The following video is from a chaser who was in Nebraska when all you know what broke loose. He and his partner were actually CAUGHT in a multiple-vortex tornado as it was developing. Absolutely incredible footage and should put the fear of God into all chasers out there. This particular chaser was also the target of a lightning strike about 2 or 3 weeks ago. He's been incredibly lucky this year not only to get some great shots but to have lived to tell about it.
http://wx5tvs.com/chasephotos/2004/2004 ... RNADO!.wmv
Incredible video of chaser CAUGHT in tornado
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Phenomenol video!-
Suzi Q
Blows you away don't it? (no pun intended) He was very lucky but his van was pretty heavily trashed, blew out the passenger side window and the back window, wrenched a CV joint trying to get around debris, not to mention all of it that actually flew inside the van. I've watched this thing over and over and am AMAZED.
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Suzi Q
Snoop,
Have to disagree with you here.
David Drummond's direct quotes:
"As some of you have heard, we had a multi vortex tornado develop right on top of us. We had just seen a rain wrapped tornado west of there near the community of Ayr just south of Hastings, NE. We were heading east staying ahead of the storm when it changed it's trajectory and one of the largest RFD sweeps I have ever seen came out and around us to the east. This took down some large trees over the road which REALLY slowed our progress, well at this point our escape to the east. We finally snaked our way through the downed trees and bailed east as quick as we could trying to get east of that RFD and out of the bear's cage. We spotted a fire truck and pulled up to tell them about the trees on the road when the tornado developed right on top of us. When you see the video that is where it begins. Multiple vortices were forming and spinning all around us! Before we started moving we registered a speed max on the wxstation at 107.8 mph effectively putting that in the F1 range at least during that time.
I just floored it trying to go the only way we could....east. I had the accelerator completely floored and was only moving at about 10 mph for a little while. The van was trying to lift up in the back as this is the lightest end of the van and was pushing the back sideways. I looked in the rear view and saw the fire truck trying to turn around and I could swear I saw it start to turn over as the dust between us blocked out any further view. I have yet to confirm if that happened but we called nowcaster Tom Tackett who was able to call the NWS who in turn contacted the Clay County sheriff's dept who THEN called us trying to find where he was so they could check on him.
As we ran for our lives east at this point, we came through the community of Fairfield on HWY 74 where you hear the siren's going off in the video. We were trying to get far enough east of everything to stop and assess the damage and we finally did near the community of Strang. Some locals saw us having difficulty and stopped to help put plastic on the windows. This proved to be a futile attempt in the wind and they took us in to their community into a steel barn where we could get the plastic on. They then took us over to a little resteraunt they had there and was going to let us use their internet connection and offered us food and drink. I walked out to the van to get a cable to see a rapidly rotating wall cloud almost overhead and we told them all to head for shelters while we bailed out south as they were scrambling. "
And to your "idiot" response, other's questioned his thinking at the time also to which he posted this:
We put the video out because it was an incredible event that should be seen. I know very well what I am doing while chasing and really could care less about what some TV meteorologist had to say who was not there and probably never chased themselves.
The long and short if it it illustrates to all chasers that all it takes is for one thing in your chasing to go terribly wrong and anyone could have found themselves in such a situation. We were in the perfect viewing position and had an excellent paved road ahead of the storm to the east. One of the largest RFD wrap arounds I have ever seen came out around to the south and back around to the east very rapidly and effectively put us in the bears cage, which was SEVERAL miles wide at this point. We are already moving at that time east to get back ahead of it when that RFD downed large trees across the road which we were able to carefully navigate around but lost precious seconds that eventually resulted in the tornado developing on top of us it seems. Sure we could have blown past that firefighter and we possibly would never have been caught in it. I made a decision to stop and tell him about the trees down and to tell him to go east with us and get the hell out of there. The extra seconds needed to do that were obviously not there. Was it a bad decision to stop and tell him? I don't know but I would stop and warn them again if I had to repeat it. We also stopped to tell a group of kids in a van that were out looking at the storm and were obviously not chasers. In fact they had stopped to talk to us a couple of times and we had told them this storm was serious and they needed to really be careful. We stopped a little down the road after we got out of the tornado when we saw them again and told them this storm was not playing around. Judging by the look on their face after seeing the damage to the van I think it sunk in. We did not see them again that day.
