May 26, 2010
I’m going to post my chase log and video from 5/22/10 in the near future and talk about all the great things that happened that day. For now I am going to address the “Field Incident” and what prompted what we did.
Ben shared this photo with me tonight. At first I wanted to be all macho storm chaser dude and say please don’t share it with anyone instead I wanted to share exactly what was going thru my mind at that moment. Short of sitting on my couch back in Omaha with my family there is nothing else I would change about that intercept. I am going to use a collection of photos from my “Chase Partners” that day Ben Holcomb, Danny Neal and Adam Lucio to tell this story.
We had been following our plan to “avoid the mob” all day by staying ahead of the storm and using unpaved roads as much as possible. Adam and I both have SUV’s and typically have no problem using most roads, this was by far not the worst road we had traveled this season. Our road was a legitimate road on paper (or screen) it was marked and short. The “Need for an escape route” on a marked road less than 3 miles in length is kinda a crazy notion.
As you can see on this screen shot from Microsoft’s Bing Maps they think the road would continue on too, obviously with the aerial photo it makes it apparent there is not a road there. Something we do not have the luxury of seeing from the comfort of a vehicle.
As we entered the road we found some other friends of ours who either took the road or waited with us while we watched to see what the storm was doing. Many people are saying the storm had become outflow at this time which is simply not the case… Once on the 3 mile road we would see and document at least 4 additional tornadoes, most nobody except those in the field ever saw.
Once a we passed the first mud hole on the road, no problem for the SUV’s I immediately radioed another person who was preparing to follow us up the road. They were in a Chevy Impala and in my opinion no match for the road. I warned them of the mud hole and that the road was not a good route. As we continued on the road we reached almost the point where it ended I started radioing people NOT to take the road as a broadcast message. One of the vehicles in the lead said the road had become “Bad” at this point we started to turn around and found the “Drill Bit”.
This brought into question “How bad is the road?” As we documented the Drill Bit tornado the other tornado formed also.
At this time there was a tornado on both the North and South sides of the road. As we got back in the vehicles the group in the impala were on the radio saying they were stuck in the road. From this information and seeing the road previously going back the way we came in was no longer an option.
We proceeded up the road knowing that both Tornadoes were on our tail, this was the ONLY way out as driving towards the tornado was obviously stupid. When we reached the field the instinct for self preservation took over. There was no ditch, there was no shelter. All we could do was run. There were a few vehicles ahead of us I don’t remember entering as they proceeded into the field they made a distinct right turn. Was it possible they knew of a route we did not? Well anything was better than getting munched the Tornadoes were directly behind us now and south sounded like a pretty good idea. We followed along the fence line until we hit a large body of water, more than likely flooding from the previous week. Obviously going right was not an option, going forward was not an option so we went left. As we crested the top of the hill there was another body of water.
As Adam put it so nicely “Game Over”. My truck had become lodged in ruts caused by a tractor, I attempted for a couple min to free my vehicle but it was not coming out.
In Ben’s photo many thoughts were going thru my head. Either I was about to be severely hurt or I was going to die. The thought of making it out of that without any bodily harm was not even in my mind. I thought about my My Wife, My Kids and all of my family. What had I done? I did not make any mistakes that day other than not being home with them. I did watch around outside for a bit but the last thing on my mind was picking up a camera. There was nothing more I could do to save myself I could only pray for my survival. I sat there with my cell phone clenched in my hand, do I txt her to tell her I love her? I most certainly can’t call to tell her what is about to happen.
Many people are talking about how this can be a used as a lesson for others. We simply did nothing I don’t think any of you would have done. The lesson to be learned is unless you are prepared not to loose everything chasing is not for you. I have made the comment I never take anything with me on a chase I am not prepared to loose and I failed to remember the most important thing I have with me… my life.
In the end it was a very expensive endeavor. I paid the Farmer for damage to his field in cash on the spot and still needed $600 in repairs to my vehicle… a small price to pay for what might have saved my life. You need to be prepared for anything out there so don’t get in your car on your last $50.
I am still going to chase but I want everyone to think about this who is wanting to get into chasing. I will not be out as much (trying to lower the odds of this happening again) and more than likely not till I find a chase partner locally as a second set of brains in the vehicle. I have always chased safe, I still feel I made all the right decisions this day. Finding Tornadoes takes a lot of luck, it can also bring bad luck at the same time.
I beg of everyone…
The storms are dangerous enough PLEASE stop driving like crazy people to get the storm. The Sheriff was LIVID about what had happened on the roads in his county that day and was a direct reflection on US. As I sat with one of the most seasoned chasers I have ever met and had a county Sheriff tell him how “Our Team” had behaved on the roads it broke my heart. We can claim sides on friends and streaming or whatever but EVERYTHING we do out there reflects on the rest of US. At no point that day did I operate my vehicle in a unsafe manner until I was sure I was about to die. Everyone in that field that night is doing the right thing and paying the farmer thousands of dollars for the mess we made of his field. Please don’t make a mess of their roads and run back home.
