The events leading up to the traffic Jam in SW OKC on May 31st 2013

[Jake Orosi]

It's pointless to spend time on the cop; he or she may as well have been a jack-knifed semi or a flash flood across the road - the result is the same, another incidental obstacle that can show up which you can't control.

I'm not sure what the wisdom of networking with NWS would've been; NWS knows no more about traffic control than the highway patrol knows about microforecasting tornado tracks. Likewise, I'm a bit dubious about whether "advance warning" of road closures would've made a difference to chasers already in their vehicles and chasing the storm, especially considering the decision was probably made in response to evolving weather conditions - how are the chasers supposed to get the memo, as it were? The only radio station chasers are likely to be listening to (if any at all) is NOAA, which is an automated system that state and local authorities can't access; and Oklahoma is not the Spaceship Enterprise - there's no "broadcasting on all frequences" just to make sure they get everybody no matter what channel they're tuned to.

As far as TV mets - they obviously had nothing to do with the chaser situation, unless the chasers were watching TV in their cars (extremely unlikely, the data on TV is always several minutes old and no chaser would rely on it).

State and local law enforcement have the power to selectively close roads in emergencies - everywhere. It's practically part of their public safety mandate and isn't really in question. You and I can't control that. Of course we can't control the weather, so that part is right out. According to what I've seen, the local television stations have been very contrite and humble about their part in causing large numbers of people to be outside in their cars when a killer storm system was bearing down on the city - so if that part is going to change at all it's already doing so, and if it isn't, there's nothing we can do to control that unless we live in OKC - I don't know about you, but I sure don't. And we certainly can't do a darn thing about traffic because every single one of them has no less right to be there than the fifty other cars backed up behind them, and they know it.

The fact is, there's only one thing that any one of us actually can control; but that's the one thing it turns out we're not supposed to talk about.

 

[Brandon Clement]

It's pointless to spend time on the cop; he or she may as well have been a jack-knifed semi or a flash flood across the road - the result is the same, another incidental obstacle that can show up which you can't control.
I'm not sure what the wisdom of networking with NWS would've been; NWS knows no more about traffic control than the highway patrol knows about microforecasting tornado tracks. Likewise, I'm a bit dubious about whether "advance warning" of road closures would've made a difference to chasers already in their vehicles and chasing the storm, especially considering the decision was probably made in response to evolving weather conditions - how are the chasers supposed to get the memo, as it were? The only radio station chasers are likely to be listening to (if any at all) is NOAA, which is an automated system that state and local authorities can't access; and Oklahoma is not the Spaceship Enterprise - there's no "broadcasting on all frequences" just to make sure they get everybody no matter what channel they're tuned to.

Advanced warning isn't 5 minutes before they do it. If they are going to shut down an the core interstate system for an entire metropolitan area the next time a tornado is coming through they should announce it now. After speaking with the Oklahoma Highway Patrol they decided to shut down the interstate system the next time a tornado was coming through the metro shortly after the Moore storm. They knew for a week they were going to shut it down the next time a tornado came through. If you lived in the area and knew a tornado was heading your way that information should be available before you pile your family in a car and head for the interstate only to find out it is closed and get hit by a tornado sitting in what has become a parking lot. Maybe you don't see it that way.

As for the highway patrol working in conjunction with the NWS, I'm not talking about asking the NWS to manage traffic. How would you like to be the guy going down I-40 with your wife and three kids to suddenly pull up to stopped traffic and find out the road was closed because a tornado was heading that way. While you are sitting in your car trusting the highway patrol shut down the interstate where the tornado was going to cross you suddenly got hit by a violent tornado and your entire family got killed. Then later you find out that highway patrol closed the interstate at the wrong spot turning it into a sea of parked cars and they were not working with the national weather service to get an idea on the track of the storm? That would never happen right? Well, it happened on Friday but luckily there was no tornado on the ground when the second area of rotation crossed I-40.

As far as TV mets - they obviously had nothing to do with the chaser situation, unless the chasers were watching TV in their cars (extremely unlikely, the data on TV is always several minutes old and no chaser would rely on it).