It's easy to see the video and make judgements about coulda, shoulda woulda, but until you find yourself in that situation and have to make split second decisions than no one can really second guess what could or should have been done differently.
Was it cool? Well I suppose there was some "cool" factor to it, I mean after all, we have video from INSIDE a developing tornado. It's not like I was out there TRYING to get it, but I am happy we had cameras rolling to capture this incredible event from the inside.
I hope what other chasers take from this is "hey a good plan can go wrong, and that could happen to me" and have that in their mind when they are in a near storm environment.
What I hope any inspiring chasers take from that is "maybe I need to make SURE I know what I am getting myself into before heading out under a storm".
What I hope the public in general understands is that what we are doing out there is not child's play and even the best laid plans can go bad in a split second and it's not an activity you should be loading up the kids in the minivan and going out doing. You can EASILY and QUICKLY be killed! We were damn lucky. VERY LUCKY!
And yes Shane, of course they paid a few $$$ for the video. I shoot video for a living and naturally I am going continue to conduct my business. Melissa's handheld video added to the drama of the storm and really gave more insight than the dash cam could have. I will tell you it did not even cover my chasing budget for the year, just so you know no one got rich off this.
Bottom line you guys, when your out chasing, keep that video in the back of you mind when you see things rapidly evolving and try not to get yourself caught in what we did. While looking back at it is exhilirating I can tell you that was NOT the case at the time and survival was foremost on our minds until we knew we were safe."
I have alot of respect for David as a pro chaser and he would NEVER put himself or anyone else for that matter in harm's way. If you want the link to his site, pm me and I'll give it to you. Don't wanna post it here and get anyone stirred up, since I visit alot of boards and can't keep track of who allows other sites to be listed and who doesn't.
Anyway, just my opinion as you have yours. Wanted to give you a little more background that's all.
Suz
Have to disagree with you here.
David Drummond's direct quotes:
"As some of you have heard, we had a multi vortex tornado develop right on top of us. We had just seen a rain wrapped tornado west of there near the community of Ayr just south of Hastings, NE. We were heading east staying ahead of the storm when it changed it's trajectory and one of the largest RFD sweeps I have ever seen came out and around us to the east. This took down some large trees over the road which REALLY slowed our progress, well at this point our escape to the east. We finally snaked our way through the downed trees and bailed east as quick as we could trying to get east of that RFD and out of the bear's cage. We spotted a fire truck and pulled up to tell them about the trees on the road when the tornado developed right on top of us. When you see the video that is where it begins. Multiple vortices were forming and spinning all around us! Before we started moving we registered a speed max on the wxstation at 107.8 mph effectively putting that in the F1 range at least during that time.
I just floored it trying to go the only way we could....east. I had the accelerator completely floored and was only moving at about 10 mph for a little while. The van was trying to lift up in the back as this is the lightest end of the van and was pushing the back sideways. I looked in the rear view and saw the fire truck trying to turn around and I could swear I saw it start to turn over as the dust between us blocked out any further view. I have yet to confirm if that happened but we called nowcaster Tom Tackett who was able to call the NWS who in turn contacted the Clay County sheriff's dept who THEN called us trying to find where he was so they could check on him.
As we ran for our lives east at this point, we came through the community of Fairfield on HWY 74 where you hear the siren's going off in the video. We were trying to get far enough east of everything to stop and assess the damage and we finally did near the community of Strang. Some locals saw us having difficulty and stopped to help put plastic on the windows. This proved to be a futile attempt in the wind and they took us in to their community into a steel barn where we could get the plastic on. They then took us over to a little resteraunt they had there and was going to let us use their internet connection and offered us food and drink. I walked out to the van to get a cable to see a rapidly rotating wall cloud almost overhead and we told them all to head for shelters while we bailed out south as they were scrambling. "
And to your "idiot" response, other's questioned his thinking at the time also to which he posted this:
We put the video out because it was an incredible event that should be seen. I know very well what I am doing while chasing and really could care less about what some TV meteorologist had to say who was not there and probably never chased themselves.
