Chasers Stuck in the mud in SD

[Jason Foster]

My only question is...who was first...LOL. Also, isn't Timmer suppose to go toward the tornadoes, not away from them.

OK, enough teasing...I'm sure they'll be betting plenty.

Bottomline is this is a great opportunity to show good will. I think those involved will do well by the situation. While we sometime bicker amongst ourselves, I suspect that many of these folks will correct the problem, and we as a community will support them in whatever way we can. These are the days we actually need to rise to the occasion rather than beat the dead horse. I'm sure they have or will apologize a lot to the farmer as that is the first thing, is recognizing the situation. It may have been justified in our minds, but the farmer doesn't need to hear excuses or justifications, just solutions.

I am more than willing to help the crew with a little financial help if necessary, or in any other way I can.

 

[Matthew K. Hartman]

Chris / Josh:

According to Adam Lucio's post earlier:
http://www.stormtrack.org/forum/showpost.php?p=272233&postcount=21

And Mike Umsheid's blog:
http://www.underthemeso.com/blog/?p=1395

They turned south 'into' a field, off their E-W option. Mike explicitly said that in the blog.

In fact, on Adam's map, I see no road whatsoever where they turned and got stuck. It may have been a lane (similar to what shows up in the NE corner of the map - on 129th St.), and that clearly shows that it is not a thru-road and dead-ends. Why didn't they continue east on 130th Street to 353rd Ave.? It's a county-road and probably a much better south option. It's only another quarter-mile down 130th Street.

Was there a reason you coundn't continue further east to 353rd Ave., Adam?

 

[Scott Bennett]

Chris / Josh:

According to Adam Lucio's post earlier:
http://www.stormtrack.org/forum/showpost.php?p=272233&postcount=21

And Mike Umsheid's blog:
http://www.underthemeso.com/blog/?p=1395

They turned south 'into' a field, off their E-W option. Mike explicitly said that in the blog.

In fact, on Adam's map, I see no road whatsoever where they turned and got stuck. It may have been a lane (similar to what shows up in the NE corner of the map - on 129th St.), and that clearly shows that it is not a thru-road and dead-ends. Why didn't they continue east on 130th Street to 353rd Ave.? It's a county-road and probably a much better south option. It's only another quarter-mile down 130th Street.

Was there a reason you coundn't continue further east to 353rd Ave., Adam?

There was a lake there

 

[Matthew K. Hartman]

Just because you can safely maneuver wet, muddy roads "most" of the time, doesn't mean you're going to be able to safely travel these roads "all" the time.

Much like a driver who's never been in an accident, it only takes once.

I never said you *couldn't* use these roads, I was just driving home the point that if you plan ahead and know your escape routes, this should never be a problem.

If you have a tornado coming directly at you and you don't have enough time to maneuver out of the way, #1, you're too close and #2, you're in the wrong spot for *safely* observing your storm/tornado.

Unfortunately, both #1 and #2 have been BIG problems lately. And it's getting worse.

You're not the only one, Adam. It's happened to many others.

As far as what we were doing on the road to begin with...why not use it? I drive a large 4x4 with all terrain tires that is perfectly capable of handling backroads...Ive taken it down terrible muddy wet roads without issue. When I was on the road I was fine but the road ended, so I dont want to hear anything about how I shouldnt have been on that road to begin with, its not like im trying to offroad in a ford focus.

 

[Scott Bennett]

It's a little funny how this is turning so I will add this and bow out...

We were in front of the precip, the roads were dry.
Storm motion was 20mph.
There were 20 vehicles stuck on that road at one point.

The road section we took was marked as a county road, not a simple plat line but a county road and the length was less than 3 miles.

 

[Jay McCoy]

I have to give the benefit of the dount to the chasers since many of them are responsible veterans. This seems like a perfect storm of things going wrong. A road being shown on mapping that suddenly ends and a tornado bearing down with no escape route.

Matthew.. 130th could have easily ended without warning just as 129th did. In fact from what Scott posted there was a lake there. Obvously the mapping software is really messed up in that area. No way to tell that one road was better or worse than the other. I am just thankful they didnt get caught in the tornado and are all safe. Quite an experience for them all I am sure. Bet some of them will never take a dirt road again...lol.

Ofcourse I have had paved roads end the same way on Streets so I cant say paved is any better at times.

 

[Bryan Stokes]

There sure is a lot of armchair quarterbacking going on! Folks, if you weren't there or part of this chase, it's kind of difficult to comment or judge the situation. I would like to point out that many of the chasers caught up in this are very experienced, safe, and responsible.

If you haven't been burned yet by an error on a map, you will. They are not 100% accurate.

Bryan

 

[Josh VandenTop]

I was chasing in this area yesterday and had it many times where streets & trips showed a road and when we got to it it was just a little dirt path, and the roads that were shown as dead ends on the maps were not marked as dead ends. Also there was a lot of water in the area mix that in with poorly marked roads and mapping software errors and it was really difficult to navigate up there yesterday.

