Meteorologists had warned about particularly nasty weather Friday but said the storm's fury didn't match that of the tornado that struck Moore. National Geographic explorer and storm chaser Tim Samaras devoted his life to unlocking the mysteries of extreme weather. I'm not saying I agree with it, but this is not something he suddenly started doing. 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. Tim Samaras was a pioneer and great man," he wrote. People who chase storms need to back off a little bit. His video consisted of really high quality camera work of weather and the focus wasn't on him. 'For reasons that are not clear to me, more people took to the roads, more than we expected. That's what they're made for,' long-time storm chaser, David Hoadley, of Falls Church, told The Washington Post. The complexity of the kind of law your advocating is also extremely hard to defend in court. The people who drove away did find shelter after what sounded like a very fearful drive. Numerous vehicles were damaged in the storm and that many motorists were left stranded. I've had grown adults that have lived in Oklahoma their entire lives ask me what the difference between a tornado watch and a tornado warning is. He turned and saw at me peering up from the basement steps! He designed, built, and deployed instrument probes to measure atmospheric variables such as pressure and wind in the path of tornadoes. Tim Samaras, 55, along with his son, Paul Samaras, 24, and Carl Young, . @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. 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. Are they going to fire that weather reporter who told listeners to drive into the tornado? Television cameras showed debris falling from the sky west of Oklahoma City and power transformers being knocked out by high winds across a wider area. People who are paying for the storm chasing experience are expecting to do pretty much the same thing. 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. St. Helens in 1980: some volcano researchers were killed in the eruption, but authorities were successful at keeping most civilians out of the danger zone. But telling everyone to leave their homes and drive is not advised, if that is actually what the newscaster did. Friday night's victims included a mother and a baby sucked out of their car as the EF3 hit near El Reno. Would one less car have been on that particular road had your proposed law been in place? 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. I dont think the scientists who died in this storm would agree with you on that. They said to stay at work if you had better shelter there. "

, The 'extreme cruelty' around the global trade in frog legs, What does cancer smell like? It is not inforceable. They look up that license plate in the DMV database and conveniently send the summons to you in the mail. 'Tim was not a cowboy, he was as cautious as possible about his approach to studying these dangerous storms.'. Getting into a ditch can apparently also be fatal. 'Tim was a courageous and brilliant scientist who fearlessly pursued tornadoes and lightning in the field in an effort to better understand these phenomena. Specious arguments at best. from a major non profit, click through the the X Blog to read the press release. 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. Heres the technology that helped scientists find itand what it may have been used for. The family sheltered from the storm in a hospital parking garage. state by state the possibility that some kind of adjustment must remain open. Also, their data helps us to better understand the dynamics of what happens in tornadoes which can help make safer structures. Very few professional storm chasers "work for the government" really, none. "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. And now "We still don't know why some thunderstorms create tornadoes while others don't," he . Unauthorized use is prohibited. 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. Samaras, his son Paul, and colleague Carl Young died in late May in El Reno, Okla. while chasing an EF5 (winds above 200 miles per hour) tornado, which was later estimated to the be the widest . It will NEVER happen. >>> What they're doing is seeking fame and fortune by selling their videos to various websites and television stations. I do find it sad that that few if any of your statements regarding how the Twistex team was killed was accurate. More than half of those were people who had been cut or pierced. So maybe take the time to authorize a few specialists that take recreational tours storm chasing, and keep the rest of them off of the roads. 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. 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. We have many many laws that are more or less unenforceable. That seems to be what happened here. In Canadian County, Okla., where the men died, Undersheriff Chris West noted the three were hoping to help understand violent storms. Interestingly motorcycle helmets are cheaper than football helmets due to liability reasons. Absolutely educate people on the safest way to ride out a storm. 'They had no place to go, and that's always a bad thing. They sheltered at St Anthony's Hospital which was only about 1/4 mile from where the tornado touched down. 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. Take your time.'. 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. Of those areas mentioned in this quote, Downtown OK city has about 7,600 people living in it. 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. Making a law which makes it illegal to chase storms will make it practically impossible to get enough data to understand tornadoes. Tornado warnings were also posted Friday night near Tulsa and near St. Louis. 