Dan Robinson
EF5
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
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
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