Who said anything about TV mets working with storm chasers? I was referring to them getting together with the NWS and finding a happy medium with a common message to the public. Instead we have NWS telling people to get to the lowest level interior room while the TV mets are telling people if they can't get below ground to leave their homes.

State and local law enforcement have the power to selectively close roads in emergencies - everywhere. It's practically part of their public safety mandate and isn't really in question.

It doesn't make it right for them to do. If the public makes enough noise then maybe they can take a closer look and examine how effective closing the interstate in that situation is. As for the single officer, no he doesn't have the power to selectively close roads in that situation.

And we certainly can't do a darn thing about traffic because every single one of them has no less right to be there than the fifty other cars backed up behind them, and they know it.

I agree about the cars having the right to be there but does it mean highway patrol should block them all in place?

 

[Gary Stofer]

It is understandable if the officer was there to block northbound traffic from crossing into the path of an oncoming tornado. It is another if this officer intentionally blocked the southbound escape route out of spite for those on the road observing the storm. We've seen what certain LEOs think of chasers in some parts.
If this is what happened to you guys and more importantly the three that have passed, the story should be told.

 

[Jake Orosi]

It's simply not possible to make even an educated guess about whether the three dead chasers encountered the highway patrol roadblock and were where they were because they were forced to backtrack. They might've made a completely independent decision to take an unpaved road east before coming within sight of the roadblock. They may not even have been attempting to escape the tornado right that moment - at least one report here has said deployed probes may have been found near their vehicle.

Brandon said the tornado changed direction to the northeast before it got to 81, and that it looks like it probably passed right across the intersection the state trooper was blocking as a result. This tells me that if the tornado had not suddenly changed direction, it would've crossed 81 somewhere south of the blocked intersection. Considering that, the trooper's action could be interpreted as a good faith attempt to keep people from going south past him and into the tornado's anticipated path, and the only reason it didn't work out that way is because of the tornado's sudden change in direction.

 

[Skip Talbot]

This is a great thread for new chasers to read, and it's a lesson about what can happen when you play too close and don't have enough options for escape, or enough time to utilize them.

An escape route should never involve crossing a tornado's path, and that appears to be the main problem in this case. Reuter is 1-2 miles north of where the tornado crossed 81, which was closer to 15th. I know because we crossed 81 at 15th and the tornado was directly behind us. I don't agree with police blocking any roads at all (unless it's an extremely clear cut case), but in this case, I'd argue the police officer was actually in a beneficial position if he was blocking 81 southbound at Reuter, because the tornado crossed south of there.

Tornado to your south or southwest moving from east to northeast here are your escape route options:

Your best escape route would have been north. You had a beautiful escape route to the north on 81. A fast, four lane, paved highway, directly away from the path of the tornado. I don't care if there is 7" hail falling out of the storm. 7" inch hail doesn't roll your car 10 times or fling your body a quarter of a mile. You've committed to neglecting the hail threat if you're hook slicing or playing the inflow notch of an HP on a day with 5500 J/Kg of SBCAPE anyway.

The worst escape route would have been to continue east on Reuter, crossing the northeast moving tornado's path, trying to get out ahead of it. Conditions of the road up ahead are unknown. It's unpaved so it will be a slower road, more prone to flooding or blockage from debris. It'll slow you down just enough to put your right in the crosshairs when that tornado makes that occluding left hand turn like many big wedges do.

The next worst escape route would have been south. Why? Again, because you're crossing the tornado's path. It's a dangerous gamble racing that tornado. You may have cleared the tornado had the cop not been there, sure, and it's easy to blame the cop since he's a person. Had it been a tree blocking 81, it would have been a little harder pointing the finger. Anything can cut off your escape route. If you don't have another option, or the time to take that option, then you've made several mistakes already and placed yourself in a poor, potentialy deadly position.

A better escape route than east or south would have been west on Reuter. Simply turning around would take you into the hail and RFD, which is a bad place to be, but ultimately better than in the path of the tornado.

