Hannah.Taylor
EF4
Well, after today's epic cluster of a screwup by TWC's Mike Bettes, I'm almost sure there will be some anti-storm chasing legislation, or at least discussions towards curbing it.
For those of you that don't know, Bettes got caught with his pants down when a tornado took a hard right turn and picked his chase truck up with his crew in it, flipped it about 50-70 feet up in the air and tossed it 200 feet away from where it was picked up. He almost became the first real life Jonas Miller (Twister, 1996) today.
I'm sure Bettes is wishing he had this one back after today's debacle.
Watch video >
I see a lot of people defending him on facebook, saying it was a mistake...but that is not a mistake. That's just stupid decision making and endangering the life of his crew. Granted, they are all volunteers and know the risk, but there's just no reason to be THAT CLOSE when you're in a vehicle that is not setup for tornado penetration like the TIV (Sean Casey) or the Dominator (Reed Timmer) or the UTAV (Steve Worthington).
I saw a lot of chasers out taking unneccessary risks, and many of our own board members not setting a good example and were putting themselves in harm's way and some even sustained damage to their vehicles.
Not to mention all of the chaser convergence. This stuff is getting out of control. There's unnecessary risks being taken, and it's becoming an obsession to get as close as possible to these tornadoes.
When I chased on the 18th of May in Brownell, KS, I was sitting off Hwy 4 and Hwy 147 just barely east of Brownell and Stan Rose was in the same parking lot, we pulled out to head east and there must have been a chaser train at least 10 miles back to the west.
The chaser convergence in OK on the 19th during the Shawnee storm out near Bristow, and again on the 20th during the Moore, OK tornado. Both days, chase efforts were severely hampered by too many people. A lot of them weren't even chasers...they were just tourists who didn't know anything about chasing and were just simply trying to get pictures and video and it was evident in their driving behavior and side of the road behaviors.
If this type of behavior and etiquette continues, we can be rest assured that Big Brother will step in and seriously curb it with legislation or ban it all together...if it's not already set to happen after today's events.
For those of you that don't know, Bettes got caught with his pants down when a tornado took a hard right turn and picked his chase truck up with his crew in it, flipped it about 50-70 feet up in the air and tossed it 200 feet away from where it was picked up. He almost became the first real life Jonas Miller (Twister, 1996) today.
![976759_197713273715364_327775804_o.jpg](/proxy.php?image=https%3A%2F%2Ffbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net%2Fhphotos-ak-prn2%2F976759_197713273715364_327775804_o.jpg&hash=16ed3cdd67c546fa27f2c506d5d3ce0b)
I'm sure Bettes is wishing he had this one back after today's debacle.
Watch video >
I see a lot of people defending him on facebook, saying it was a mistake...but that is not a mistake. That's just stupid decision making and endangering the life of his crew. Granted, they are all volunteers and know the risk, but there's just no reason to be THAT CLOSE when you're in a vehicle that is not setup for tornado penetration like the TIV (Sean Casey) or the Dominator (Reed Timmer) or the UTAV (Steve Worthington).
I saw a lot of chasers out taking unneccessary risks, and many of our own board members not setting a good example and were putting themselves in harm's way and some even sustained damage to their vehicles.
Not to mention all of the chaser convergence. This stuff is getting out of control. There's unnecessary risks being taken, and it's becoming an obsession to get as close as possible to these tornadoes.
When I chased on the 18th of May in Brownell, KS, I was sitting off Hwy 4 and Hwy 147 just barely east of Brownell and Stan Rose was in the same parking lot, we pulled out to head east and there must have been a chaser train at least 10 miles back to the west.
The chaser convergence in OK on the 19th during the Shawnee storm out near Bristow, and again on the 20th during the Moore, OK tornado. Both days, chase efforts were severely hampered by too many people. A lot of them weren't even chasers...they were just tourists who didn't know anything about chasing and were just simply trying to get pictures and video and it was evident in their driving behavior and side of the road behaviors.
If this type of behavior and etiquette continues, we can be rest assured that Big Brother will step in and seriously curb it with legislation or ban it all together...if it's not already set to happen after today's events.