Will chaser congestion and unncessary risk taking lead to anti-chase legislation?

[Patrick Martin]

If you don't like the topic, then don't come in and comment with rude and immature retorts. capiche`? Your little high school retorts are what's really nauseating.

Either contribute constructively or recuse yourself from the conversation.

It's not that I don't like the particular topic, it's that I don't necessarily agree. This topic has been presented and discussed at length at various times, and it seems every time there is an incident of some type, it inevitably bubbles right back up to the top. I have no doubt this will not be the last time it is a thread starter.

Regarding legislation, which I've said before, I do not believe this is something that could really come to pass. It becomes very sensationalized with first hand video and accounts in the moment, but quickly fades into the headlines with the general public. In the grand scheme of things, it pales in comparison to more significant issues that the country faces. For instance, more children are put in danger, injured, and killed by their crappy/incompetent parent, but there is no law, license, or regulation required to be a parent.

With respect to how various chasers and TWC were effected yesterday. There were a lot of very very experiences chasers, many of whom to my knowledge, do not make it a habit to get as close as possible, who ended up in a bad position yesterday. Between deviant storm motion, unprecedented & unforeseen gridlock with a public essentially in panic, coupled with a metro area, it was a unique situation. From what I've seen, posted, heard, the chasers hit were making efforts to move away from the circulation, which is the opposite of what, in the past, has been the basis of debate regarding getting to close. The call for self policing, greater safety, and threat of legislation has most often been based on chasers making questionable efforts to move towards the circulation and erratic driving in trying to do so, but this was simply not the case yesterday. With that being said, I can't in good faith try to be judge and jury and pass judgement on these folks.

And Lee, I have no problem with your lightbar.

 

[MClarkson]

(like the pretense that you can anticipate the tornado's movement... So what is "deviant motion" for a tornado?

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2DXuOBBr55M/Tb4iD_IbUfI/AAAAAAAACPM/15Inlj4BBl4/s1600/tracks.jpg

Most tornadoes rarely turn.

 

[Tim Vasquez]

From a public safety standpoint I think law enforcement and public safety officials may have their hands full right now with the new trend of "residents fleeing south". This is a picture of southbound traffic on US 77 in Noble that was posted last night on Reddit:

I can confirm I saw the very same thing in western Pottawatomie County last night, and I know it was worse in the city. I'm not concerned with any legislation specifically against chasers, but given the mass exodus problems I worry that there COULD be some kind of blanket measures thrown at the whole thing where it would be a criminal offense to be on the roads during a civil emergency. On the other hand I don't know how they'd stop 50,000 people who still want to go south. And as far as Mike Bettes or TIV, I think when you put everything into perspective, LE doesn't really care.

These are definitely interesting times... I never foresaw a mess like this 10 years ago.

 

[B Ozanne]

I've been on this forum for almost a decade and the topics are still the same.

I was watching KFOR during the storm (from Connecticut) and the tv met was telling people to evacuate. Literally..."get in your car and leave."

This reminds of the evacuation hysteria after Katrina. I think it was Rita that caused a mass evacuation of people from Houston and major traffic jams on the interstates. Didn't like 24 elderly people die in a bus that caught fire while stuck in traffic? People are just reacting the same way to the Moore storm two weeks ago.

 

[Jeff Duda]

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2DXuOBBr55M/Tb4iD_IbUfI/AAAAAAAACPM/15Inlj4BBl4/s1600/tracks.jpg

Most tornadoes rarely turn.

Tornadoes wobble and turn all the time, especially in slow moving storms. Granted, strong deviations from a previous established motion vector pretty much don't happen, but on the smaller scale, they absolutely can and do, and I don't think it's as uncommon as you think. The map you showed is of tornado tracks from the April 27, 2011 outbreak, in which every tornado track marked formed from a fast moving, long-tracked supercell. Yes, no tornado track appears to bend and stay on the new track. However, given the scale of the map and the resolution of the tracks as they were plotted (probably every 50-75 km), you don't see the little wobbles on that map. But I guarantee they are there. Heck, you actually CAN see some wobbles even on the longer tracked tornadoes.

