Kansas police roadblocks cause storm chaser traffic jams near Dodge City

[Dan Robinson]

Upon reviewing my dashcam footage, I can confirm that the second roadblock on the north side of Dodge City at N 14th & W Rose Ave was in place while the tornado to the north (the one that threw the propane tank) was still in progress. I encountered the roadblock less than a minute after the tornado lifted. Thus, they had the block in place prior to any knowledge of the structure being hit or a hazard on the road or even if the tornado would affect that road out of town.

 

[Stuart Wilson]

What's with the "won't name names here" mantra? If someone (TV station or professional or yahoo) is giving chasing a bad name, and people can confirm those actions, why the desire to keep things on the down low? If it's a rumor - that's one thing. But if you witnessed something very bad, call him/her out.

I agree, Name and shame. And if they really were doing 96mph in an urban area they will have a period of time with no license I would imagine.

 

[James Wilson]

I thought it may happen and you can hear me saying so on our video ... once it turned multi-vortex and got close to the city we hauled as through town as I figured they would block the road. I later saw a lot of red spotter icons on the highway leading into town and figured that was why.

You just have to get ahead of the storm and the cops cannot stop you as you are already gone.

 

[James Hilger]

Maybe they're using sn to target us. Although you'd think it would be obvious where to go, it may not be to most of them. After all, the public and even other chasers do it.

 

[rdale]

Maybe they're using sn to target us. Although you'd think it would be obvious where to go, it may not be to most of them. After all, the public and even other chasers do it.

Not only that - I hear they use it to find where you live so they can pursue you later with traffic tickets.

 

[STexan]

I'm not chasing this year but did watch the "Dodge movie" as it was occurring on radar and TWC.

But to comment on an above post, with cheap gas as we have this season, don't exepect chaser numbers to dwindle. I can't comment on wether any of the road blocks were intentional to hamper chaser movement and/or due to legitimate dangers ahead but my take is ... with any slow-moving, long track tornado(s) you can expect LE to have a more active presence in the area, for better or for worse, just due to the extended amount of time for them to act and react.

Maybe the "chaser activity" was well-behaved that day during the peak of the event (overall) but this was a moderate risk day, and was forecasted well in advance, so I imagine LE had a game plan in place at the beginning of the day and it was going to be implemented no matter. I guess what I'm trying to say, if any of these stops were just to irritate and impeded chasers, the plan was probably in place in advance and was orchestrated by local high[er] command. And with that in mind, we can look back on documented problems the the LE community is well aware of regarding prime chase days in the KS, OK area that tends to attract the most activity of professional, amateur, looky-lu's, and every type in between.

I imagine the LE community has a forum similar to this and it would be interesting to find it and see how they discuss the chasers they encounter.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[Jamie G Cox]

Some friends of mine were heading down 65 to Florida for spring break from Michigan a few years back and got stopped by a police roadblock.

Their SUV was totaled by baseball to softball sized hail and the tornado nearly hit them.

They claimed they would have been long south of the storm without the roadblock and instead sat there 15 minutes waiting for the Henryville EF4 to roll them over.