From joeyk22 at cox.net Sun Jun 1 15:34:24 2008 From: joeyk22 at cox.net (Joey Ketcham) Date: Sun, 1 Jun 2008 15:34:24 -0500 Subject: [F5] May 31st Storm Chase Message-ID: <004f01c8c426$e2652560$6801a8c0@joeydesktop> Tyler and I chased in Oklahoma yesterday and ended up on the tornado warned cell that affected Osage and Washington Counties. The terrain was kind of rough in the area but we were able to find a highspot on Highway 123 north of Barnsdall, Oklahoma and had an amazing view of the storm and was able to watch it for quite a while. It had a nice wall cloud for a while, I wish I had a wide angle lens or at least an adapter, the supercell had some very nice mid-level stirations on it giving it that "mothership' look and simply couldn't get it because of the lens I currently have. The storm eventually weakened and the storms back up in SE Kansas were looking nice so Tyler and I darted back north and chased for a while up in Southeast Kansas. I attached some pictures from yesterday. Joey Ketcham -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.tornadonerds.com/pipermail/f5/attachments/20080601/e84e1618/attachment-0001.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Image2.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 168274 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.tornadonerds.com/pipermail/f5/attachments/20080601/e84e1618/attachment-0003.jpg -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Image4.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 202294 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.tornadonerds.com/pipermail/f5/attachments/20080601/e84e1618/attachment-0004.jpg -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Image6.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 185770 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://lists.tornadonerds.com/pipermail/f5/attachments/20080601/e84e1618/attachment-0005.jpg From joeyk22 at cox.net Sun Jun 1 18:29:23 2008 From: joeyk22 at cox.net (Joey Ketcham) Date: Sun, 1 Jun 2008 18:29:23 -0500 Subject: [F5] NWS team determines sociological aspects of May 10 tornado Message-ID: <006501c8c43f$53621620$6801a8c0@joeydesktop> For those not in the area or hadn't seen it, this was in the Joplin Globe today: NWS team determines sociological aspects of May 10 tornado By Wally Kennedy PICHER, Okla. - Jeff Reeves is nearly surrounded by six people who are armed with pens and notebooks, and an arsenal of questions. Reeves, who heads Picher's fire department, is once again being asked to relive what happened Saturday, May 10, when a powerful tornado swept across the south end of Picher, killing six people and leveling virtually everything in its path. "We didn't have to watch for this one. It was watching us," said Reeves. As Reeves relives the moment, the National Weather Service Assessment Team who is interviewing him will attempt to pin down the facts about what happened that day and whether the Weather Service might have been able to do something different that could have saved more lives. This team, however, is not like the Weather Service team that assessed the damage caused by the twister the day after it swept through this town of 700 or so people. This team has WAS*IS training and will attempt to understand the sociological implications of what happened that day. Gary Szatkowski, a NWS meteorologist from Mount Holly, N.J., who is heading the team, said, "We have a greater interest in the sociological aspect. When you heard the watch and the warning had been issued, what did you do? How did they find out about the watch and warning? "If you did not know a warning had been issued, we want to find out why. This tornado killed 22 people (at Picher and in Southwest Missouri). We want to know why there was such loss of life?" A different approach Weather and Society*Integrated Studies (WAS*IS) is being sponsored by the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. It's a grassroots movement that is changing the approach to understanding how people react to the weather by integrating social science into meteorological research and practice. So far, 145 people have received WAS*IS training. At least three members of the team who visited Picher over two days last week had that training. What they would learn from Reeves would provide stark confirmation for something they already had heard. When Picher's lone tornado siren was activated and after the NWS had issued a tornado warning, people got in their vehicles and left the town. That is contrary to NWS guidance. A person should instead seek cover in a sturdy dwelling or find shelter underground. Getting in a car is the last thing you should do when a tornado is approaching. But that's not what happened at Picher, which does not have a public storm shelter. Reeves described the mass exodus he observed. "I had been in Miami. I was coming in from the south side of Picher. I could see the tornado heading straight east," he said. "What I saw was a line of cars coming out of Picher. Maybe 75 to 125 cars." Reeves also saw the taillights of vehicles headed north from the town. He said the last vehicle in the line on the town's south side was a Picher fire truck. It