They should not drive where they will not be able to pull over safely to allow emergency traffic and other traffic to flow. 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. Once it's used up and gone, it's .. gone. After the devastation of the Moore tornado, many residents who had experiences the storms before decided to ignore advice to stay home and tried to seek shelter elsewhere. When does spring start? One of the first rules you hear about what to do in a tornado is "Do not try to outrun it." It truly is sad that we lost my great brother Tim and his great son, Paul. Photograph by Carsten Peter, National Geographic. 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. Samaras attended Lasley Elementary and O'Connell Junior High in Lakewood. 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. Anyone can be wrong and that includes forcasters on tv, government and business emergency policies. 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. In Missouri, areas west of St. Louis received significant damage from an EF3 tornado Friday night that packed estimated winds of 150 mph. Road closures exist now, but there are lots of roads. Samaras shows probes he uses to measure. 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. They look up that license plate in the DMV database and conveniently send the summons to you in the mail. I appreciate that, it is a good idea. Rick Smith, the warning coordination meteorologist for the National Weather Service at Norman, said that while the storm packed a powerful punch, it wasn't as strong as the Moore tornado. 'Use a telephoto lens for gosh sakes. This would make it so a chaser has to stop to render aid along his path. I doubt that it would even have a measurable positive effect. 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. During the United States tornado season, it seems that we experience repeated tornadoes and other severe storms in a given area over several days. They all unfortunately passed away but doing what they LOVED. These skeletons may have the answer, Scientists are making advancements in birth controlfor men, Blood cleaning? A finite resource. 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. But the main circulation was crawling with smaller tornadoes, some moving at speeds of 260 feet per second (177 mph), according to the report. Public safety workers already enjoy wide latitude in the execution of their jobs. #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. 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. Paul is right. That's really all I have to say on that issue. I would like to see some repercussions for the idiotic weather personalities who suggested running away. At the end of the day this is just a silly notion. " I started driving on the shoulder. Not to mention what small town or rural county has the manpower to do so when budgets are stretched so thin? 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. 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. We have strong public service announcements for months before and during fire season about making a fire safety plan for your household and how to listen for public safety messages on high fire risk days - and those announcements for the duration of the fire are very cautious about advising people to get away only if it is safe to do so. Debris was tangled in the median's crossover barriers, including huge pieces of sheet metal, tree limbs, metal pipes, a giant oil drum and a stretch of chain-link fence. The men worked as a team and Tim Samaras had received 18 grants from the National Geographic Society for work in the field. "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.". Samaras' Chevy Cobalt was traveling east down a dirt road with the tornado to his south. Unless you wish to legislate God, I recommend you rethink your proposal. Terrible things they are! The roads need to be kept open and clear for the REAL scientists out there gathering data and for the safety folks to do their job. 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. This in the super rare category because we dont deal with things like this often.. 'For reasons that are not clear to me, more people took to the roads, more than we expected. People who tried to get away in their cars faced potential dangers from flash flood waters as well as tornado-force winds. They said to stay at work if you had better shelter there. Samaras holds the Guinness World Record for the largest measured pressure drop inside a tornado. Will Rogers World Airport was evacuated as Oklahoma City braced for the tornado, that was moving at 40mph. However, people are not immortal and sometimes die doing the very thing live for, you simply can't legislate that human desire for adventure out of existence, nor should you try to. That's what they're made for,' long-time storm chaser, David Hoadley, of Falls Church, told The Washington Post. 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. It will NEVER happen. More cars on the roads also meant more trouble for Highway Patrol officers responding to automobile accidents during the storm, Randolph said. 'It was chaos Everybody was running for their lives,' Terri Black, who lives in Moore, said. The storm path could have gone many other directions. 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. 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. More than half of those were people who had been cut or pierced. Our hearts also go out to the Carl Young family as well as they are feeling the same feelings we are today. 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. I think that Tim Samaras knew what he was doing. Oklahoma County sheriff's office has identified the victim as James Talbert, according to NewsOk. In fact, one could argue that a new law is not needed and this power is already available to police and emergency response agencies. 