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. In fact, it isn't just the mathematical curiosity known as the Mandelbrot set that's full of irregularities and ever, How three storm chasers died, and what to do about it, http://news.yahoo.com/tornado-coming-grab-helmet-084500057.html, http://www.youtube.com/user/TheTornadoChaser, http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/06/19/pilger_nebraska_torn, The Lab Leak Theory Was Dismissed As Trump Xenophobia - Now Deniers Say It Was Not Accepted Because of Trump Xenophobia, DAN5/P1: Homo Erectus Early Cranial Capacity Was More Like Australopiths Such As 'Lucy', DART Made A Big Difference In Ability To Accurately Calculate Asteroid Deflections, The Subsidies Paradox: Affordable Food Versus The Environment, Degrowth communism as asolution for climate change, On that chilling law suit against the environmental groups, Watch Jeff Merkley Wipe Floor With Trump's William Wehrum, "Transparency" should not equal a license to harass scientists. 'We're never going to know, because they're not here to tell us,' Mr West told The Post. It's a valuable industrial & research gas. Tim Samarass strategy was never to get into the direct path of a tornado. What's eerie is that the subvortex becomes stationary on the road, like it chose to stop right on top of them. The tornado was unpredictable. Just then the power went out and I heard what sounded like a freight train. 'We're scrambling around,' said Lara O'Leary, a spokeswoman for the local ambulance agency. They were probably thinking, "somebody should do something about this situation.". '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. It will NEVER happen. 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. 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. I have stood up for professional storm chasers in this post. The spot a few yards off Reuter Road where the body of Tim Samaras was found inside the crushed vehicle (his son. Sher told ABC News: 'When the troopers found them, they were both deceased.'. But let us not let the fact that Samaras and his crew were killed in a manner that did not relate to traffic obviate further consideration of the "drive to the fire" problem. 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. 'Tim was a courageous and brilliant scientist who fearlessly pursued tornadoes and lightning in the field in an effort to better understand these phenomena. 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." So it's quite the conundrum we find ourselves in. . Thacker, as you might recall, wrote a highly biased article with Charles, Every timeyou follow the motion of a spacecraft, moon, planet or other object through the Solar System, you're putting the theory of gravity to the test. 'Everyone acted differently in this storm, and as a result, it created an extremely dangerous situation,' said Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett. 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. The traffic could have been created for any number of reasons. Discovery says it has been updated with 'Stormchasers' footage of the researchers. Good day to you sir. Run them through the DMV and send out those tickets. 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. 'Somebody driving along really not familiar with what's going on can basically drive into it.'. 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. state by state the possibility that some kind of adjustment must remain open. If you were turned away from Main Street due to a fire, and instead took Elm, would the state be responsible when a fire spontaneously breaks out on Elm as well and sprays glass on you? I've also suggested that traffic jams which could be caused by either of these effects can trap people where they don't want to be and that is dangerous to those in the vehicles. 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. Furthermore only a tiny handful of "trained" spotters have ever been killed either and the only two I know of was back in 2011 on a single tornado. How close is too close? 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. They can easily cite or arrest anyone they need to, and even temporarily imprison them, without charging them with anything. Sheriff Cody Carpenter and a wildlife officer had been checking on houses that were in danger of being flooded. At the end of the day this is just a silly notion. " A two-and-a-half mile wide tornado would not look like a tornado to a lot of people, Smith said. - May 31, 2013 (his death) Other works book: "Tornado Hunter: Getting Inside the Most Violent Storms on Earth". Do it right now,' local news forecasters told viewers. 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. Storm chasing by amateurs needs to be outlawed. Published: 23:27 GMT, 3 June 2013 | Updated: 08:30 GMT, 4 June 2013. This was the case with Mt. 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. 'It was chaos. Obviously it's hindsight now that Tim and his crew were not caught up in any traffic jam and in fact the opposite. 528 people were killed by weather in 2012, of which about 200 were a result of high velocity air. Such a regulation or law would also require consideration of a certification of professional status for actual professional storm chasers. Take your time.'. 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 tornado caught up with him and his crew and ended them. 