The long and short if it it illustrates to all chasers that all it takes is for one thing in your chasing to go terribly wrong and anyone could have found themselves in such a situation. We were in the perfect viewing position and had an excellent paved road ahead of the storm to the east. One of the largest RFD wrap arounds I have ever seen came out around to the south and back around to the east very rapidly and effectively put us in the bears cage, which was SEVERAL miles wide at this point. We are already moving at that time east to get back ahead of it when that RFD downed large trees across the road which we were able to carefully navigate around but lost precious seconds that eventually resulted in the tornado developing on top of us it seems. Sure we could have blown past that firefighter and we possibly would never have been caught in it. I made a decision to stop and tell him about the trees down and to tell him to go east with us and get the hell out of there. The extra seconds needed to do that were obviously not there. Was it a bad decision to stop and tell him? I don't know but I would stop and warn them again if I had to repeat it. We also stopped to tell a group of kids in a van that were out looking at the storm and were obviously not chasers. In fact they had stopped to talk to us a couple of times and we had told them this storm was serious and they needed to really be careful. We stopped a little down the road after we got out of the tornado when we saw them again and told them this storm was not playing around. Judging by the look on their face after seeing the damage to the van I think it sunk in. We did not see them again that day.
It's easy to see the video and make judgements about coulda, shoulda woulda, but until you find yourself in that situation and have to make split second decisions than no one can really second guess what could or should have been done differently.
Was it cool? Well I suppose there was some "cool" factor to it, I mean after all, we have video from INSIDE a developing tornado. It's not like I was out there TRYING to get it, but I am happy we had cameras rolling to capture this incredible event from the inside.
I hope what other chasers take from this is "hey a good plan can go wrong, and that could happen to me" and have that in their mind when they are in a near storm environment.
What I hope any inspiring chasers take from that is "maybe I need to make SURE I know what I am getting myself into before heading out under a storm".
What I hope the public in general understands is that what we are doing out there is not child's play and even the best laid plans can go bad in a split second and it's not an activity you should be loading up the kids in the minivan and going out doing. You can EASILY and QUICKLY be killed! We were damn lucky. VERY LUCKY!
And yes Shane, of course they paid a few $$$ for the video. I shoot video for a living and naturally I am going continue to conduct my business. Melissa's handheld video added to the drama of the storm and really gave more insight than the dash cam could have. I will tell you it did not even cover my chasing budget for the year, just so you know no one got rich off this.
Bottom line you guys, when your out chasing, keep that video in the back of you mind when you see things rapidly evolving and try not to get yourself caught in what we did. While looking back at it is exhilirating I can tell you that was NOT the case at the time and survival was foremost on our minds until we knew we were safe."
I have alot of respect for David as a pro chaser and he would NEVER put himself or anyone else for that matter in harm's way. If you want the link to his site, pm me and I'll give it to you. Don't wanna post it here and get anyone stirred up, since I visit alot of boards and can't keep track of who allows other sites to be listed and who doesn't.
Anyway, just my opinion as you have yours. Wanted to give you a little more background that's all.
Suz
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Suzi Q
I would have been saying more than Book it 
I didn't look for that direct quotes. I figured that he was trying some really silly extreme stunt. Half of the video clips people send me are stupid stuff. My pre-programmed response to video clips on message boards just so happens to be that. I'll make sure to look for direct quotes before commenting in the future. 
Either way, that's entirely too close to my tornado safety radar. 10 miles is about right. :-P
--snoopj
Either way, that's entirely too close to my tornado safety radar. 10 miles is about right. :-P
--snoopj
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Stormsfury
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Sometimes
things can pop up on you as a surprise. My first encounter with a tornado took place in 1951 and was similar in many respects as I got caught in the developing ground effect of what became a F2 tornado and nearly wound up in the trees. What sets my experience off is that this occurred in the South San Francisco Bay Area of California in January and I was walking to school (which kids had to do in those days). Another time in the Philippines I had a F0 develop right over my house. Insofar as my chases are concerned, I would guess my closest call happened here in AZ when rotation developed overhead-had a funnel dropped I would have been in trouble-a whole 1/2 mile from home.
Steve
Steve
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