2013-05-31 EVENT: KS, OK, MO, IL

[Hannah.Taylor]

Tornado emergencies in effect for downtown OKC, OK, El-Reno and Mustang.

http://kfor.com/on-air/live-streaming/



I am watching several chasers streams


Brandon Sullivan's chase team took a hit from inflow winds that tossed around farm equipment, they are safe but done for the day.

via Steve Worthington - TWC BREAKING: TWC's Mike Bettes says his #TornadoHunt vehicle was thrown 200 yards by the tornado W of OKC. Airbags deployed. All are safe.

This just came in via Mike Bettis' Weather Page on FB

Adam Lucio: Were ok. Can't answer everyone. Got into outer circulation and bailed. Was very intense.


Some of our chasers are getting way too close to these tornadoes guys, good grief!!!

per Mike Morgan via KFOR feed tornado heading towards North Moore, OK

 

[Jeff Duda]

Yep...hopefully this will be a wake up call to some chasers who would don't seem to mind putting their lives in imminent danger just to "get the shot that no one else got". I get the feeling, though, that too many people escaped the situation without too much damage and no lesson will be learned.

 

[CEngleman]

Earlier reports were stating that they could not escape due to the number of vehicles near by.... is this the first incidence of a "Chaser Convergence" mishap? Where there used to be 2 -3 chasers on a road, now there are 30+ chasers, onlookers, and thrill seekers in a small area.

Always make sure you have an escape route...

Chris

 

[cstrunk]

Definitely not the first time something like this has happened. And sadly won't be the last. I'll never understand filming a violent, rain-wrapped, nearby tornado moving at high speeds. Add chaser convergence to that and you're going to have problems. I think some chasers think they are invincible; they get overconfident and think they know what mother nature is going to let them do. On nasty storms like this you can't know what it's going to do, so it's best to hang back and hope the storm cooperates later and gives you the shot. Don't force something dangerous.

 

[Jake Orosi]

TWC has been showing Bettis's last report before the vehicle flip, and the (big) tornado still looked a good mile or two distant; but he was very pointedly wrapping up the report by explaining that his chase group was moving immediately to get out of danger. Given this, it doesn't seem incredibly likely that they stuck around and waited for the tornado to hit them.

Some other videos I've seen, whose makers describe as being "in the tornado", look more like straight line winds. Perhaps some very strong inflow or outflow. In addition to the tornado itself, people need to be mindful of these peripheral hazards as they can be just as dangerous and a lot harder to see coming. I expect situational awareness and paying close attention to storm structure as a whole is just as important as the neat funnel over there.

 

[Hannah.Taylor]

chaser convergence isn't to be blamed entirely. KFOR's Mike Morgan and TWC were telling locals to evacuate the city and head south out of the metro. Those tornadoes shifted course towards the south and a lot of people were just sitting ducks on the highway with nowhere to go.

Today was a bad combination of arrogance for Mother Nature's power, lack of respect for what these storms do and bad advice from KFOR and TWC, and throw it all together in a major metropolitan area...it's a recipe for disaster and we saw just that today. It's gonna get worse and nothing will change until people end up dead or someone gets seriously and permanently injured/paralyzed/maimed.

 

[Jake Orosi]

I think it's a little too early to make even such determinations. So far the most serious damage reports including the damage to those chase vehicles, and the only casualties (unfortunately), were in the I-40 area to the west/north of the OKC metro area, not toward the south where people were evacuating.

A call to evacuate ahead of incoming severe thunderstorms, even one which turns out to be bad advice in retrospect, doesn't seem to me to be arrogance or a lack of respect for nature and the power of the storms; on the contrary it seems to indicate an extremely healthy respect for the life-threatening potential.

 

[Brian McKibben]

I have no problem with residents fleeing a storm and heading south. If there is a violent tornado heading toward you and you can't get below ground, this is the decision that could save your life. On May 20th, I watched both the north and south bound lanes of Telephone and Santa Fe flood with residents getting out of harms way (I was one of them). One problem is you need to get far enough south. Another problem is that most people think that tornadoes come from the SW and don't expect them to move ESE. Ex. How many people in Norman have heard someone say "Watch the weather in Lawton and Chickasha, because that will be coming to us."

The TV stations did tell people to get below ground or get out of the way today. However, I noted several times Gary and Mike both said that when the tornado was close that time was out to drive away, so find someplace to take cover.

On another note, chasers are trying to get too close to the tornado. Not everyone has a TIV or Dominator. Plus, many chasers are driving high profile SUVs, which lack some aerodymanics and are top heavy. This is particularly troublesome with a 60+mph crosswind.

Ideal chase car: bullet proof Ferrari with a lift kit and 4 wheel drive when needed to escape mud.

 

[STexan]

OKC made special "efforts" to warn people early in the day. I think this turned out to be a mistake. Too many treated this as a "hurricane" type event and fled at the worst possible time to where???? .... they just literally fled. This particular tornado was heavily rain-wrapped for a mile around and it was hard to tell just where you were in relation to what. Radar had a difficult time penetrating the water to yield meaningful images. Plus, the storm headed due east for a good part of the time, as was the interstate. I was in the bear cage for a bit, got and update then realized I was about to be ran over then managed to make it through some unbelievable wind-driven downpour to move on eastward.