escaped by the slimmest margin. The rear end of the truck was damaged by the tornado. Reeves could see the tornado bearing down on the fire truck. "When the driver came to where I was, his eyes were wide open. I told him he had called it a little too close," he said. "Then, I immediately told him to turn around and go back." Reeves said he knew the people in the cars had a choice of either hunkering down or fleeing. He said the decision to flee was the right choice. He told the assessment team that more people would have died had they stayed. "It was luck for those who stayed and survived in their homes," he said. "In a couple of cases I know of, the people who survived in their homes where next to the only walls standing in their homes. They survived by the grace of God." Reeve said the path of destruction through Picher might have been a half-mile wide in places, but its core was the deadliest part. "You can see a block-wide area through the damage where nothing survived," he said. Three people in a car were killed in Picher. They were traveling from the north side of Picher to the south side to warn a family member. A fourth person in the car, a young woman, was tossed from the vehicle when it was in the air near the treetops. She survived. Three other people in structures were killed. One of them whose wife was killed told Reeves they had been inside and did not know a tornado was coming. 'You knew it was coming' Reeves said the residents of Picher who fled from the path of the tornado had two things going for them. It was daylight. They could see the tornado and the direction it was headed. They also had enough lead time in terms of a 10- to 12-minute warning to get in their vehicles and flee. The one thing working against them was the speed of the tornado as it approached the town, he said. Reeves said there would have been greater loss of life in Picher if the tornado had struck at night. He said many people were out of town attending events in Miami and elsewhere that Saturday who should have been in Picher when the tornado struck. He also said more people would have died had a federally-funded buyout and relocation of families at the Tar Creek Superfund Site not been under way in Picher. The buyout led to the closure last year of several dwellings operated by the Picher Housing Authority on the south side of Picher. Had those dwellings been occupied, an additional 125 people, including families with children, would have been in harm's way, he said. Reeves said most of the people he talked with after the tornado struck said they had heard the town's siren, but some said they had not. The siren was sounded three times in three-minutes intervals before the tornado struck. Picher overheard radio traffic from a firefighter at Welch, a community a few miles west of Picher, that a tornado was on the ground and headed due east for Picher. As the tornado approached Picher, it looked like it was going to cut a swath across the middle of the town that would have involved the city's fire station, Reeves said. But as the tornado approached the town, it started drifting to the southeast. "We saw it seven to eight miles out before it impacted," Reeves said. "You could hear 1? to 2 miles away. It was the loudest roar I have ever heard. You knew it was coming." Reeves said the tornado would have missed Picher entirely had it drifted a little farther than it did. But if that had happened, the nearby town of Quapaw would have sustained a maximum hit. Reeves said a sweep of Picher by firefighters and rescue workers occurred immediately after the tornado struck. He said 67 people were triaged and transported within a 90-minute period after the tornado hit. At one point, the triage involved nine ambulances and five helicopters. Szatkowski said the team will use the comments from Reeves and others in Picher and Newton County to put together a report for the NWS. "It will be reviewed internally by the Weather Service and then made public," he said. "We could come up with some proposed changes that could help us do something better in the future. The desired result is one where no one gets hurt or killed by a tornado. That is the ultimate goal." WAS*IS mission statement To establish a framework for building an interdisciplinary community of practitioners, researchers, and stakeholders - from the grassroots up - who are dedicated to the integration of meteorology and social science, and providing this community with a means to learn about and further examine ideas, methods, and examples related to integrated weather-society work. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.tornadonerds.com/pipermail/f5/attachments/20080601/525d5944/attachment.html From ted at ceaselesswind.com Sun Jun 1 18:58:19 2008 From: ted at ceaselesswind.com (Ted Keller) Date: Sun, 1 Jun 2008 18:58:19 -0500 Subject: [F5] NWS team determines sociological aspects of May 10 tornado In-Reply-To: <006501c8c43f$53621620$6801a8c0@joeydesktop> References: <006501c8c43f$53621620$6801a8c0@joeydesktop> Message-ID: <000c01c8c443$5faaa150$1effe3f0$@com> I do have one question: why wouldn?t the sirens sound continuously? From: f5-bounces at tornadonerds.com [mailto:f5-bounces at tornadonerds.com] On Behalf Of Joey Ketcham Sent: Sunday, June 01, 2008 6:29 PM To: f5 at tornadonerds.com Subject: [F5] NWS team determines sociological aspects of May 10 tornado For those not in the area or hadn't seen it, this was in the Joplin Globe today: NWS team determines sociological aspects of May 10 tornado By Wally Kennedy PICHER, Okla. ? Jeff Reeves is nearly surrounded by six people who are armed with pens and notebooks, and an arsenal of questions. Reeves, who heads Picher?s fire department, is once again being asked to relive what happened Saturday, May 10, when a powerful tornado swept across the south end of Picher, killing six people and leveling virtually everything in its path. ?We didn?t have to watch for this one. It was watching us,? said Reeves. As Reeves relives the moment, the National Weather Service Assessment Team who is interviewing him will attempt to pin down the facts about what happened that day and whether the Weather Service might have been able to do something different that could have saved more lives. This team, however, is not like the Weather Service team that assessed the damage caused by the twister the day after it swept through this town of 700 or so people. This team has WAS*IS training and will attempt to understand the sociological implications of what happened that day. Gary Szatkowski, a NWS meteorologist from Mount Holly, N.J., who is heading the team, said, ?We have a greater interest in the sociological aspect. When you heard the watch and the warning had been issued, what did you do? How did they find out about the watch and warning? ?If you did not know a warning had been issued, we want to find out why. This tornado killed 22 people (at Picher and in Southwest Missouri). We want to know why there was such loss of life?? A different approach Weather and Society*Integrated Studies (WAS*IS) is being sponsored by the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. It?s a grassroots movement that is changing the approach to understanding how people react to the weather by integrating social science into meteorological research and practice. So far, 145 people have received WAS*IS training. At least three members of the team who visited Picher over two days last week had that training. What they would learn from Reeves would provide stark confirmation for something they already had heard. When Picher?s lone tornado siren was activated and after the NWS had issued a tornado warning, people got in their vehicles and left the town. That is contrary to NWS guidance. A person should instead seek cover in a sturdy dwelling or find shelter underground. Getting in a car is the last thing you should do when a tornado is approaching. But that?s not what happened at Picher, which does not have a public storm shelter. Reeves described the mass exodus he observed. ?I had been in Miami. I was coming in from the south side of Picher. I could see the tornado heading straight east,? he said. ?What I saw was a line of cars coming out of Picher. Maybe 75 to 125 cars.? Reeves also saw the taillights of vehicles headed north from the town. He said the last vehicle in the line on the town?s south side was a Picher fire truck. It escaped by the slimmest margin. The rear end of the truck was damaged by the tornado. Reeves could see the tornado bearing down on the fire truck. ?When the driver came to where I was, his eyes were wide open. I told him he had called it a little too close,? he said. ?Then, I immediately told him to turn around and go back.? Reeves said he knew the people in the cars had a choice of either hunkering down or fleeing. He said the decision to flee was the right choice. He told the assessment team that more people would have died had they stayed. ?It was luck for those who stayed and survived in their homes,? he said. ?In a couple of cases I know of, the people who survived in their homes where next to the only walls standing in their homes. They survived by the grace of God.? Reeve said the path of destruction through Picher might have been a half-mile wide in places, but its core was the deadliest part. ?You can see a block-wide area through the damage where nothing survived,? he said. Three people in a car were killed in Picher. They were traveling from the north side of Picher to the south side to warn a family member. A fourth person in the car, a young woman, was tossed from the vehicle when it was in the air near the treetops. She survived. Three other people in structures were killed. One of them whose wife was killed told Reeves they had been inside and did not know a tornado was coming. ?You knew it was coming? Reeves said the residents of Picher who fled from the path of the tornado had two things going for them. It was daylight. They could see the tornado and the direction it was headed. They also had enough lead time in terms of a 10- to 12-minute warning to get in their vehicles and flee. The one thing working against them was the speed of the tornado as it approached the town, he said. Reeves said there would have been greater loss of life in Picher if the tornado had struck at night. He said many people were out of town attending events in Miami