1) "Three experienced tornado chasers actual meteorological scientists were killed when their truck (one of the vehicles depicted above, probably) was destroyed by the tornado." The Storm Prediction Center said scientific storm chasing is performed as safely as possible, with trained researchers using appropriate technology. This storm was erratic and there will be more storms just like it in the future. . I agree that telling people that the safest thing to do is to get in their car and drive is wrong. And we cannot "go to the sun" or other planets where it's abundant and "scoop it up and bring it back to earth". Excluding the one thrill seeker and the three professionals that were killed in this event there has not been another incident. In theory the helium gas should combine with the natural vortex suction and make the conditions for the tornado formation less favorable it may also be possible to deliver the helium through other methods or maybe have the helium frozen in water droplets A.K.A frozen helium crystals, and dropped from air tankers. 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? The rest of the report deals with how we quantify El Reno, which surprisingly can be pretty subjective. 'Somebody driving along really not familiar with what's going on can basically drive into it.'. 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. This tornado was a once in a decade if not longer event that we have truly never seen anything like. The newscaster's advice was appalling. 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. The result, even in dry, acronym-heavy academic language, manages to serve as both an enlightening and horrifying account of storm chasing's worst day. Tornado watches tend to cover a larger area, and the lead time is much shorter. 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. Greg is definitely right about the distinction between researchers who need to be close to the storm to do their research (people like Samaras) and people who are doing it just for fun. 2) "But the hundreds, or even thousands of non-professional storm chasers are probably not contributing to the science of tornadoes and tornado safety." We need infrastructure built! CBS from Dallas agrees with Dorothy from KC and OL from OKC. I was in Warr Acres, just next to Bethany in OKC on Fri. May 31. Thankfully, I got out of it with just a few minor injuries and broken windows, but if a monster tornado happens people will not be as lucky as I was. Note the comments that 22% of the fatalities at Tuscalousa were head injuries and in general a majority of tornado fatalities where head injuries. 2023 NYP Holdings, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Not sure what happened with Tim. It needs to be taught in public schools, teachers also need to take these courses. 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. 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. 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. 'Our hearts also go out to the Carl Young family as well as they are feeling the same feelings we are today. If you live there, there should be no excuseyour life depends on your knowledge. 'I'm not sure why people do that sort of stuff, but it is very dangerous. They did not discuss the details but I would suspect you would want a helmet that comes down to the jaw line, which sort of eliminates a lot of bicycle helmets, although likely the bike helmet is better than a bare head. 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. (Football, Lacross, Motorcycle, Bicycle etc). In the freezer some people were freaking out and crying, while some comforted others and few told jokes, revealed Beverly Allam, 57. Other professional meteorologists, from The Weather Channel, were injured. Heres the technology that helped scientists find itand what it may have been used for. 'He was either washed off the road or tried to get out of his car. It would have taken out everything. 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. Three veteran storm chasers were among the 10 people killed following Friday's EF3 tornado in El Reno, Okla. Making a law which makes it illegal to chase storms will make it practically impossible to get enough data to understand tornadoes. According to his Discovery Channel biography, Young and Samaras tracked down over 125 tornadoes together. See also: The Last Ride of Legendary Storm Chaser Tim Samaras). Your freedom ends at my nose if your presence endangers me. Carl Young, Timothy Samaras and his . Can we bring a species back from the brink? It is not inforceable. The unqualified version of that advice is If there is a tornado coming your way now, get in your car and drive away fast. That is also bad advice. Also dead were Tim's son, Paul, and Carl . People were going southbound in the northbound lanes. The US has several cities along hurricane prone coasts which are larger (including Houston, Miami, and New York). 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. Of the mother and baby who were tragically killed, Betsy Randolph said: 'We know that the storm picked them up and swept them away.' 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. 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. Absolutely educate people on the safest way to ride out a storm. 'My car was actually lifted off the road and then set back down,' Ms Black said. How close is too close? And again. 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. Flash floods: Two pickup trucks are pictured stuck in high water along NW 23rd Street in El Reno. 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. As we wrote a while back, the National Weather Service downgraded the tornado from an EF-5 to an EF-3. More than 200,000 were left without power in the impacted areas. I made the decision to go home since I have a shelter, and i was able to leave work and be home close to 4pm. The violent winds enveloped Tim Samaras, 55, his son Paul Samaras, 24, and his colleague Carl Young, 45, toppling their car like a toy in a breeze. Then we have police in the mix attempting somehow to cite the stupid? The comments below have not been moderated. 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. 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. At the same time, many helpful comments have been added to the post. Helium is a precious, non-renewable resource. "This is a very sad day for the meteorological community and the families of our friends lost. Tim Samaras, 55, his son Paul, 24, and crew member Carl Young, 45, died in El Reno on Friday They were heard on Oklahoma Highway Patrol radio screaming before they were killed The elder Samaras was.