[Skywarn] Pilger, Nebraska tornado photo: Why stormchasing has become unethical.

Fri Jun 20 22:54:08 EDT 2014

In my opinion these extreme chasers are the problem, why? They are
unfortunately viewed as the communities role models, which again, in my
opinion, is bull-sheet-rock and "extremely" dangerous. I call them the
"Trimmer Types".

Reed Timmer who is very well educated, leads the pack racing around with
that marketing stunt he calls the Dominator. Why am I so critical? The
question I ask is, for what purpose does he chase? Trimmer is not Wurman,
Trimmer is about fame and fortune not science. I see him as the PT Barnum
of chasers and the new breed of spotter/chaser thinks he's a gas and its
now a gas to punch the core with a 8000lb modified pick up truck. As one of
his fan wrote when Trimmer reversed course from a twister, "Reed why are
you backing away?" So why did he? Well, he's not a box of chocolates that's
why and he is educated enough to know when to call the ball. The only
Russell Stovers out there are the ones watching and mimicking his actions
and are dumber than a that box of Russell Stovers not to know when to call
the ball. That's the dangerous part and its showing itself 'live' on
video...

Take for example the Washington, Illinois storm and the chaser who took his
six year old son out for a family chase and had the twister drop down on
them. Guy should have been arrested for child endangerment. The boy is
caught on video screaming, " were going to die"! Or how about the homeowner
who is video taping the storm while its eating his house with him and his
family in it. This is coming from where? Whom is teaching this behavior?

As a retired responder who does not consider himself a veteran storm
chaser, since most of my chases have been responses to the storms
aftermath. I see things from a different perspective while I did not chase
for fun thought many storm systems are plainly amazing and beautiful until
they eat a town or city. Then you get to see the lethality of that once
beautiful storm system. You also then get to see that 1000yds stare from
the victims as well and the pain of death.

Its not a game...as many vets know...

Let me give you an example of another dangerous perspective with chasers
like Timmer. At Mayflower, AR 10ft long Concrete Jersey Barriers were
overturned by that twister. Those barriers weighted some 4000lbs and the
structural engineers estimated winds at around 188mph struck at ground
level to overturn them. Now the vertical profile of those barrier is much
different than the Dominator. Reed is a smart guy though and knows the
limitations of that vehicle, while the twister he did punch was on its down
cycle with winds lowered when he entered.. I would love to have the wind
impact gang at Texas Tech put that vehicle through its paces.

However, Trimmer types are not the only problem. Chasers and spotters have
created their own social groups mimicking emergency management agencies.
Just visit Zello... Chief One, Deputy Chief, Incident Commander, radar
specialist etc... Then we have fragmented Skywarn groups that have more
drama associated with them than Act II of a Shakespearian play and
Shakespeare himself could not dream much of this drama up.

Yes there are some very excellent Skywarn groups out there along with some
great spotters and chasers who preform a great service, but they are not
the majority anymore today, unfortunately. We then have a under funded
emergency management system trying to re-engineer itself from the Bin Laden
witch hunt back to disasters.

What we have is a fragmented mess... and I know that many WCM's and EM's
are all not happy campers..

Its going to take the veteran spotter/chaser community to regain control,
coordinate between agencies and put things back in order before state
legislators do it for all of us. No easy task I might add...and of course
this is my opinion...

Jay Cafasso
12559 N400E
Wheatfield, IN 46392 USA
Cell: 479.866.9579 Fax: 651-691-2608
Home GPS - Lat 41.19509, Long -86.96737

www.facebook.com/jay.cafasso.7
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"The last temptation is the greatest treason: To do the right deed for the
wrong reason."   Murder in the Cathedral - St. Thomas Becket.

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On Jun 20, 2014 7:59 PM, "Lloyd Colston" <kc5fm at juno.com> wrote:

> On Fri, Jun 20, 2014 at 9:29 AM, Standorroh <standorroh at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > In his article he also personally attacked Reed Timmer.  Evidently, he
> has
> > never seem him break off chasing to help in rescue efforts.
>
>
> Mr. Timmer got hammered on the WX-Chase list ...
> https://lists.illinois.edu/lists/info/wx-chase ... because of it too.
>
> He broke off the chase to "help" and showed video of his efforts ... in
> cutoffs and flip-flops ... standard equipment for trained Community
> Emergency Response Team folks ... NOT.
>
> There's plenty of blame to spread around ... media for encouraging
> untrained people ... chasers for modeling unsafe behavior ... Emergency
> Managers for failing to adopt Skywarn as the LOCAL program it was designed
> to be.
>
> When one points one finger, there's three pointing back.
>
> Lets learn from the mistakes of others and do better.  After all, I won't
> live long enough to make all the mistakes all by myself.
>
>
> --
> Lloyd Colston   director
> Altus Emergency Management
> Altus, OK      http://www.cityofaltus.org
> Phone:  580.482.8333
> Fax:  580.482.4738
>
> "I'ts better to be informed than it is to be afraid."
>
> http://twitter.com/altusready
> http://altusem.blogspot.com
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