I maintain that you can't give chasers who got caught in this much, if any, credit because the tornado "took an unexpected and strong turn". If a chaser honestly doesn't know that tornadoes can do that, then in my opinion they don't belong out there anywhere near any tornado.

I've seen so many close calls with chasers punching into the rain to see rain-wrapped tornadoes (one such event being 13 April 2012 in SW OK), and I always have a Lewis Black style head-and-hand shaking reaction to chasers that do that. I question whether many of those chasers know what they're doing trying to see rain-wrapped tornadoes. I think some chasers do, in fact, know what they're doing. They're very keen and can read what the environment is telling them. However, more and more I think that many chasers just don't give a damn and want to be the ones that got the shot, regardless of how much danger they must subject themselves to, so they'll pull whatever risky and dangerous maneuver they need to in order to get that shot for their fame and fortune.

As in my post #3 on this thread, although I maintain my opinion, again I am completely bewildered at the outcome for some of the more experienced and knowledgeful chasers. I think I may very well be wrong about my opinion. This is the worst way to learn, though.

 

[Hannah.Taylor]

Meh, I figured it was only a matter of time before the annual "storm chaser legislation" thread would make an appearance on here. I'll provide the same response that I have provided the past 5 years or so.

I will first say, regulation will never be put into place that regulates storm chasing. Not only would that violate our constitutional rights, how would you even prove that I am a storm chaser if such regulation was put into place? Would it be because I have a laptop? If so, I work in IT and I'm on call pretty much 24/7, so my laptop is with me pretty much all the time. Would I be considered a storm chaser because I have a ham radio? I enjoy talking to people, and got my ham radio license for that reason, not a crime. Or would I get busted as a storm chaser because I have a camera with me? Problem is, I'm into photography, my camera is always in my vehicle and last I checked, that wasn't a crime.
But let's look at this logically, you have a high risk day and you have hundreds of storm chasers surrounding a community of like 1,000 people, chances are, that town probably has like one police officer on duty. Where would they get the man power to do the checks for everyone passing by to see if they're a storm chaser or not? It's not going to happen.

So how about this, instead of telling all of us that there needs to be regulation, or that such and such incident will lead to such regulation... how about you explain to us how such regulation will work.

tell me...in fact show me where I said there NEEDS to be regulation? Never said that. I agree it is unenforceable, but in retrospect to the debauchery of the legislators in this country that wont stop them. Look at the idiots in Colorado. They instituted a ban on 30 round magazines, limiting it to 15 rounds. no way to enforce that, but that didnt stop them from passing it.

 

[Marcus Diaz]

I'll touch on a few subjects I've seen this morning again.

First off, there seems to be a trend going on with local tv mets telling people to simply leave the affected area. Back on May 28, a tornado warned storm was heading straight for Amarillo. They sounded the sirens a good 20 min before the storm came in. Sitting a good 5 miles south of town over I-27, and it was chaotic. The southbound lanes were packed with people scurrying away from town, and we were the only people besides emergency workers heading northbound (I had good data and radar, so I knew where the storm was and where it was heading). I'm not sure if people are just gun shy after recent years where old poorly built storm shelters are known to collapse, or with the events of May 20 where the notion of being in the strongest part of the building isn't good enough. Either way, this has made every part of chasing dangerous even when the town isn't a huge metropolis. I too was watching KFOR coverage and as someone mentioned, they advised to get in your car and leave. Even the tv chasers mentioned "You can't survive this above ground". Not to mention, according to Mike Morgan, there had to have been a dozen tornadoes on the ground around OKC, according to his radar.

I'm not going to touch the subject of chaser regulation. Simply because A) its impossible to enforce. And B) how will anyone tell the difference between a local and a chaser? A tv met and some yahoo crazy local? Emergency workers or a chaser (insert lightbar reference here). It simply won't happen, ever. The closest thing there is to that is law enforcement closing off roads to the tornado or storm, which OHP is already doing with major highways.

