El Reno Question

[John C]

Hi all,

We're any ST members chasing the May 31, 2013 El Reno tornado
in a white truck?

I saw a white truck parked along SW 15th just west of Rt. 81 when
the tornadoes core was about to cross Rt. 81 – the core was about 150
yards due west of me.

The video is posted below (sorry it's so shaky, the inflow jet was a
little strong).

Thanks,

John


Watch video >

 

[Daniel Rodriguez]

No input on the white truck but I'm wondering what the suv and two trucks that were at the 81/Reno Rd intersection did. We crossed that intersection probably right before you passed (heading east) and two trucks right behind us got thrown.

 

[Skip Talbot]

You're lucky to be alive. Mike Bettes and crew were just behind you and were impacted by that circulation to your right.

Not sure about the white truck. There was a fatality on 15th, but the plots I've seen place it closer to Choctaw than 81. There appeared to be a large amount of "local yokel" traffic on that storm. Folks from OKC with little storm chasing experience that were going out to see the storm, including Richard Henderson who was killed east of 81 on Reno. You might have a shot of him at the beginning of your video.

I saw a truck facing the tornado on 15th as we were bailing east. I'm not sure who this is either, or if they made it out. This was 15th and Choctaw at about 6:14 pm:

 

[John C]

Thanks Skip for the info - you're right about Bettes - he was right behind me.

 

[Zac Flamig]

No input on the white truck but I'm wondering what the suv and two trucks that were at the 81/Reno Rd intersection did. We crossed that intersection probably right before you passed (heading east) and two trucks right behind us got thrown.

I think he passes that intersection before any of us got to it actually. I suspect his camera time is ~1 minute fast.
Judging from my video, all of those cars turned south onto 81 and got very lucky. I can count 10 cars going south on 81 into the tornado as we were crossing the intersection.

 

[Paul Knightley]

I think he passes that intersection before any of us got to it actually. I suspect his camera time is ~1 minute fast.
Judging from my video, all of those cars turned south onto 81 and got very lucky. I can count 10 cars going south on 81 into the tornado as we were crossing the intersection.

I *think* the silver SUV at that junction is us - we were in a silver GMC Acadia, and the vehicle on this film looks very similar. According to my GPS log we reached the junction at 6:17:30pm CDT. We then continued eastwards. I have a short break in my videoing at that point, so won't be able to see which vehicles went south ahead of us.

However, to answer the question - if that silver SUV *is* us, then we went east, and judging my how close the tornado was at this point, I'm glad of it!

 

[Daniel Rodriguez]

I think he passes that intersection before any of us got to it actually. I suspect his camera time is ~1 minute fast.
Judging from my video, all of those cars turned south onto 81 and got very lucky. I can count 10 cars going south on 81 into the tornado as we were crossing the intersection.

Ah I see. We had to have been right behind those cars then. I remember seeing all those cars shooting south including a cop car or chase car with a light bar, we were momentairly debating shooting south and ultimately went east. We would have gotten hit either way though. @Paul Knightley, were you guys impacted at all?

 

[Paul Knightley]

Ah I see. We had to have been right behind those cars then. I remember seeing all those cars shooting south including a cop car or chase car with a light bar, we were momentairly debating shooting south and ultimately went east. We would have gotten hit either way though. @Paul Knightley, were you guys impacted at all?

No, we got out OK. We made more headway after 81, partially because some of the cars head turned off and we could get the foot down.

 

[Daniel Rodriguez]

No, we got out OK. We made more headway after 81, partially because some of the cars head turned off and we could get the foot down.

Thats good, we got caught up but escaped it as it turned north, at which point we turned south down Banner

 

[Zac Flamig]

Ah I see. We had to have been right behind those cars then. I remember seeing all those cars shooting south including a cop car or chase car with a light bar, we were momentairly debating shooting south and ultimately went east. We would have gotten hit either way though. @Paul Knightley, were you guys impacted at all?

I'm really curious if anything happened to that cop car. We can see it being enveloped by the condensation cloud on the ground.
And yeah, we were initially planning to go south on 81, but by the time we got there it was obviously a very bad choice. I wish we had made it across 81 either 30 seconds faster or slower. I think we would have either been clear of it if faster or able to tell it was rapidly changing directions if slower. Ah well.

 

[Daniel Rodriguez]

I'm really curious if anything happened to that cop car. We can see it being enveloped by the condensation cloud on the ground.
And yeah, we were initially planning to go south on 81, but by the time we got there it was obviously a very bad choice. I wish we had made it across 81 either 30 seconds faster or slower. I think we would have either been clear of it if faster or able to tell it was rapidly changing directions if slower. Ah well.

Same here, I havent heard of any LEO fatalities or serious injuies, that car might have just managed to thread its way through the funnels. Funny the way that works, +/- 30 seconds could have changed so much. I mean yall were right behind us and we had two different outcomes, although we really struggled to get out of it. I thought for sure we were going to get thrown, it was rough going. In hindsight I would have shot north or turned right back around and headed west on reno.

 

[Paul Knightley]

Thanks Skip for the info - you're right about Bettes - he was right behind me.

I saw his Tahoe get lifted straight up in the air (I'm est. 25 feet) then get
blown off to the east - what was weird about it was that it stayed at this
same height to the center of Rt. 81's grassy center median.

I know this doesn't make any sense, but all I can say is that it went straight
up like it was shot out of a cannon then get blown sideways staying at the
same height all the way to the center median.

Can I ask what vehicle you were driving, please? I wasn't filming very straight when we got to 81 so I only have a couple of frames where I can see vehicles passing.

 

[John C]

In this thread, the name of Richard Henderson was brought up - taken from
online articles I've found that he was parked along SW 15th, drives a white
truck & according to a KFOR article he was found on SW 15th which is close
to where I have this white truck on film.

Mike Bettes was it by a suction vortex by SW 15th very close to where this
white truck was still parked on SW 15th.

When the tornado was directly off to my west, I saw 3-4 sub/suction
vortices rotating around the core so any vehicle parked on SW 15th
would've been in the path of these vortices.

 

[curiousnoob]

Hey, just wanted to note that it does look like the same truck. In the photo Skip posted and comparing this photo the truck looks almost the same color. Hard to tell but, looks like in this photo there rear vent window appears as well.

 

[Bret Hendrickson]

I'm really curious if anything happened to that cop car. We can see it being enveloped by the condensation cloud on the ground.
And yeah, we were initially planning to go south on 81, but by the time we got there it was obviously a very bad choice. I wish we had made it across 81 either 30 seconds faster or slower. I think we would have either been clear of it if faster or able to tell it was rapidly changing directions if slower. Ah well.

Looks like that cop somehow made it to 15th street and bailed east behind Mikey Gribble.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDl3kVRrNd0

Skip forward to 2:13 mark. Downright scary!


After further review, looks like I'm mistaken. This appears to be at the intersection of Choctaw and 15th. The mystery continues.