I saw some people doing crazy things on the interstate (driving 60 MPH east in the west bound lane), and remaining stopped when they should have been trying to move to clear it's potential path. I got a few photos and some video from due east of the twister as it was crossing US 81. But after that it was a cluster f&^ck if you wanted to go any direction except east.

I began chasing a new cell that proceeded towards Kingfisher but bailed on it when I saw this to the south ...

The above photo would later take some lives along I-40

From due east of an eastward moving tornado

 

[Hannah.Taylor]

A call to evacuate ahead of incoming severe thunderstorms, even one which turns out to be bad advice in retrospect, doesn't seem to me to be arrogance or a lack of respect for nature and the power of the storms; on the contrary it seems to indicate an extremely healthy respect for the life-threatening potential.

sorry let me clarify. the arrogance I was referring to was the people getting too close to these storms and under estimating their power and what they can do (shifting, funnels forming right on top of you or dropping down on top of you with little to no warning).

 

[STexan]

You can call it arrogance if you want, but crap happens to the best of us at some point. In my case, I wasn't trying to get "close", I was simply trying to get south and east of it out of the rain but between the roads and driving rain well out ahead of core, it was extremely difficult. I could have "waited it out" and potentially allowed the core to run me over, but I decided to move (to the extent I could and where I could). There was tennis ball hail to the north, driving rain and traffic to the east, and tornado to the west, and rapidly approaching tornado to the south and radar was not very definitive for much of the time and visual was hard to tell if you were looking at a large wedge or a massive rain/hail storm, or both.

 

[STexan]

I finally made it out and headed south down I-35 towards home. There was an unbelievable amount of traffic headed south at 9:00 PM. When I arrived at Pauls Valley, there was a 2 mile backup (mostly in the right lane) with people exiting to Pauls Valley. Pauls Valley? Really? All those people decide to head out to see a concert or something in Pauls Valley on a stormy night? Whatever the OKC or OK brass decided that involved making special public announcements 12 and 24 hours in advance had to have been a big part of this mess, otherwise, nothing about the traffic patterns and congestion made any sense, even given the weather situation.

Maybe you're expected to stop traffic from entering westbound when there is a large potential wedge tornado heading due east potentially along an interstate highway. But that only served to divert traffic south (in this case) Maybe they could have made it home, maybe they'd have ran head-on into a rain-wrapped wedge, but as it was, they were forced to create a bigger traffic problem, trapping thousands on major N/S thoroughfares. It's lucky these these complexes didn't put more twisters and wedges on the ground headed in a myriad of different directions. God gave OKC a break Friday night. Little destructive tornado damage, but plenty of roof repair work and dollars is on the way.

 

[Ryan Pfeifer]

Getting out of the path of a tornadic storm is a good idea for one person, but it is a terrible idea for a city. Was this seriously encouraged? How could anybody expect the roads to handle the traffic? I was very concerned when I heard this was suggested during the Moore tornado a few weeks ago, and now it seems those concerns were validated. I would hope that a large city in the middle of violent tornado country would know better than to do this. If there had actually been a violent tornado on the ground it sounds like this could have been a catastrophe.

 

[Mike Smith]

Ryan:

It was mentioned in several tweets by OUN NWS at mid-afternoon. The OKC TV stations also mentioned it. Whether it was "encouraged" is subjective.

Mike

 

[STexan]

I can't find a news article but in a phone interview I heard Friday night with either the Mayor, or the Governor, they mentioned that they had put notice up on all the traffic message signs earlier that morning and/or Thursday afternoon. Not sure exactly what the message stated but I gathered it was something they had never done before until this system.

Edit:
But as I reflect on the situation, I don't think there is anything that they (the people and the emergency managers) did or should have done that was wrong. It was the scope of the system, encompassing a large metro area, and moving directly along one of only 2 major ingress/egress highways in a west to east manner. Coupled with the reality that those reporting on live TV and radio were "in the dark" in relation to what was or was not on the ground and it's potential path, and that what the next minutes may hold were anyone's guess. So anyone listening who DID NOT have a safe shelter was forced with a difficult decision.

As far as halting traffic from proceeding West past OKC, I suppose that was warranted given the realities of that particular situation (the tornadic potential seemed to be tracking directly along I-40 and showed no indications of changing). Where that traffic was supposed to go once diverted off I-40 I don't know.

It was a particularly unusual situation with a lot of potential impact coverage and no way of knowing anything for certain. The one thing they did know for certain was that 3 miles of stopped traffic between El Reno and OKC was going to be disastrous. And storm relative motion and it's geographic orientation and timing could not have been much worse for the people and the EM's

But it appears a lot of last minute decisions were made by a lot of the public ... decisions to "evacuate". If evacuating their homes was going to be a viable option for some and given the advance warning, it would seem many would have bugged out much earlier in the afternoon rather than wait until the storms were at their back door.