i don't believe it was a traffic jam as opposed to the rapid size increase and the sudden change in course. There was just no place to go. For example, it used to be hard to catch motorists running red lights in NYC. 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. (MORE: Tornado Hunt Team Takes Direct Hit by Tornado). So when an alert is issued the authorities only have a few roads to close, and not much population to evacuate. Public safety officials have the right and responsibility to restrict access to Main Street and areas nearby in order to save lives and property. At the same time, many helpful comments have been added to the post. 'What got me scared was being stuck in traffic with sirens going off,' she said. You can also shop using Amazon Smile and though you pay nothing more we get a tiny something. You do raise many good points about how such a law would be implemented, and some I can thing of answers to, some not so easily. The storm was headed toward Oklahoma City, which has more than a million people in the metro area. Interestingly motorcycle helmets are cheaper than football helmets due to liability reasons. They were just miles from the city of Moore, which was devastated by a massive tornado that killed 24 people on May 20. Enough said. Despite the horrible fact that some two dozen people died in the Moore tornado last week, there were tens of thousands of people directly in that tornados path, hiding out in low interior rooms within their homes or other buildings, who survived. I know cyclones are slightly more predictable than tornados (but much less predictable than hurricanes) they also have the habit of suddenly randomly changing direction. The National Geographic Society made 18 grants to Tim for research over the years for field work like he was doing in Oklahoma at the time of his death, and he was one of our 2005 Emerging Explorers. 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. I've heard horror stories about the attempt to partially evacuate Houston in advance of Hurricane Ike. What's eerie is that the subvortex becomes stationary on the road, like it chose to stop right on top of them. Oklahomans can handle a day or two of this, but after a week plus of watching families with lost loved ones on the news they start getting jumpy. 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.

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