Investigating chaser incident in Dickinson County, KS on May 25, 2016

[Dan Robinson]

Some of you may be aware that an official from Dickinson County, Kansas is repeating a story about a chaser to media and at Emergency Management conferences. A resident relayed an account of an incident where a chaser was parked in a residential driveway in the county during the May 25, 2016 EF4 tornado between Solomon and Chapman. There are two versions of the story I have heard told by the same source:

1.) The chaser was asked by the resident to leave, and the chaser responded by flipping the bird to the resident.

2.) The residents were attempting to flee the tornado, but chaser was blocking the residents in. The chaser refused to move, and the residents were close to committing violence against the chaser to allow the family to escape.

Due to the fact that a.) this story is being told in public forums and b.) the details of the story changed from one telling of it to the next, c.) it was being told secondhand, and d.) embellished or exaggerated accounts of chasers have occurred in the media/ by officials in the past, I would like to determine the facts of what happened.

There are no descriptions of the vehicle, other than that it had a dome camera and an anemometer. If either version of the story is true, I'd like to get a statement from the chaser involved. If the story is embellished or fabricated, I believe it can be proven with video - assuming the chaser with the dome cam was recording with the camera and/or there were other chasers nearby.

I am combing through my video of the event (I have a four-way dashcam archive of the entire chase) and will update this thread if I am able to find a vehicle meeting the description.

Please let me know if you witnessed this incident or if you saw/have video of any vehicles with a dome camera on this day.

Please note that many chasers have dome cameras and that this story may be embellished (please don't accuse anyone).

Thank you,
Dan

 

[StephenHenry]

For what it's worth, I combed through hours of Solomon/Chapman footage from you and many other chasers do edit that chapter for Storm Assist. Never saw anything of the sort.

 

[Lisa Monk]

I didn't recognize anything I saw in your footage. In fact, this is the first I've heard of this incident. We covered the Solomon/Chapman,KS from birth until it fully wedged out and crossed the highway gaining speeds through populated areas that were deemed unsafe to continue to chase. We pulled up to one home in the damage path and shortly after LE/EMS arrived and everyone was ok so we left. We stopped at several overturned vehicles in fields where no drivers/passengers were found. We did as much S & R as safely as we could. We never had a negative encounter. Only kind ones and thank yous for calling in damaged areas. We even chatted with some folks who were just hanging out on their porch waiting to see the tornado while we adamantly advised them that it was a cyclic, violent tornado that had wedged out and was greatly intensifying. Thankfully they listened. Jared Stevenson and Nick Slone both have extensive dash cam footage from our POV, as we were trying to deploy a pod. I would get in touch with them ASAP as they undoubtedly have some missing pieces to this puzzle indirectly. Hope this helps Dan!

Sent from my SM-G920V using Stormtrack mobile app

 

[Lisa Monk]

Some of you may be aware that an official from Dickinson County, Kansas is repeating a story about a chaser to media and at Emergency Management conferences. A resident relayed an account of an incident where a chaser was parked in a residential driveway in the county during the May 25, 2016 EF4 tornado between Solomon and Chapman. There are two versions of the story I have heard told by the same source:

1.) The chaser was asked by the resident to leave, and the chaser responded by flipping the bird to the resident.

2.) The residents were attempting to flee the tornado, but chaser was blocking the residents in. The chaser refused to move, and the residents were close to committing violence against the chaser to allow the family to escape.

Due to the fact that a.) this story is being told in public forums and b.) the details of the story changed from one telling of it to the next, c.) it was being told secondhand, and d.) embellished or exaggerated accounts of chasers have occurred in the media/ by officials in the past, I would like to determine the facts of what happened.

There are no descriptions of the vehicle, other than that it had a dome camera and an anemometer. If either version of the story is true, I'd like to get a statement from the chaser involved. If the story is embellished or fabricated, I believe it can be proven with video - assuming the chaser with the dome cam was recording with the camera and/or there were other chasers nearby.

I am combing through my video of the event (I have a four-way dashcam archive of the entire chase) and will update this thread if I am able to find a vehicle meeting the description.

Please let me know if you witnessed this incident or if you saw/have video of any vehicles with a dome camera on this day.

Please note that many chasers have dome cameras and that this story may be embellished (please don't accuse anyone).

Thank you,
Dan

I was on the storm from its birth to wedge out and no longer chaseable for safety reasons. I did not come across anyone fitting this description. Jared Stevenson may have better dashcam footage of the event as we were behind him documenting his efforts to place his probe. The only residents we encountered were in safe terrain and were highly interested in what we were doing, enthusiastically asking questions and watching the skies from a get together out on their front porch. We told them to stay glued to weather alerts and spoke with them about their personal home storm safety protocols.

Sent from my SM-G920V using Stormtrack mobile app