Master of Disaster

Jeff Piotrowski posted a longer video of his Joplin tornado chase. It's beyond riveting.

That gave me chills.

So you are basing your opinion that he was wrong on something he didnt say? That makes zero sense.

No, I was adding some substance to the comment which was interpreted in a way other than what was intended.

Where in his quote does he state it was USAR TFs?

Where in his quote does he state it wasn't?

And here's Arkansas. They apparently were training in Little Rock on May 17th, heh.

http://nwahomepage.c.../?nxd_id=239667

I think we are talking about 2 different things. Thats a regional team.

Am I reading this wrong? http://www.ok-tf1.org/

No, your reading it right. Here is a list of the 28 approved teams: http://www.fema.gov/.../locations.shtm

Perhaps a future TF they are building there. Baltimore has tried to develop MD-TF2 for years and its never worked, leaving us with the only TF in MD. LOCAL teams are not true USAR TFs and are not funded by the feds as one.

Ok so I saw the tree with the hose in person today. It is for real. You can tell how the hose is twisted and and also squezzed at the edge of the tree on both sides. I didn't believe it either, until I saw it in person and pulled on the hose. But it does look to be in the weak part of the tree.

Doug, there is no possible way that was from a tornado. I am willing to bet cash you could shoot a rubber hose at a tree at 1000MPH and it still wouldn't imbed with feet sticking out the other side like that. Not doubting that the hose in the tree isnt for real, but I do doubt that a tornado did that.

I personally met Jeff a few years ago when storm chasing with a few other guys. He is a really nice guy but he is way out there when it comes to chasing tornadoes.

He needs to work on his terminology a little. Oklahoma doesn't have a Task Force 1 and neither does Arkansas.

I'm having a hard time believing that hose pic. Being propelled at such a high velocity, one would expect it to look ragged or torn from going into a tree and it just doesn't seem to be at all. Not to mention I have a hard time believing a hose could be strung out perfectly to drive straight into a hardwood tree's trunk.

I agree, the tornado didn't do that. Kind of reminds me of that curb pic, which I doubted the first second I saw it. This kind of looks like a section of tree that was higher up and someone ran a hose across a limb to avoid it crossing a walkway. Then the hose grew into the tree. Who knows, but one thing is certain, and its that a tornado isnt going to pile drive a rubber garden hose into a tree leaving several feet out the other side. The fact that the tree hasnt been debarked should tell most of us that this is fake.

Politicians should not be allowed to use subjective statements like "Common Good" and "What the American people want" because they use them to promote their own agenda.

Apparently Homeless people on the streets look nicer than a trailer park. so not accepting the trailers is for the common good.

Couldn't agree more.

At least your town allows people to live in Fema trailers

http://news.gather.c...281474979385002

Certainly cant blame him for trying to change things for the better, but as an elected official, you MUST lead by example. And "common good" is not that.

I hope everyone is doing ok. I have tried to keep up with the thread but it has been crazy down here. My family is all ok. 8 people from my work are homeless. Also my wife lost her job as the business was lost. It has been crazy. I have some great videos from our several tower cams I will have to post. I was at work during the whole event. In fact I came in around 3pm. I posted on my facebook at 2pm that I have a bad feeling, well that came true. I did wall to wall through the event as it tracked through the city. I am just very upset and mad that we lost 140 people. I keep asking could I have done more?

Doug Heady

Doug, would love to hear your story when you get a chance. Glad to see you guys are ok. How has FEMA been in your opinion?

http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/storms/joplin/

Use the slide bar at the bottom for before and after. UNBELIEVABLE!!!

They are doing 6 sweeps. The number of missing is down to 29 or so.

http://dps.mo.gov/ne...sp?ID=N01110015

That list made my stomach upset. Numerous instances of two family members and at least one instance "Howard" of three family members. Looking at the video you took, where the hell do you start? When there is no neighborhood left, where do you start to rebuild?

I saw a post today that they are doing the 5th and final sweep. Where the heck are these 100 missing people?

Joplin MO vs. Xenia OH vs. Moore, OK

Which one was the worst in terms of damage and strength?

Moore, OK hands down in my opinion out of these three. If we are comparing F5s though Jarrell Texas was the mother of them all.

The "tornado emergency" wording has helped, but is not an officially consistent policy across forecast areas yet. Perhaps there will be a push to standardize the usage across all offices after the NWS Service Assessments from these tornado outbreaks?

Assuming this list from wikipedia is accurate-- http://en.wikipedia....ado_emergencies -- you can notice some prominent tornadoes not getting such a warning and others that did but probably didn't require one based on the criteria established by the Des Moines office (http://www.crh.noaa....y%202010-01.pdf).

"A large and catastrophic tornado has been confirmed and will continue (A radar signature alone is not sufficient)

It is going to have a high impact and/or affect a highly vulnerable population (Historically, this probably has happened once every 10 years in our warning area.)

Numerous fatalities expected."

I don't think just having tornado emergency warnings standardized will solve the problem of high death tolls. I agree with Ian that communication is a key issue-- I'm envisioning a well-coordinated training and cooperation system to link the NWS mets to the TV mets during "tornado emergency" situations, with a standardized template listing key points to emphasize during the TV coverage about how dire the impending situation is.

In addition to a standardized "tornado emergency" use, how about a "confirmed" Tornado Warning vs. a "radar-indicated" Tornado Warning? I know the wording is already included in the warning text itself, and any new warning in a life-and-death type weather phenomenon is going to take lots of outreach and public education. But, maybe that would eventually help the public understand that in a specific type of warning, you need to get underground now.

And as for what to do in potential F4/F5's---a topic that came up in threads after the AL tornado outbreak in April-- I did hear the KFOR met say something extraordinary during the peak of the OK outbreak. He explicitly used the phrasing "get out of the way" many times in addition to the "get underground" phrasing. While he did not tell people to get in their cars and drive away from the tornado, his phrasing implied that in a general sense, you might not survive if you were in the path of the tornado while at home.

Good points, but use the words "fatalities expected" and you wont have a job after that. Ive learned this after 5 years of issuing public warnings, never relay that anything fatal is expected. Use the word "possible". Or "this storm has the potential to cause multiple fatalities". Might not seem like a big deal, but "expected" gives the impression you aren't going to do everything you can to help becaause its inevitable.

This conversation kind of reminds me of the Hurricane one that we have once a year or so. The "Why was there so much destruction" "Cause they build on a beach" discussion. Extreme events are going to kill people. I am not sure if there is anything that anyone could have done any differently and I am not sure we really need to change anything just because.

If you have 20 minutes heads up that there is a tornado coming, I find any discussion of more warning or more time pretty absurd.

Don't know original source, but "wow"...

My first thought was that this might be a fake. Like someone placed the splinter of wood in there and set the damaged curb back on top of it. If you ever watch those videos of them testing siding with 2x4s, when do you ever see wood concrete impale with no spliters what so ever at the site of impact? Ehh, just my rambeling.

Really? He might want to look at the video I posted above. That building and everything around it is flattened, and all of the trees are stripped. It looks to me like the store was directly impacted.

If thats not directly impacted, I would hate to see what directly impacted really was. My lord.

I think one of the Mets said in the other thread that the building wasn't hit directly by the tornado. He estimated the tornado was about a block away.

From the update the guy posted, it looked like he was in the middle of it. Perhaps I am not picking up on what or where he is.

From the "first person" video, why is there a distinct break in the wind? You hear a roar, you hear screaming and then there is silence which clearly makes the people in the video think that the tornado has passed prior to the real damage starting at 3:10s. Just curious if that was just a downdraft or perhaps a sat tornado.