 

[Adam Lucio]

Chris / Josh:

According to Adam Lucio's post earlier:
http://www.stormtrack.org/forum/showpost.php?p=272233&postcount=21

And Mike Umsheid's blog:
http://www.underthemeso.com/blog/?p=1395

They turned south 'into' a field, off their E-W option. Mike explicitly said that in the blog.

In fact, on Adam's map, I see no road whatsoever where they turned and got stuck. It may have been a lane (similar to what shows up in the NE corner of the map - on 129th St.), and that clearly shows that it is not a thru-road and dead-ends. Why didn't they continue east on 130th Street to 353rd Ave.? It's a county-road and probably a much better south option. It's only another quarter-mile down 130th Street.

Was there a reason you coundn't continue further east to 353rd Ave., Adam?

Matthew...130th street WAS THE ROAD THAT SUDDENLY ENDED! You just proved our case that it looks legit. Where the track shows us going south is where we bailed into the field and thats how far we all made it before getting stuck. Our plan was exactly what you suggested. We did not at all plan to go driving through a field.

 

[Nick Nolte]

For whatever it adds to the story, Google Maps shows that road, indeed, dead ending. First it shows it narrowing down to a little lane then stopping where it appears you turned south in the field. I know Google Maps isn't useful if you can't get a data feed out there, so I'm not chastising you for not looking at every mapping option available, lol.

It sounds like the decisions made were sound ones, and once you hit the end of the line, took the only viable option from there. The aerial image shows nothing of substantial structure...someone earlier mentioned a wall of boulders nearby...I'm not so sure I'd consider going near that, although I wasn't there and don't know how substantial it was.

In the end, some crops got destroyed, a dozen people escaped a deadly situation and today is a new day. It'll be heated for a while for those involved, I imagine, and everyone will do the responsible thing, given the statements of character described by others on this thread.

Just FYI here's a link to the Google Map of the area.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sou...45.504602,-99.169464&spn=0.0234,0.055189&z=14

 

[Joey Ketcham]

For whatever it adds to the story, Google Maps shows that road, indeed, dead ending.

I looked on Delorme and it shows the road going through. If I had been in that spot, I would have driven down that road based on what my GPS said thinking nothing of it.

 

[Danny Neal]

Where would you go? Not making excuses, we were in a bad spot, ive offered to pay AND wash the farmers truck. 3 tornadoes coming at us. Nightmare

Horogomer please stfu

 

[MatthewCarman]

Andrew the damage done to the field may be a lot more than you think. When I was a little kid I went into a bean field with some other people and thought it would be fun to create trails and hide in the field. We were caught and the farmer was mad. My dad called up our uncle who farms for a living and he said this farmer was being fair in the money he was asking for. We did not make a lot of paths and only hurt a tiny area before we were found but the damage came out to over $100 bucks. Farmers get thousands of dollars for a field I believe and they work very hard for that money. So the farmer can sue them for more than you would think but thankfully as already said everything is being worked out.

I know nobody meant to end up in the field and I am thankfully everyone was ok. This situation could have been a lot worse had they stayed on the road and the tornado hit them. Please keep us updated and I am happy to hear the last cars will be dragged out soon.

 

[Joey Ketcham]

Just because you can safely maneuver wet, muddy roads "most" of the time, doesn't mean you're going to be able to safely travel these roads "all" the time.

Much like a driver who's never been in an accident, it only takes once.

I never said you *couldn't* use these roads, I was just driving home the point that if you plan ahead and know your escape routes, this should never be a problem.

If you have a tornado coming directly at you and you don't have enough time to maneuver out of the way, #1, you're too close and #2, you're in the wrong spot for *safely* observing your storm/tornado.

Unfortunately, both #1 and #2 have been BIG problems lately. And it's getting worse.

You're not the only one, Adam. It's happened to many others.

Matthew,

Seems like you have an ax to grind for some reason with the chasers who got stuck. This was just an unfortunate incident and luckily nobody was injured or killed.

 

[Nick Nolte]

I looked on Delorme and it shows the road going through. If I had been in that spot, I would have driven down that road based on what my GPS said thinking nothing of it.

Absolutely, I probably would have too. I'm not saying shame on them for not using Google Maps...hell it was the odd man out as the only one showing the road as it is in reality.

Just before people were wondering if the farmer randomly plowed over a road. My guess is Teleatlas and/or NavTeq have been sluggish in updating areas in this region. The road probably had been abandoned for a while.

I'm a GIS analyst for Jackson County, Michigan and I have an extensive knowledge of the road network of my county. These two companies, which are the big dogs in providing road data, are notorious for showing roads where none exist, or no roads where there is actually pavement. And when you try to contact them directly, even as an official government organization, they don't want to deal with you.