May 19, 2010
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Ok I can’t bite my tongue on it anymore!
We all want to chase, this road is my road. This road is your road.
This road belongs to ME, YOU, REED, TWC, V2 whoever.
Oh we got stuck in traffic and did not get to the storm… SO DID THE PERSON BEHIND YOU!
TWC even made a tweet today about how bad all the chaser traffic was, well WTF were you doing?
It seems rather convenient lately for TWC to bash the chasers they get all this content from.
For the past 2 hours I hear chasers doing phoners, Connor McCorey, Lanny Dean and so on… you need them off the road so you can chase? Well NO because you have stopped chasing for the night! CBS makes a joke about calling Connor’s “Agent”… well they obviously did because THEY BOUGHT HIS VIDEO!
All this wonderful footage you see on Storm Stories, Storm Chasers, Tornado Road, your local and national news MOST of the time comes from chasers like Scott Weberpal, Andy Gabrielson and others like ME. We are the ones who chase when you don’t.
You want to hear me bitch about the roads????
WE are the ones on the roads you CAN’T drive on. WE get the shots you don’t. Even when you DO chase you still end up buying OUR footage because you can’t drive your big ass satellite trucks YOU clog the road with. At least Original Media hired chasers to drive some of their support vehicles this year, they know what they are doing. Most of the time I chase with friends, 3-4 of us in a vehicle… when I don’t it’s me in my little obscure Mazda SUV.
What makes you think you get special treatment?
We are quick, we are nimble. We know where we are going and can make split second decisions, we don’t have an armada of Chevy Tahoes or 20 decision makers.
We don’t have mechanics, medics, camera crews, legal and our chaser posse following us.
Most of us are not dropping probes or firing potatoes into storms and none of us are stopping in the middle of the road to scan them with our radar trucks… we just want to see them. We sure as hell don’t want to get caught in a tornado, so stop acting like it happens all the time.
So if you want to avoid me and my friends just keep those helicopters in the air all the time and stay out of my way.
Don’t expect me to get out of the way for you because my eyes, my video and my reports are 10x more efficient than yours.
EDIT: Wanted to add this since I am getting a ton of traffic today…
My friend Steve Miller OK shot this video yesterday.
I must say this is a very nice post Scott… I saw a quote from Mike Bettes yesterday to the extent of how V2 is your tax dollars at work, so get out of the way. I guess I haven’t been out there to see much of this going on due to work/family obligations, but I can’t say I’m surprised.
Amen! Lol@ the potato gun comment.
Omaha Meterologist Jim Flowers will trash chasers for getting stuck in a tornado, but he probably wouldn’t snap at those ‘professionals’ for killing an oncoming driver.
Sadly I think Jim Flowers and WOWT had the first live shot of someone getting hit by the tornado and also run that clip any chance they get
Well said Scott!
We all own the roads and pay for them with our taxes but we also have to follow the rules of the road and all the laws for that county or state we are in. Even emergency vehicles and law enforcement MUST follow the same laws on the roads, they are given privledges of driving faster than posted speed limits but that is for emergencies mostly, say an ambulance responding to medical call.
It is amazing to see people think they are above the law to drive on the wrong side of the road becuase they are gathering weather data, it does not matter who they are unless they are emergency vehicles (Police, Fire or EMS).
I really hope no one gets hurt on the roads chasing storms, it would be a shame to hear about that. I have picked up patients before in vehicle accidents (MVA)and its not pretty most of the time.
There are a lot of responsible chasers out there today but a few of them are really making it worse for all of us. We all have to share the road, in good or bad weather. Also remove the light bars on your vehicles, that just makes it worse and in some states it is illegal to use them.
Kevin