It's a lot easier to visualize this with a map. I borrowed Scott McPartland's map of the event which was pieced together from his own position and visual observations of the tornado at key times:

I've crudely annotated the position cited in a previous post of where the 81 roadblock was encountered, Reuter and 81, and the chaser's position coming up to this roadblock, as well as where the tornado may be, give or a take a mile or so east or west on that track, it doesn't change the reasoning here. The "good" (or less deadly) escape routes have green checkmarks, the "bad" (or potentially deadly) escape routes have red X's. It's pretty plain to see they cross the tornado's path.

The moral of the story for our new readers is that it's not a good idea to play in the bear's cage of the largest and most violent of supercells (many would argue of any supercell), and that it's better to take the road to hail and 80 mph winds than the road to 200+ mph winds. I'm not trying to be condescending here, but this seems like a fairly clear cut case when you lay out the options, and I think it should be spelled out bluntly so we don't lose more friends.

 

[JamesCaruso]

Skip, thanks for taking the time to assemble that analysis, particularly the map. It is very helpful!

One question though - seeking to enhance understanding, not to criticize - it is easy enough to see that west would have been a "safe" option now that the tornado path is known and drawn on a map. But if I was there at the time, and I don't yet know for sure how the tornado is going to move, might I not be in danger going west if the tornado were to make an even harder left turn? In other words, suppose you take the northeast portion of the path and shift it a bit west, in which case it potentially intersects the western escape route?

 

[JamesCaruso]

The moral of the story for our new readers is that it's not a good idea to play in the bear's cage of the largest and most violent of supercells (many would argue of any supercell), and that it's better to take the road to hail and 80 mph winds than the road to 200+ mph winds. I'm not trying to be condescending here, but this seems like a fairly clear cut case when you lay out the options, and I think it should be spelled out bluntly so we don't lose more friends.

The point about the violence of this supercell brings up another question I had about this storm. Is the consensus that the tornado was as violent, or more violent, than Moore, and that the lower EF rating is just a function of what structures it happened to hit? Or was the Moore tornado more powerful?

Was the overall El Reno supercell more violent than the May 20 Moore supercell, even though the tornado itself may not have been? If so, it is interesting that there is not necessarily a correlation between the violence of the tornado and the violence of the overall supercell... This would have to be a pretty rare exception to what I imagine is usually a strong correlation...

 

[Daniel van Os]

On what scale is tornado violence measured?

NWS Norman did tweet this yesterday: "The EF3 rating for the El Reno tornado is still preliminary. We are also looking at mobile radar data obtained near the tornado"

 

[David Hoadley]

Derek Weston, I just tried using your web site address on Google, but wasn't able to access this tornado track image. Can you attach it in some other way, so I can see it? Thank you. - - -David Hoadley

 

[rdale]

On what scale is tornado violence measured?

The Enhanced Fujita (EF) scale.

 

[Daniel van Os]

This is the file shown in Google Earth, it's the track as shown on the OUN NWS site, red line the best estimate from radar, gray line marks the 85% confidence area.

 

[Daniel van Os]

The Enhanced Fujita (EF) scale.

I reread the question and now see I was wrong in thinking that it suggested a difference between damage and violence. Everybody seems to mention the very strong inflow and it is what stands out in several videos I have seen. I guess 5500 J/kg of Cape can be responsible for that.

 

[Skip Talbot]

Skip, thanks for taking the time to assemble that analysis, particularly the map. It is very helpful!

One question though - seeking to enhance understanding, not to criticize - it is easy enough to see that west would have been a "safe" option now that the tornado path is known and drawn on a map. But if I was there at the time, and I don't yet know for sure how the tornado is going to move, might I not be in danger going west if the tornado were to make an even harder left turn? In other words, suppose you take the northeast portion of the path and shift it a bit west, in which case it potentially intersects the western escape route?

This is a valid concern, big wedges can continue turning toward the west when they start to wind down. If you can see which direction the tornado is moving, moving away from it at a right angle is the safest bet. That would be northwest if you're fleeing to the left of the tornado. This is why I prefer the route north on 81. It's going to be the fastest and least likely to be obstructed. You can run into trouble back tracking down a gravel road as they can easily become flooded in the core, or obstructed from debris from RFD winds. However, you just drove down that road, so you know it's conditions from only minutes ago. The key here is to keep going and put enough spacing between you and the tornado. Even if the tornado does make such a turn that it's now heading west, hopefully you've put enough ground on the tornado that you're already in the process of exiting the hook.