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 even worse if you are an amateur tornado chasing on your own--at least the tour groups have an experienced person to warn them that the tornado is coming straight at them and they need to hit the dirt NOW! It seems to me that we should be collecting equivalent data from storms that do and storms that do not drop tornadoes, because, after all, one of the things we want to know more about is the difference between those two types of storms. So, regarding the question of traffic: first, I know. -Benoit Mandelbrot I hope that newscasters are better informed about the advice they should give and that this tragedy is never repeated. But forecasters could pinpoint a relatively compact geographical region that would feel the effects of the hurricane, and they could do so with 24-48 hours notice. Public safety workers already enjoy wide latitude in the execution of their jobs. The seasoned storm chaser had dedicated his life to extreme weather, following storms for a quarter of a century. According to his Discovery Channel biography, Young and Samaras tracked down over 125 tornadoes together. The Oklahoma City metro district has about 1.3 million people. Enforcement is difficult, but not impossible. In the case of the El Reno tornado, traffic in combination with road bottlenecks (over a river) did in fact cause a number of storm chasers (and go watch the video to get an idea of how many storm chasers there were!) 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. Samaras was killed along with his son Paul and storm chaser Carl Young in Friday's tornado in El Reno, Oklahoma.

An engineer by training, Samaras was known for devising instruments that offered the first views inside live tornadoes. Yes, chaser convergance has been a huge problem over the last few years. Sun rise: Tornado debris hangs from a destroyed billboard sign along Interstate-40 Westbound after violent thunderstorms spawned tornadoes that menaced Oklahoma City and its already hard-hit suburb of Moore on Friday, Air chaos: At Will Rogers World Airport, 2,000 people spent the night sheltering in underground tunnels, Overturned: Authorities say people ignored advice to sit tight and attempted to leave the area - perhaps as a reaction to the previous tornado almost two weeks ago, Lightning: A storm chaser in Cushing stopped to take photos of the dramatic moment two lightning strikes hit the ground, Tragic: Oklahoma Highway Patrol troopers found the bodies of a woman and an infant near their vehicle. The news comes as the death toll from Friday's tornadoes and storms in Oklahoma has risen to 18 people, including six children and 12 adults, the Oklahoma chief medical examiner said on Monday. Humans enjoy challenges that involve risk and admire those who "cheat death". There are too many chasers/gawkers on the road these days.get use to it and prepare for it. Oklahoma is a severe convective weather 'bulls-eye' and always will be. Photo by George Johnson. Tim Samarass strategy was never to get into the direct path of a tornado. The police can close off that street and nearby streets and as annoying or inconvenient as that may be, they are not taking away your rights. . Common sense will tell you to collect the data that meteorologist have had for years about how tornado's form and come up with an idea that makes these conditions less favorable maybe even do tests on a smaller scale. 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. 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. 'I started seeing power flashes to the north, and I said "screw this." Most new laws seem to be rehashes of existing laws that can be adapted. 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. 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 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. 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. I've been in a tornado, when I was six! Discovery says it has been updated with 'Stormchasers' footage of the researchers. All rights reserved. Education may help, but first we need to educate Meteorologists in the media, the brilliant minds out there need to come up with a set of definitive standards on what to do and what not to do and hold the TV weather accountable, develop an educational program for the public, but most of all give people a place to go, public shelters or something for safety, if people have a shelter they more than likely wont get in their car in the first place. I know this from my own children being in Norman public schools. Del City has 21,000 people in it. 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. 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. 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. Even if we could predict hours in advance that the storms would hit a particular county (and as you correctly point out, this is not true--there may be several distinct tornadoes in a single outbreak, so it's quite possible that Oklahoma City and Enid could both be hit the same day), this would not help in a major metro area like Oklahoma City. 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. An element. They were probably thinking, somebody should do something about this situation.". The rain was coming down horizontally in front of my car.'. None of those fancy schemes work. She quickly regretted it. '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. 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. Samaras submitted this footage to National Geographic in the weeks leading up to his death,. But what I would really like to ask is this. 