Silver Lining Tours vans rolled in Kansas

[Lanny Dean]

VERY interesting write up by meteorologist Jon Davies. His article paints my thought process exactly regarding the “merger” and even discussing their position in regards to the “satellite tornado” which is what we might typically see in the Deep South as
I previously mentioned. This clearly indicates why they were in the location they were and what the basic thought process was.
Link below:

Radar data and the Silver Lining Tours incident 5/28/19 south of Lawrence, Kansas

Roger Hill and Silver Lining Tours (SLT) have been getting a bunch of heat on social and other media for two of their tour vans getting roll...

davieswx.blogspot.com

 

[Randy Denzer]

VERY interesting write up by meteorologist Jon Davies. His article paints my thought process exactly regarding the “merger” and even discussing their position in regards to the “satellite tornado” which is what we might typically see in the Deep South as
I previously mentioned. This clearly indicates why they were in the location they were and what the basic thought process was.
Link below:

Radar data and the Silver Lining Tours incident 5/28/19 south of Lawrence, Kansas

Roger Hill and Silver Lining Tours (SLT) have been getting a bunch of heat on social and other media for two of their tour vans getting roll...

davieswx.blogspot.com

This incident should have never happened but yet every seasoned chaser knew it would. Tour companies loading truly unsuspecting passengers into a van and taking them even remotely close to any supercell is a disaster waiting to happen. Whats even worse in my opinion is the fact that everyone is somehow saying this was ok because they were not aware. If you want to know just how "minor" this incident was, ask the local communities which were impacted by a tour company creating a mass casualty incident in their area during a natural disaster. Their opinions should be at the forefront of any excuse being provided by tour operator/owners. 23 of their first responders were tied up transporting or attending to 12 patients while their own community needed them badley. SLT should be billed for the response and backfill this "minor" mass casualty caused.

The real disaster here is that this will be excused so it will happen again.

Tour companies should be highly regulated and taxed for the potential mass casualties they bring with them.

I am hoping the NTSB gets involved in this incident to bring needed change to these unregulated interstate tour businesses. Simular to what we did for the Balloon crash that caused 16 hirrific deaths in central Texas. Ill bet the next tour bus accident will be much worse. And, again, we all know its coming.

 

[Dan Robinson]

Was I really being hyperbolic about decrying the "anything less than 10 miles is irresponsible" bit?

I'll make a deal with all first responders. If I am ever hit by a tornado, don't respond. Leave me alone. Stay out of my choices and I'll stay out of yours. Deal?

 

[Dan Robinson]

Another aspect of this incident that is worth analyzing is the claim that rescue personnel "drove into the tornado" to respond. Does anyone know the names and locations of the responding stations, estimated time the calls came in, etc? This seems like highly relevant information given that the claim that emergency personnel "risked a tornado strike to respond" is being used in a major way to fan flames of anger among local residents. If the claim is true, the anger is deserved. If false, it is a deliberate fabrication to take advantage of the situation and therefore should be called out.

 

[Joshua Nall]

I bring this up just to give some perspective to the whole "situational awareness" bit. How many chasers saw Rozel? And what percentage of those have no clue this second tornado dropped behind them?



I have never seen another pic of this tornado in the foreground and only one short video clip. Everyone was closer with eyes glued to the main tornado. There were probably hundreds of chasers that day between two tornadoes and they never knew it. The reason I was so far back is I had my mother with my for a mother's day present. One thing she really wanted, is to see things I see, so i asked her to go. I don't know quite how to express it but this discussion of being safe at all cost irritates me. And I think it is encredibly sad if Roger is hurt by this. Because yes I really believe if you want to live it involves risks. And stuff just happens even when you think you are interpreting everything correctly. All of those tour guests were choosing to live and not sit at home on the couch. That foreground tornado Rozel day was weak but it had a debris cloud and no one even saw it! As a society we are just going to litigate ourselves out of doing anything significant or daring or fun. And I will echo Dan's comment, any first responders that feel like I don't belong or something, can pass over me. I know that's silly but that is literally my thoughts on that. I think though that we as humans can help out humans when our plans don't work out, even if they involve slight risk.

 

[Brett Roberts]

I'll make a deal with all first responders. If I am ever hit by a tornado, don't respond. Leave me alone. Stay out of my choices and I'll stay out of yours. Deal?

