Silver Lining Tours vans rolled in Kansas

[Ben Holcomb]

Anyway, why do people want to get so close?

Get close, shoot wide dude. There's nothing exciting to me about being far away from a tornado. Nothing has ever made me feel as alive as being right next to a violent tornado. It's safe to assume there are others in this world that feel the same way.

 

[Jamie_Simms]

Get close, shoot wide dude. There's nothing exciting to me about being far away from a tornado. Nothing has ever made me feel as alive as being right next to a violent tornado. It's safe to assume there are others in this world that feel the same way.

Ben, you've nailed it with that comment. Great one!

 

[Jeff House]

Key is get CLOSE not INSIDE. Esp with DDC and the like it's safe to get really close. If I drive 14 hours, of course I'm there for tornadoes - not structure fails. Both is nice though.

 

[Warren Faidley]

If you want to get close to something deadly, then play with snakes or explosives. As a volunteer first responder I’m offended by people who are only thinking of themselves. The men and women who must respond to your aid often place themselves in grave danger. I simply don’t understand this philosophy. Having said this, I do understand getting close w/o endangering yourself or others. But those days are (75 percent or higher) gone with so much traffic. I suspose one could get really close with no issues on an isolated, high visibility, slow moving storm like Campo. I’ll even take that risk. But big wedges often produce low / rain-wrapped visibility, satellite vortices and shifting / widening mesos. People have forgotten El Reno too soon.

 

[Robert Edmonds]

This is what I've written regarding this:

I once tried to find an insurer for a storm chasing tour company I was trying to setup where I would drive the vehicle. I tried to meet what I thought were the law mandated commercial insurance requirements. Honestly, I couldn't find a company to insure me if I told the truth. I remember Silver Lining listing their insurance company after doing a US dot search. So I called the company that was listed to insure them. I called and said I noticed you insure a storm chasing tour company, the representative who answered didn't know about insuring a storm chasing tour company. Maybe the representative wasn't knowledgeable, but after being declined, I noticed the following season Silver Lining didn't list them as their insurer. Frustrated by not being able to meet the requirements I started talking with State and Federal regulators. What I found was regulators take the path of least resistance in real life. The State regulators claimed storm chasing tours fell under federal requirements, and Federal regulators claimed it was to be regulated by states. In the process I found that you could claim transportation was incidental to the activity. That is viewing or photographing the storm was the main purpose, and transportation was incidental. Then poof, most of those requirements I thought existed went away. That was enough to put you in a gray area where you would be left alone from the regulators. Whether that was actually the case, or whether that would cover you against the claims, would be settled in court once there was a significant enough accident, so I was told by one of those regulators. Maybe Silver Lining found the unicorn that would insure them, maybe this isn't still a significant enough accident that the gray area will remain. All I know is I'm glad it's not worse, and I am glad I went back to not operating tours as the driver.

 

[Alex Elmore]

Anyway, why do people want to get so close?

To each their own, IMO. I personally like to sit back a bit, but If people can do it safely (i.e., good visual, an escape route or two), then sure, why not. I was on this storm not too far from where this happened and there was no structure, at least not right before it produced the tornado. Too much low-level cloud cover blocking the view of the storm, so if you wanted to see anything, you had to be right up in it. I bailed on it because I didn't feel like chasing a rain-wrapped monster through an urban area.

 

[Mark Blue]

SL does require a waiver form to be signed before they’ll take you out. I know the answers to some of the speculation going on in this thread, but Roger is the one who got me off the bench and into the game back in 2005-06. Since I think the world of him and Caryn I’ll refrain from spilling the beans, because it looks like they’re already under the gun (so to speak) with attorneys, insurance, KS law, basically the whole nine yards. The last thing I want to do is make it worse by running my mouth.

Just a little over a year ago we were doing a Go Fund Me thing for them to be able to carry on having Chaser Conventions. With that fact and this latest incident it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to say this could financially ruin them. @Jason Persoff if you want someone to partner with or to help out in any way I’ll be ready should we need another fund raiser.

This may or may not change storm chasing. I hope it does and for the better. It’s getting crazier every year and until the beast is tamed these incidents will be on the increase whether we like it or not.

 

[Robert Edmonds]

SL does require a waiver form to be signed before they’ll take you out.

A waiver doesn't make mandated insurance requirements go away, and the only way you find out if a waiver holds up is in court. Best way to keep this from blowing up is request the bill, and pay out of pocket until the money dries up. Unless you really did tell the truth on your insurance application.

 

[Zack Cooper]

SL does require a waiver form to be signed before they’ll take you out. I know the answers to some of the speculation going on in this thread, but Roger is the one who got me off the bench and into the game back in 2005-06. Since I think the world of him and Caryn I’ll refrain from spilling the beans, because it looks like they’re already under the gun (so to speak) with attorneys, insurance, KS law, basically the whole nine yards. The last thing I want to do is make it worse by running my mouth.

Just a little over a year ago we were doing a Go Fund Me thing for them to be able to carry on having Chaser Conventions. With that fact and this latest incident it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to say this could financially ruin them. @Jason Persoff if you want someone to partner with or to help out in any way I’ll be ready should we need another fund raiser.

This may or may not change storm chasing. I hope it does and for the better. It’s getting crazier every year and until the beast is tamed these incidents will be on the increase whether we like it or not.

It doesn't matter if they have their guests sign waivers. Acts of gross negligence cannot be waived before they occur, and a good attorney could easily argue this to be an act of gross negligence. Also, why mention that you know the answers at all if you aren't going to say what they are?

 

[Tony Laubach]

It keeps happening to the most cautious, safety-minded, experienced people... let's all take a step back and think about that for a moment.

 

[Dean Baron]

I think if you are chasing by yourself or with a friend, being within a mile or two of a large/wedge tornado is a risk left to the person chasing. When you have vans full of paying clients who 1. don't know the danger they are in and 2. don't have much say in how close they get, it might be a good idea to give yourself a little more room between the tornado and your group. I know Hill is a great chase and his company has a great reputation, but there have been times where I thought to myself while watching their streams that they looked to be closer to a tornado than I would expect a tour group would be considering the liability he would be under if something went wrong.

 

[Warren Faidley]

Jesse brought up a good point about being too close. I would not consider his images to be "too close." Maybe the problem lies in the definition. For an individual chaser, who does not have the responsiblity for others in the vehicle, who cares -- get as close as you want, but take responsibly if something goes wrong and be ready to pay the price. If you have the responsibility of driving a van load of people near a confirmed large and destructive tornado, "too close" is what? If you are placing yourself in the direct path of a fast-moving, PDS wedge, then "too close" may be defined differently, even if you are five miles away. If you are willing to take the risk of getting stuck in convergence traffic as a violent tornado is near-by, should that be considered too close?

 

[Darren Addy]

Sorry to hear this. Hope everyone is OK. This will change everything nothing.

Fixed that for you.
Furthermore, I will not be surprised if their bookings go WAY UP for next year.

Very glad that no one was more seriously injured or killed. Also, cue Alanis Morissette when you read:
"Confluence of events could spell chaos" for storm chasers

 

[Warren Faidley]

One positive note, if they can keep this out of the mainstream media for the next 48+ hours it will make life a lot easier for everyone involved as the news cycle moves on.

 

[Todd Lemery]

One positive note, if they can keep this out of the mainstream media for the next 48+ hours it will make life a lot easier for everyone involved as the news cycle moves on.

I hope it stays quiet as far as the main stream media as it should. As I type this though, there is probably someone at a major newspaper typing their story about crazy storm chasers trying to drive themselves into 1/2 mile wedges just for thrills...