Finally, probably the touchiest subject, the way people chase. Sure, we all have our different ways of chasing. And hopefully we all know our own limits. I'm not planning on preaching or making a book on how to properly chase. But seems that people don't quite know when to stop. Yes, yesterday's tornado made a hard left turn, and caught many off guard. But the Bennington, KS wedge on the 28th did the same funky dance. And also the tornado on May 15 near Cleburne, TX that made a 90° left turn. These strong and violent tornadoes rarely go in one direction. They usually wobble a bit and change direction very quickly. I'm sure someone smarter than me can explain why this happens. I can only assume its from the power the storm has. For people who think these large violent tornadoes simply right turn and continue on, you're obviously wrong.

So now tell me people, if you're driving south on the highway, and have a tornado to your right (or west), what do you think the chances are that it'll cross the highway? I say pretty good. Storm motions almost always have an easterly component. So I present to you the video from inside TWC vehicle that was struck. Idk about you folks, but as soon as I noticed where the tornado was in the video, I would've just stopped and try to turn around. Instead, these boneheads try to race it south. I'd rather take a windshield full of softballs than be engulfed by that ferocious tornado or even risk large damaging debris from buildings/trees on the outer edges.

Watch video >

My conclusion, I think the chasers were too optimistic that they've done this hundreds of times and gotten away with it. But from what I heard there were several other chasers that were impacted. Hell even Timmer lost the hood of his Dominator to that tornado. All of these factors just came together just right over the perfect area combined with a volatile setup to really mess up chasing yesterday.

 

[MClarkson]

There is a big difference between a little wobble, which I agree is quite routine, and the major turns this one took (at least judging by its velocity couplet). Its not just that one damage map, I used that simply because it was big and recent... there are at least 1000s of such maps and damage path photos that show the dominant mode - by far - is a straight or nearly strait line. At any given point in time or space, a large tornado is probably not taking a major turn.

This one was an exception, although I don't know if the unusual motion (at least by radar, and epic velocity couplets/hook have great correlation with ground truth) contributed to these chasers getting hit, or if they made some other mistake. However, I am quite confident that skilled chasers can get up close and personal with even a large tornado with acceptable risk. Keep in mind acceptable risk is extremely subjective. I really don't see a major danger in coming up from the south towards an east moving tornado (again, I am not saying thats what happened in this case, its simply what I would have done). Especially in a well built modern car, which as we can see can take a pretty good hit and still protect its occupants most of the time. A little danger, sure. But acceptable, at least to me and some others.

 

[Shane Adams]

One constant that could keep the idea of legislation alive is a new thread on ST about it every 6 months......

 

[Karen St John]

So, why on Earth would the TV mets be telling people to evacuate the area by road, instead of going underground? I suppose having everyone on the freeway would make recovery of the dead easier, but that's a morbid outlook to say the least. It could potentially make for far more dead.

Also, remember all the talk about evacuating cities during terrorist attacks? Is there no way to look at those plans, (assuming we ever bothered to make them, instead of just yammer about them) and modify them for natural disasters? We can be such clever little monkeys when we decide to be...

 

[Hannah.Taylor]

So, why on Earth would the TV mets be telling people to evacuate the area by road, instead of going underground? I suppose having everyone on the freeway would make recovery of the dead easier, but that's a morbid outlook to say the least. It could potentially make for far more dead.

Also, remember all the talk about evacuating cities during terrorist attacks? Is there no way to look at those plans, (assuming we ever bothered to make them, instead of just yammer about them) and modify them for natural disasters? We can be such clever little monkeys when we decide to be...

pretty much damned if you do and damned if you don't. If you're unfortunate to be in the path of a mile wide wedge and you have no basement or storm shelter, the only other options are find a neighbor that will let you in or flee the area that's in the path of the storm.