I have a lot of mixed thoughts on this incident, but the particular claim that first responders being diverted to a chasing-related injury constitutes an egregious waste of their resources (implying, for example, that the victim(s) should be billed in full for the response) strikes me as fairly ridiculous. If that's the case, where is the line between an excusable injury that taxpayers should foot the bill for rather than the victim? Should a chasing-related incident be covered by the injured party primarily because services are being rendered to non-residents of the area? Or primarily because chasing is a silly waste of time, so anyone hurt in the act of chasing (admittedly through poor decisions) should be financially responsible? If a non-resident driving through Douglas Co. makes an egregiously stupid driving decision and causes a major collision, should the same logic apply?

It never ceases to amaze me what a self-loathing group we can be, always chomping at the bit to blame each other and openly invite lines of thinking (or perhaps even policy ideas) likely to hurt all of us. The one caveat in this case is that the incident happened in the course of operating a major for-profit venture, so the notion of some regulation and perhaps a slightly different set of liabilities than what applies to recreational chasers is on the table. But "bill them $50k for the emergency response" seems like a suggestion that could only reasonably come from someone contemptuous of chasing in general, given that -- let's face it -- most of us who actually chase are at some risk of a similar incident, however low and however careful we think we are.

 

[Robert Reynolds]

Posting a follow-up to my previous post because I feel that the more information is provided, the better we understand how these situations develop, and hopefully can reduce that amount of risk we put ourselves in while still providing an important service to emergency management, NWS and the public.

This video begins facing north on E. 550th Rd, just north of 56 Hwy. You can see the area of our initial interest, and as we make the decision to continue to advance north, you can see how quickly and drastically conditions changed. It was just as the rain bands hit us that I realized there was an issue with our radar data....and we all 3 felt something was not quite right. In hindsight, the "RFD" that we experienced was likely us caught up in the developing circulation. You see the 4 tour vans pass us southbound on 550 Rd at E. 600 Rd. Their incident occurred approximately 1/2 mile south of this intersection. I believe you can also see Quincy Vagell heading eastbound on 600 Rd as we approach the intersection. We turned around in the same church lot that the tour group did. Still thinking we were south of whatever was developing, we moved east on 600 Rd, which almost ended badly for us.

 

[Steve Holmes]

I'll make a deal with all first responders. If I am ever hit by a tornado, don't respond. Leave me alone. Stay out of my choices and I'll stay out of yours. Deal?

If you are not just blowing off steam, you can get a "Do Not Resuscitate" order. I'm sure the first responders on this board would be delighted to honor it.

 

[Adam Lucio]

I can't help but sense some out-of-place coddling of chase tour guests here. I'm not advocating taking unnecessary risks or being reckless with people in your care. But let's not act like a tour group is a bus full of nuns or school kids. These are people who are out there for the same reasons you and I are. I've met many of them. Many of them have "graduated" to being longtime independent chasers. Some are even active on ST. They want to see a tornado, to have the same experiences you and I like to have. That is what they signed up for and what they paid large amounts of money to do.

Having guided several tours now I can say this is true. The guests WANT to get close, they want to see the windows smashed by hail, they want to experience the "adrenaline rush" they believe chasing to be. We play it super safe on our tours, and sometimes the guests actually get disappointed we don't core punch baseballs, or go blasting down a dirt road to get into the outer circulation.

You need that ultra rare, slow moving, high contrast tornado like Campo or Rozel to get tour guests close, otherwise its best to hang back. It certainly is a conundrum for an owner, but playing it too-safe should always be priority, and those are very easy, conscious decisions to make. You really do have to try to get hit. Sure its an accident, but it really isn't when you think about it.

 

[Timothy Schaffer]

Having guided several tours now I can say this is true. The guests WANT to get close, they want to see the windows smashed by hail, they want to experience the "adrenaline rush" they believe chasing to be.

They may think they want it, but when the chips are down, do they really? Do they know any better? In Joplin, a tour group put themselves in an incredibly dangerous situation, managing to get out of the tornado's path just a couple of minutes before the tornado rolled through. Those passengers were quite frightened. The drivers were near panic.

Joplin tour group

I don't know what tour group that was, but I would have been livid to have been put in such a life-threatening situation had I been a passenger.