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. 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. Or was it a rotating thunderstorm (a supercell) with small- to moderate-sized tornadoes swirling about one another? category. This, in turn, would require storm chasers to make their case that they are professionals that are doing something worthwhile, and that they take appropriate action related to their own safety and the safety of others. would have made the storm hard to recognize up close. Amy Williamson, who lives just off I-40 in the western Oklahoma City suburb of Yukon, said when she heard the tornado was heading towards her home, she put her children, baby sitter and cats in her car and drove away. 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. I won't be joining them on the roads. Also, read the wikipedia on Tim Samaras for more details, and watch this YouTube video (embedded below as well). Having been in law enforcement some years ago I don't think you understand how unenforceable those laws would be. 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. A tornado could hit Oklahoma City, or it could hit Enid. The Oklahoma State Department of Health reported on Saturday that Oklahoma City-area hospitals treated 104 people. Brandi Vanalphen, 30, was among the hundreds of drivers trapped on traffic-snarled roads as she attempted to flee the tornado system menacing the suburb of Norman. You shouldnt be allowed to do that. This one didn't. '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. It dumped around 8 inches of rain on Oklahoma City in the span of a few hours and made the tornado difficult to spot for motorists trying to beat it home. This is a reasonably important job that concerns many aspects of the environment. 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. With all due respect, the citizens of tornado alley, especially Oklahoma, need to better educate themselves on severe weather. The boy and other family members had sought shelter in a drainage ditch. Samaras' car was perhaps too slow and too light, and the road was not amenable to fast driving. Anything else is just going to lead to panic like the panic that killed people on the 31st. 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. It was a shock this morning to learn from an editor at National Geographic that Tim Samaras had been killed by a tornado in Oklahoma. He also starred in the Discovery Channel series Storm Chasers. What is it that causes some people to react to every tragedy in life by trying to legislate the risk out of living in a free country? I've been reading Jeff Masters' blog regularly. 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. They were just miles from the city of Moore, which was devastated by a massive tornado that killed 24 people on May 20. 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. Paul (1925-2005) was a photographer and model . It is not like the Tornadoes have a rule book that if we follow we are safe. It is not inforceable. On the other hand, it means they are intentionally bringing civilians into the danger zone, and these civilians don't always know how to react if the situation gets out of hand. So, lets go back to the advice again. Hoadley has been in the business for 57 years and pursued the El Reno twister. Closing all of them strains law enforcement. The weather service determined that the storm packed winds reaching 295 mph. Shooting tournament: People search a field for guns near a destroyed RV at a state shooting tournament that was destroyed in El Reno, Weapons displaced: Shotguns recovered from a field lay against a overturned trailor at a state shooting tournament that was destroyed in El Reno, Devastation: When the storm passed between El Reno and Yukon, it barreled right down Interstate 40 for more than two miles, ripping billboards down to twisted metal frames. 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. Emergency officials reported numerous injuries in the area along I-40, and Randolph said there were toppled and wrecked cars littering the area. 'It's not even close to anything like what we had last week,' Smith said. The Friday storm, however, brought with it much more severe flooding. 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. I don't know all that much about chasing so I recognize that there could be some logistical problems with my above statements. His website Twistex has been integral to understanding how tornadoes work and improving warning times for those living in Tornado Alley. Many of us were fortunate to have worked with them and have great admiration for their work. Being stuck in traffic during a tornado outbreak is obviously unfortunate, but unless you can find a way to outlaw tornado formation in cities during rush hour, sporting events, concerts, accidents,or anything else that causes traffic to snarl, getting hit by a tornado while stuck in traffic is simply a risk one assumes by living in tornado alley and choosing to drive a car. 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. I've heard horror stories about the attempt to partially evacuate Houston in advance of Hurricane Ike. Hail and high winds were the chief threat, though a tornado could not be ruled out, forecasters said. Photographed with a wide angle lens, the mile-wide tornado, is seen near El Reno, Jack-knifed: Traffic slowly moves around a semi tractor-trailer that was blown off the highway by the tornado on Oklahoma Interstate-40, Stranded: Vehicles trapped by flash flooding sit underneath on the road in Oklahoma City after severe thunderstorms brought tornadoes, high winds, heavy rain and hail to the area. 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."

Track Fault Talk Talk, Articles T