I think Mike Morgan pretty much felt that leaving people to die in their homes was not the right thing to do. It's a catch 22, and I've seen opinions on his decision vary, but I can't in any sense validate him telling a mass population of people to fill the streets (10 minutes prior to a storm hitting) in their cars in a panic to drive south fully well knowing that tornadoes can and often do change their courses.

Watch video >

 

[Rob Wadsworth]

We can be such clever little monkeys when we decide to be...

To be 'clever little monkeys'; perhaps when rebuilding it is high time to remember the lesson of the 'three little pigs' - lol . . .

A picture of a concrete home on oceanfront Biloxi MS is worth a thousand words.

One home that survived Katrina:

Why this idea hasn't caught up with living in a known tornado zone; it can only be resistance from contractors. Surely, the insurance industry would like this idea as repair costs would be far less. Imagine premiums would be less too.

 

[Mike Moore]

The tone of the thread from the start is disrespectful in my opinion. "epic cluster of a screwup" or "Caught with his pants down."

Can we wait and hear what happened from the man himself? You say it was not just a mistake. You say it was "just stupid decision making and endangering the life of his crew." Again - do you have some inside knowledge of the situation here? Can we give it a day or two and hear what happened from the people who were there? Obviously Bettes is higher profile than a lot of people out there, but I think this is a bit of rush to judgement. I'm not defending Mike or what happened - I'm just saying you've convicted him without even waiting to hear from him or the crew what happened. What went wrong? I'm sure they have some useful knowledge about how they go into that situation, and others could learn from that.

Obviously it was a bad situation, but it seems to me more and more the chaser "community" is more about criticizing and knocking down each other than anything else.

And yes... the legislation threads are the new lightbar threads. Never thought I would miss those.

 

[Marcus Diaz]

Funny, Mike saying to go south to Moore and Newcastle, when the whole complex of storms ended up turning SE into that area.

 

[Hannah.Taylor]

The tone of the thread from the start is disrespectful in my opinion. "epic cluster of a screwup" or "Caught with his pants down."

Can we wait and hear what happened from the man himself? You say it was not just a mistake. You say it was "just stupid decision making and endangering the life of his crew." Again - do you have some inside knowledge of the situation here? Can we give it a day or two and hear what happened from the people who were there? Obviously Bettes is higher profile than a lot of people out there, but I think this is a bit of rush to judgement. I'm not defending Mike or what happened - I'm just saying you've convicted him without even waiting to hear from him or the crew what happened. What went wrong? I'm sure they have some useful knowledge about how they go into that situation, and others could learn from that.

Obviously it was a bad situation, but it seems to me more and more the chaser "community" is more about criticizing and knocking down each other than anything else.

And yes... the legislation threads are the new lightbar threads. Never thought I would miss those.

Disrespectful of pre-meditated stupidity maybe. When you're chasing in a vehicle that is not setup for tornado penetration and you have what happens to you the way Bettes and his crew did, you're way too close. He endangered the lives of his crew. If he was out of position, that's his fault. He should know better. Bettes had no respect for these storms and almost paid for it with his life. and like another chaser mentioned, Bette's only chases 30 days-45 days a year. He has no instincts. He's a corporate weather jock sent out to the field to boost ratings and provide entertainment. Well, he accomplished that mission.

you can make all of the excuses you want, and can concoct, but in the end...the bottom line is the same...Way too close to where you shouldn't be. It's one to thing to do that on a little weak storm in ERN Colorado that MIGHT put down a EF-1 at best, it's a completely different thing to do it on storms in Oklahoma on a moderate risk day when violent long track wedge tornadoes are very likely/possible.

This is where COMMON SENSE is supposed to enter the damn picture and people should start using their brains.

Damn straight this has a disrespectful tone to it. I won't back down from that either as long as chasers continue to disrespect and underestimate the power of these storms and put theirs and others lives in danger by doing so in the name of media/picture/video glory. It's reckless. It's endangering and it casts a negative light upon this entire community.

If I had my way Bettes would be charged with reckless endangerment of his crew and Mike Morgan would be charged with reckless endangerment of the public. Both of their little stunts could have killed people.