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- Why is okay for storm chasers to drive a car to get CLOSER to a tornado, but
it's a no-no for ordinary people to use a car to get FURTHER AWAY from tornadoes?
Storm chasers have educated themselves thoroughly about where the safe places are
and aren't in relation to the movement of the storm. They usually have cell phones
or scanners and are in touch with other chasers who are in different locations and
have a different view of the storm. They may have laptop computers and internet
access or television access. Or they may be in contact with someone who is watching
a radar screen, a television weathercast, or in a spotter network. In other words,
they have a very good idea about where the tornado is, how intense or violent it is,
in which stage of the life cycle it is, which way it is headed, and how fast it is
going. In addition, they give the tornado a wide berth, usually more than a mile
away, and often several miles. You must not believe everything you saw in Twister!
Chasers aren't nuts. They are very serious about their hobby, and about staying
alive to chase again.
- If your videos are so good, why haven't they been on tee vee? We see other
companies telling about how their tapes were on television.
When we made Tornado Videos Classics I and II, we pulled together video from dozens
of sources--home video, old archived film that we had converted to video, copyright
film footage that we had one-time use rights for, chase video, and a lot of video
from television stations affiliated with all networks and often from competing
stations. Hey, there are 70+ videos on that first tape alone! Part our agreement
with some of the people who sold us their video was that it never be shown on
television. This was particularly important to the television stations, but there
were also individuals who felt the same way. We have honored that agreement. We have
been asked literally dozens of times for permission to air them on local
stations, and have been approached a number of times by the networks in this regard.
So it is not for lack of opportunity to have it aired on television. It is because
we owe the people who were kind enough to cooperate with us the respect they
are due. Could we go back and purchase rights again, this time including the
right to air the tape on television? Certainly some of the sources would be
willing, but we know of several pieces that will never be available at any price.
- What state gets the most tornadoes?
The best answer to this question can be seen on the Top Ten page.
- Will there ever be another tornado that kills more than 100 people?
It's possible that the past may be the key to the
future in this regard.
To predict what is going to happen after 1995, we may only have to look at what
happened prior to 1875.
In the future, this may happen at a sporting event, like a basketball game.
In the past, it was a tornado hitting a
river community at the wrong time of day(Natchez, MS 316 dead, 255 were in boats on
the river). In 1860, a tornado coincided with a cluster of frail pioneer farms, a
town, and a raft on the river. There were 111 killed, many at Camanche, IA.
On April
16th, 1998, the Tennesse Oilers Arena in Nashville was struck by a tornado. Since it
was only under construction, there was no sporting event taking place. A witness at
a nearby restaurant recounted "Parts of the stadium were being tossed around
like Popsicle sticks. I've never seen anything like it."
On April 8th,
1998, incredibly, umpires at a Birmingham Barons/Carolina Mudcats baseball game kept
the teams on the field through rain, lightning, flickering scoreboard lights, and
the wailing of tornado sirens, until they were told that The Hoover Met was in the
path of one of the oncoming tornadoes. They sent players to the locker room and the
few fans that had sat through the bad weather to fend for themselves. The "rain
delay" lasted for an hour and six minutes, at which time the game started
again.
A few years
earlier, tornado sirens went off, alarming hundreds of people in a Midwest amusement
park, some of which were on a roller coaster. The only sturdy shelters were the
restrooms, which had been closed and locked to keep people out of them, possibly for
fear that panic would lead to someone being trampled.
The same year,or
possibly the year before a tornado passed within a few miles of a county fair in
Wisconsin. There were hundreds of people in the Midway and on the fairgrounds.
So, in a word,
the answer is yes. Inevitably. Maybe five years from now, maybe 50 years from now.
While many of the companies that own these facilities hire private weather
consultants and have emergency plans, many don't. Many smaller or less structured
groups like intermural school sports or Little League teams also don't have
organized plans for severe weather emergencies. Meteorologists, whether from the NWS
or a private concern, simply cannot forecast every tornado that touches down. It is
beyond the capability of current technology. And even more importantly, they can't force
people to act intelligently.
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