Mike's Railroad Crossing Forum

Let me tell you, as a storm chaser, I can certainly say that it isn't all peaches and cream, it takes a lot of experience to know what you're doing (even though I have 4 years of experience), but even experienced people could get into major trouble.
Take for example that 3 legendary storm chasers (Tim Samaras, Paul Samaras, and Carl Young) all got killed by an EF-5 tornado that hit El Reno, Oklahoma.

This is pretty much why storm chasing is an extremely dangerous thing anyone can do because even experience people can get killed by them, because one fatal mistake can cause injury or death, like what happen to those 3. For me, I'm still going to storm chase (because it being hurricane season and all that), but I can say in person this is an extreme message to all storm chasers all over the world that even experience chasers are in dangers of being killed.

Tim Samaras was widely known and respected as one of the safe, responsible chasers, so if it can happen to him (first direct tornado-related deaths in 4 decades of scientific and hobbyist storm chasing), it can happen to anyone. Like many other hobbies (rock climbing, piloting small aircraft, etc) there is risk involved and mistakes and/or accidents can happen even to the best.

Mike Bettis of The Weather Channel and everyone else in his vehicle were also caught up by this tornado and are extremely lucky to be alive. Many more people in Oklahoma City are lucky to be alive after they ventured out the gridlocked roads trying to escape the tornado, fortunately the storm did not maintain a strong (EF2/3) to violent (EF4/5) tornado on the ground as it moved into the city itself. Instead, it continued to form new cells over the city for hours upon hours, causing flash flooding that swept a few people who had gone into ditches to escape the (at that point non-existent) strong tornado to their deaths.

http://www.stormtrack.org/forum/showthr ... Carl-Young

AndyWS wrote:Tim Samaras was widely known and respected as one of the safe, responsible chasers, so if it can happen to him (first direct tornado-related deaths in 4 decades of scientific and hobbyist storm chasing), it can happen to anyone. Like many other hobbies (rock climbing, piloting small aircraft, etc) there is risk involved and mistakes and/or accidents can happen even to the best.

Mike Bettis of The Weather Channel and everyone else in his vehicle were also caught up by this tornado and are extremely lucky to be alive. Many more people in Oklahoma City are lucky to be alive after they ventured out the gridlocked roads trying to escape the tornado, fortunately the storm did not maintain a strong (EF2/3) to violent (EF4/5) tornado on the ground as it moved into the city itself. Instead, it continued to form new cells over the city for hours upon hours, causing flash flooding that swept a few people who had gone into ditches to escape the (at that point non-existent) strong tornado to their deaths.

http://www.stormtrack.org/forum/showthr ... Carl-Young

Yeah, I have heard about that.

It does take risks and if I lived in the south, I would be doing it all the time.

LARDLOGO wrote:It does take risks and if I lived in the south, I would be doing it all the time.

Yeah, The South does have quite a lot to see for chasers, you have tornadoes between November & February and also, you got Hurricanes between June & November.

AndyWS wrote: Mon Jun 03, 2013 11:58 pm Like many other hobbies (rock climbing, piloting small aircraft, etc) there is risk involved

Truly. Also applies to railfanning. I’ve seen many a person run across a track with a train seconds away.