 

[Joshua Nall]

I understand the point but in the context of what happened I dont understand the desire to say what is and isn't an accident.

I'm actually personally put off by this line of reasoning which several seem to be on. Are we going to conclude that any time we misinterpret the atmosphere and something bad happens that it was not an accident? The fact there were many willing tour guests participating in the activity does matter but I'm not understanding the difference between guided weather tours and other types of guided dangerous activity where conditions are misinterpreted.

I appreciate Roger's comment about making mistakes and anyone that hasn't made one can throw the first stone.

And with some here who seem to be more critical especially the tour owner, if a shower drops a tornado like on Rozel day and throws gravel in your face are you really going to say... wow I should have been further away? That event made me totally understand how whacky weather can be... and seeing that all the "experts" missed it. I was only *accidentally* in the right spot, haha. I guess I am understanding why some are wanting to quit because they are constantly looking over their shoulder. Now with having been critical they will have to be even more cautious themselves. And HOW could that be any fun??? I guess the answer is to quit. I could go back 20 years and dig up what some have said about feelings they had being in a tornado... and now commenting in this thread they have totally changed. Talking in a broad sense here we are all changing, but you can't expect to project your exact conclusions and feelings on everyone else. Especially when you have done the same thing. I wish I could convey better what I'm trying to say. I hope that learning and good come from this and there are no more incidents. The reality is though that it's an inherently dangerous hobby and there will be incidents and of course there will be more deaths. I do not understand the problem with accepting that. I mean chasing has to be way more fulfilling than that deep diving crap people do. And some die. If anyone would like to explain their feelings on the difference I would love to hear your thoughts.

 

[Tony Laubach]

The reality is though that it's an inherently dangerous hobby and there will be incidents and of course there will be more deaths. I do not understand the problem with accepting that. I mean chasing has to be way more fulfilling than that deep diving crap people do. And some die. If anyone would like to explain their feelings on the difference I would love to hear your thoughts.

Why do people have to die? Explain to me how that is acceptable?

 

[JamesCaruso]

I am not passing judgment one way or another, just kind of thinking out loud here about how chasing has changed... When I started in 1996, it was frowned upon to even end up in the “bear’s cage”... Maybe back then the veterans did it anyway and it was just lip service, I have no idea, but it seemed like something you just didn’t do... Now of course in recent years people have gotten closer and more extreme. Sometimes there is talk on here about how this has created greater “competition” to get the money shot. Personally I have never had any interest in, or tried to, sell any footage or become a social media star. So for me there is no aspect of “competition.” Yet I cant deny still being influenced by the trend; it becomes part of the chasing culture, gets into your subconscious, and what you might have thought was a great experience before now just doesn’t seem exciting enough, adventurous enough, or like enough of a personal achievement because of the awareness of what others have seen and experienced.

Not sure I really have a point here, and definitely don’t have any new insights, except to say that chasing has definitely changed and it affects all of us - not just chase tour operators or people trying to make money through video sales or other media efforts - whether we realize it, or admit it or not. And maybe it is more fun this way, but of course it is also riskier, and we each have to find our own balance.

As we say in jiu jitsu when someone gets hurt, “It’s not a knitting class.”

 

[Robert Edmonds]

Yes customers want to see a tornado... but they don't understand the risk, and they (more or less) trust your judgement on the matter. I guess there's different standards each tour operator thinks is an acceptable level of risk. Some tours are fine with hook slicing a storm like El Reno, some are fine with dancing under the meso, some are fine playing chicken with a storm by taking a construction detour in Montana. I admit I did take risks while on tour, and perhaps some of those risks might not be acceptable to others, but some of what tours have done are beyond what I would do on my own. Yet, the pay off for tours taking those risks can be amazing in terms of success and viewing a tornado, but holy cow the risk. However, I think what we are struggling with in this thread is, have we communicated what are acceptable levels of risk to us as the operator to the customer, and does the customer even understand? If not, how can they make an informed choice? Could they even make an informed choice? Are tours being conservative enough in judgement calls? Who can/could draw that line?

 

[Marc R. O'Leary]

The question that needs to be asked: Is the tour operator chasing for his/her customers, or is he chasing as if chasing solo? One of these is not acceptable.