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. Tim's death is a stark reminder of the risks encountered regularly by the men and women who work for us. 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. 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. They sheltered at St Anthony's Hospital which was only about 1/4 mile from where the tornado touched down. You have to sensor the state. 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. I'm not sure about your claim that there was not a traffic jam, that conflicts with everything else I've heard. The KFOR anchor should have said "if you are in your vehicle (head south). "We still don't know why some thunderstorms create tornadoes while others don't," he told National Geographic last month. But the main circulation was crawling with smaller tornadoes, some moving at speeds of 260 feet per second (177 mph), according to the report. Basically the idea here is that if you can avoid a direct hit to the head by the helmet taking the beating your more likley to survive. Like wadded up,' he told the Washington Post. 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. And again. It would have taken out everything. Damage from Friday night's severe weather was concentrated a few miles north of Moore, the Oklahoma City suburb pounded by an EF5 tornado on May 20 that killed 24 people. "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. Anything else is just going to lead to panic like the panic that killed people on the 31st. That is not my argument either, it is simply what all the experts say. The majority of schools are built from concrete blocks that are not reinforced. Local news reported an estimated 1,200 people were at the airport and were herded to the basement to wait out the storm. Writing new laws on the books is useless, even before the news agencies started this new trend which is disturbing you have people hiding under overpasses and pulling stupid stuff, Chasers have complained about this issue for years, notice numerous videos of truck drivers who even drive into the funnel, enforcement will be non existent because this puts law enforcement in a position of risk and is irresponsible, i agree with the tours, but again many people cannot afford the tours that are out there now and so they figure its cheaper to go it themselves, we can blame people for the groups death but the fact is that there were several unusual factors that caused this. That seems to be what happened here. I won't be joining them on the roads. In Fridays storm, many of the deaths were caused by heavy flash flooding following the storms. 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. After seeing last month's tornado also turn homes into piles of splintered rubble, Ms Black said she decided to try and outrun the tornado when she learned her southwest Oklahoma City home was in harm's way. An image taken from video shows the vehicle that longtime storm chaser Tim Samaras, his son Paul and colleague Carl Young were killed when a powerful tornado hit near El Reno, Okla. on May 31. Paul is right. 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? These skeletons may have the answer, Scientists are making advancements in birth controlfor men, Blood cleaning? Officials described parts of Interstates 35 and 40 near Oklahoma City as 'a parking lot.'. Samaras' car was perhaps too slow and too light, and the road was not amenable to fast driving. Public safety workers already enjoy wide latitude in the execution of their jobs. 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! would have made the storm hard to recognize up close. If you want to walk down Main Street, in downtown America, you can do that, because it is America. What do you think? Local news reported an estimated 1,200 people were at the airport. I assume those are passed to make legislators feel good about their jobs. 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. He was found hanging in his Wichita, Kansas home. As the author admits early on, tornadoes change course and skip. 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. Meteorologists had warned about particularly nasty weather Friday but said the storm's fury didn't match that of the tornado that struck Moore. Five tornadoes battered the Oklahoma City area on Friday, while another tornado hit the Tulsa area early Saturday. Make a one-time donation today for as little as $1. Nooooooooooo!!! Specious arguments at best. >>> What they're doing is seeking fame and fortune by selling their videos to various websites and television stations. Jeff also included a video from a different storm chaser who, by his own admission, was too close, and whose escape (along with his partner, who was driving) was delayed by something like half a minute by other storm chasers getting out of Dodge. I remember Pa wearing this Civil Defense helmet and he was chirping on this big ol' walky talky! Hard to know what to do. The article was entitled, disturbingly, Scientists, Give Up Your Emails. To me the real imperative is to get a tornado shelter in most homes and businesses and educate the general public about what to do and what not to do. I dont think there has been a single case (correct me if im wrong) of external injury or property damage due to a chasers car getting picked up by a tornado.