For what its worth Scott, I not only respect you as a friend but also as a chaser. With that respect comes responsibility…..responsibilty to tell you (as a friend) when you screw up as well as to help praise you when you succeed. I was not with you or even close to you during this event so I can not speak directly on the actions that you took or felt you needed to take. I can say however, that self preservation is a wonderful thing….it is what helps to keep us alive, and helps bring us back to our family each night.
In this crazy world you are responsible for your actions right, wrong or indifferent and in my honest opinion I can not see that you were wrong or made a bad call so to speak. It is easy to play Monday morning quarterback after the big game on sunday and I think we have all done that from time to time, but I stand firm and would say without a doubt that I would have probably taken the very same actions. (Again, right, wrong or indifferent)
You did what you had to do…no one should or can fault you for that, at least no one that has played the game.
I certainly would not want you to leave the “game” nor would I want you to miss any events because your worried about others. Scott, you are a good man, a family man who made a decision. If others take issue with said decision it is due to ignornace and lack of knowledge of the game. End of story.
You are my friend and as a friend I wish you the best of luck and certainly hope that you continue.
Lanny
Scott, this is a great, humble, honest, and thought-provoking post. Thanks for providing not only an insightful description of how things went down last Saturday, but also a voice of conscience for storm chasers.
What happened on 130th Street was a complex scenario, to say the least, and I don’t just mean from a chase standpoint. I also mean sociologically, from the standpoint of chasers, locals, and law enforcement all interacting. There’s a lot to factor in. Right now I’m just getting around to writing a post about the storms. Once I’ve got that up, I’m going to prepare a separate post about this incident, and I am going to provide a link to this post. Every chaser should read what you have to say. We could have died out there, and that’s a fact. I’m utterly sincere when I say it was by God’s grace that all of us emerged intact.
You bore the brunt of what followed with that sheriff. I appreciate the spirit in which you’ve shown understanding toward a guy who took his anger out on you more than anyone.
It was good to meet you, Scott. Next time, I trust it’ll be under better circumstances.
Bob
Scott, this has to be one of the most powerful posts I’ve read in regards to chasing. Lanny is absolutely right. You can’t Monday morning armchair quarterback when there are two tornadoes coming right at you. The need for self preservation will always kick in. I’ve seen folks in immense danger do things that when you see it done the question always is “Why did you do that?” I think the big guy upstairs was on overtime on that Saturday in a field in South Dakota. Looking at the published maps that road should of been there. Who knows why it wasn’t. But people who are ripping into those that were there will never understand the heat of the moment. The important thing is that everyone survived unhurt and that all that was done was a little trenching in a field. If any of those vehicles had rolled or been tossed we would be singing a different tune. The important thing to realize here is that no matter what happens after the fact in the court of public opinion, you made a choice in the heat of the moment, and regardless of whether it was the right decision or the wrong decision, you have the responsibly to live with that decision. And I respect you that much more because you did the right thing even though that road situation wasn’t your fault. I’m willing to bet that if I was with you I would of been stuck right with you.
Scott I’m proud to call you a friend and I wish you the best of luck with your chasing and with ChaserTV.
John
Scott,
A very thought-provoking blog. And although I do not know you personally, your honesty and shouldering of responsibility for your own actions encourages great respect.
As I have pondered the (more numerous than they should be)near misses this year especially, I have considered two significant factors. First of all, in a sense, storm chasing is a victim of its own popularity. There are a number of reasons, including that finding a tornado has become much less difficult because of technology; and, of course, the media hype and storm chaser shows. Result: hundreds of vehicles on a storm instead of a dozen or so. Secondly, for a variety of reasons,including competition for video licensing, storm-chasers (including myself on occasion)are attempting to get much closer to tornadoes than is actually safe, even without the congestion problem. The closer a chaser gets, the fewer options he or she has available to them and a single small mistake can get a chaser seriously injured or killed. I personally have witnessed satellite tornadoes three miles from a large, violent wedge (Hallam 2004) and our chase vehicle has been hit by falling debris more than once at what we believed was a safe distance. We have also encountered the “missing road” problem and it was a dangerous situation because in reality we were too close to the storm. Hence, I cringed more than a bit when I saw some of the South Dakota video. Great to watch, but extremely dangerous to shoot.
In the interest of increasing chaser safety I share the guidelines we use for our team including: 1)always chase with a partner; 2)generally stay a minimum of 2-3 miles from the business end of the storm (the more violent, the further away); 3)no core-punching; 4)where possible have more than one escape option because GPS and DeLorme maps cannot be trusted; 5)always drive courteously within the law, and 6)always give law-enforcement/emergency vehicles the respect and space they need to do their work.
These are not a complete answer and sometimes we foolishly break our own rules. We have ended up in danger more than once because a storm did something unexpected or because we made a simple strategy mistake that escalated into a problem. Our team will probably not get $3000 video on the weather channel, but at least we have increased the likelihood that we will return home safely from a chase having witnessed and enjoyed the awesome power and beauty of severe storms – which in my mind, is what chasing is about.
Gene