 

[Jason McKittrick]

After reflecting on the Fridays event for a few days I have concluded this tragedy, which could have been much worse, was probably the result of a lack of situational awareness by everyone.

This includes the TV media in Oklahoma City, which I would not believe they told people to evacuate if I had not seen it on youtube with my own eyes. A little coordination with Emergency Management and the Highway Patrol would have been good guys.

The Oklahoma Highway Patrol, while they may have used poor judgement, in my opinion, shutting down the interstates I have two things to say in their defense. First the interstate appeared to be a parking lot already before they took action. Second, we went through Oklahoma City on our way home after the tornado threat had subsided. At that time they still had I44 closed. forcing us onto the surface streets, which I think at that time was a ludicris action. However, admittedly I don't know what kind of obstructions were ahead. For me the image that sums up the whole day came in southwest Oklahoma City at 11PM. We were navigating the streets of the city, no power anywhere, trees down across the road in many places, the roads were flooded, there were stalled cars everywhere, it was pouring down rain and hailing, there was still frequent cloud to ground lightening and there at the major intersections in Oklahoma City stood the Oklahoma Highway Patrol in ankle deep water directing traffic. Their commitment to public safety is clear in my mind after seeing them risk there lives on Friday and seeing their overwheming response on the 20th.

The citizens of Oklahoma City, who I believe, after having people with their kids and pets in the car ask us for directions to safety while we were pinned against the river underneath the second rotating wall cloud, were still in a state of panic after the events that took place on the 20th. We even wittnesed people driving north bound on highway 4 in the southbound lanes in torrential rain. What rational thinking person would ever believe that to be a good idea?

And finally the chasers. I myself failed to fully appreciate the danger that the limited river crossings would eventually pose. I typically plan for this a little better but things got a little complicated due to the storm damage (trees down) that we encountered and the chase convergence. A second point, knowing there are all levels of experience and ability in the chase community while I do not typically take advice from other chasers I am certain that there are those out there that admire and respect Reed Timmer's expertise. We were listening to KFORs coverage on the radio during this event and as the first tornado touchdown west of El Reno I recall Reed did not say take shelter or lookout on I40 but instead he chose to say "tornado on the ground, you will have to be northeast of it to see anything". I remeber saying to my partner it would be crazy to try and chase this from that position. Apparently from the looks of things others either listened or thought that to be a good idea also. We obtain excellent video from our position south of the vortex, just say'in. Next, from The Weather Channel video in Mike Bettes's vehichle it looked to me as if they stayed too long in the cage and then prioritized continuing the chase over their personal safety. As others have mentioned and as I have done in the past and was forced to do Friday when you get caught between the core and the tornado you should never choose toward the tornado as your escape route. I have only been in this position twice myself and I take full responsibilty for my mistakes that put me in that position. I am shocked that some many chasers where oblivious to the danger they were in. The video I have seen over the last couple days showing some chasers driving into the circulation clearly show a lack of respect for this force of nature. I hope we all can use this tragedy to re evaluate our priorities and appreciation for this force of nature.

Here is what I learned....

Never chase in the city. This reassures me that I made the right decision on the 20th not to follow the storm that would produce the Moore tornado. Sitting in Chickasha as the towers went up, I knew the environment in OKC was better than in Dunan and I told my partner, it is only twenty minutes from town we have to let it go, it is too dangerous to chase in the city. I will not chase this close to a metro area again. I consider myself lucky this time.
Be aware of river crossings. I normally strategize for this but I did a poor job planning for our eventual escape as the storms trained and started dropping south on our position.
Third do not under estimate how people will react to an emergency particularly with an event like the Moore tornado so fresh in their minds. When I was there on the 20th I was very impressed with the response by the public and emergency responders however Friday was a completely different experience.


RIP Carl, Tim and Paul your spirit will live on in all of us. I look forward to seeing everyone out on the plains again soon.

 

[Dan Robinson]

Post removed for now.