and elsewhere that Saturday who should have been in Picher when the tornado struck. He also said more people would have died had a federally-funded buyout and relocation of families at the Tar Creek Superfund Site not been under way in Picher. The buyout led to the closure last year of several dwellings operated by the Picher Housing Authority on the south side of Picher. Had those dwellings been occupied, an additional 125 people, including families with children, would have been in harm?s way, he said. Reeves said most of the people he talked with after the tornado struck said they had heard the town?s siren, but some said they had not. The siren was sounded three times in three-minutes intervals before the tornado struck. Picher overheard radio traffic from a firefighter at Welch, a community a few miles west of Picher, that a tornado was on the ground and headed due east for Picher. As the tornado approached Picher, it looked like it was going to cut a swath across the middle of the town that would have involved the city?s fire station, Reeves said. But as the tornado approached the town, it started drifting to the southeast. ?We saw it seven to eight miles out before it impacted,? Reeves said. ?You could hear 1? to 2 miles away. It was the loudest roar I have ever heard. You knew it was coming.? Reeves said the tornado would have missed Picher entirely had it drifted a little farther than it did. But if that had happened, the nearby town of Quapaw would have sustained a maximum hit. Reeves said a sweep of Picher by firefighters and rescue workers occurred immediately after the tornado struck. He said 67 people were triaged and transported within a 90-minute period after the tornado hit. At one point, the triage involved nine ambulances and five helicopters. Szatkowski said the team will use the comments from Reeves and others in Picher and Newton County to put together a report for the NWS. ?It will be reviewed internally by the Weather Service and then made public,? he said. ?We could come up with some proposed changes that could help us do something better in the future. The desired result is one where no one gets hurt or killed by a tornado. That is the ultimate goal.? WAS*IS mission statement To establish a framework for building an interdisciplinary community of practitioners, researchers, and stakeholders ? from the grassroots up ? who are dedicated to the integration of meteorology and social science, and providing this community with a means to learn about and further examine ideas, methods, and examples related to integrated weather-society work. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.tornadonerds.com/pipermail/f5/attachments/20080601/e6d4f8aa/attachment-0001.html From boomer_sooner_22 at yahoo.com Sun Jun 1 19:44:17 2008 From: boomer_sooner_22 at yahoo.com (Chris Wilburn) Date: Sun, 1 Jun 2008 17:44:17 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [F5] NWS team determines sociological aspects of May 10 tornado In-Reply-To: <006501c8c43f$53621620$6801a8c0@joeydesktop> Message-ID: <840224.69626.qm@web53009.mail.re2.yahoo.com> Well this was just a bad deal all around. One of the bad things is west and north of Picher up towards the KS/OK state line is very sparse with people. I am sure this didn't help with not many people viewing the tornado between the state line and when the tornado hit Picher. Also, the guy is correct that if the tornado dropped a bit further south of Picher it would have hit Quapaw with very bad results. The path the tornado took hit just north of Quapaw. The huge chat piles just west of the highway in Picher didn't help for viewing the tornado as it was coming into town. The 10-12 minute warning was sufficient time and I heard the tornado sirens went off approx. 7-8 min. before the tornado hit. I really hate to say this, but when a tornado is this wide and moving this fast lives will be lost no matter how big the town is. Thanks to the buyout and the fact that it was a Saturday with people out of town cut down on the death toll quite a bit. I made a report to the NWS in Tulsa 7-8 min. before the tornado hit and made it aware to KTUL Channel 8 in Tulsa at the same time as well. This was just a bad deal all around and I am not sure what else could have been done. It is sort of a "fine line" between taking cover and leaving town, but I think if the 75 to 100 or so cars leaving town is accurate I would hate to know the restults if they would have stayed and taken cover. Anyway just my two cents. Chris --- On Sun, 6/1/08, Joey Ketcham wrote: > From: Joey Ketcham > Subject: [F5] NWS team determines sociological aspects of May 10 tornado > To: f5 at tornadonerds.com > Date: Sunday, June 1, 2008, 6:29 PM > For those not in the area or hadn't seen it, this was in > the Joplin Globe today: > > NWS team determines sociological aspects of May 10 tornado > By Wally Kennedy > > PICHER, Okla. - Jeff Reeves is nearly surrounded by six > people who are armed with pens and notebooks, and an > arsenal of questions. > > Reeves, who heads Picher's fire department, is once > again being asked to relive what happened Saturday, May 10, > when a powerful tornado swept across the south end of > Picher, killing six people and leveling virtually > everything in its path. > > "We didn't have to watch for this one. It was > watching us," said Reeves. > > As Reeves relives the moment, the National Weather Service > Assessment Team who is interviewing him will attempt to pin > down the facts about what happened that day and whether the > Weather Service might have been able to do something > different that could have saved more lives. > > This team, however, is not like the Weather Service team > that assessed the damage caused by the twister the day > after it swept through this town of 700 or so people. This > team has WAS*IS training and will attempt to understand the > sociological implications of what happened that day. > > Gary Szatkowski, a NWS meteorologist from Mount Holly, > N.J., who is heading the team, said, "We have a > greater interest in the sociological aspect. When you heard > the watch and the warning had been issued, what did you do? > How did they find out about the watch and warning? > > "If you did not know a warning had been issued, we > want to find out why. This tornado killed 22 people (at > Picher and in Southwest Missouri). We want to know why > there was such loss of life?" > > A different approach > > Weather and Society*Integrated Studies (WAS*IS) is being > sponsored by the National Center for Atmospheric Research > in Boulder, Colo. It's a grassroots movement that is > changing the approach to understanding how people react to > the weather by integrating social science into > meteorological research and practice. > > So far, 145 people have received WAS*IS training. At least > three members of the team who visited Picher over two days > last week had that training. > > What they would learn from Reeves would provide stark > confirmation for something they already had heard. When > Picher's lone tornado siren was activated and after the > NWS had issued a tornado warning, people got in their > vehicles and left the town. That is contrary to NWS > guidance. A person should instead seek cover in a sturdy > dwelling or find shelter underground. Getting in a car is > the last thing you should do when a tornado is approaching. > > But that's not what happened at Picher, which does not > have a public storm shelter. Reeves described the mass > exodus he observed. > > "I had been in Miami. I was coming in from the south > side of Picher. I could see the tornado heading straight > east," he said. "What I saw was a line of cars > coming out of Picher. Maybe 75 to 125 cars." Reeves > also saw the taillights of vehicles headed north from the > town. He said the last vehicle in the line on the > town's south side was a Picher fire truck. It escaped > by the slimmest margin. The rear end of the truck was > damaged by the tornado. > > Reeves could see the tornado bearing down on the fire > truck. > > "When the driver came to where I was, his eyes were > wide open. I told him he had called it a little too > close," he said. "Then, I immediately told him to > turn around and go back." > > Reeves said he knew the people in the cars had a choice of > either hunkering down or fleeing. He said the decision to > flee was the right choice. He told the assessment team that > more people would have died had they stayed. > > "It was luck for those who stayed and survived in > their homes," he said. "In a couple of cases I > know of, the people who survived in their homes where next > to the only walls standing in their homes. They survived by > the grace of God." > > Reeve said the path of destruction through Picher might > have been a half-mile wide in places, but its core was the > deadliest part. > > "You can see a block-wide area through the damage > where nothing survived," he said. > > Three people in a car were killed in Picher. They were > traveling from the north side of Picher to the south side > to warn a family member. A fourth person in the car, a > young woman, was tossed from the vehicle when it was in the > air near the treetops. She survived. Three other people in > structures were killed. One of them whose wife was killed > told Reeves they had been inside and did not know a tornado > was coming. > > 'You knew it was coming' > > Reeves said the residents of Picher who fled from the path > of the tornado had two things going for them. It was > daylight. They could see the tornado and the direction it > was headed. They also had enough lead time in terms of a > 10- to 12-minute warning to get in their vehicles and flee. > The one thing working against them was the speed of the > tornado as it approached the town, he said. > > Reeves said there would have been greater loss of life in > Picher if the tornado had struck at night. He said many > people were out of town attending events in Miami and > elsewhere that Saturday who should have been in Picher when > the tornado struck. > > He also said more people would have died had a > federally-funded buyout and relocation of families at the > Tar Creek Superfund Site not been under way in Picher. The > buyout led to the closure last year of several dwellings > operated by the Picher Housing Authority on the south side > of Picher. Had those dwellings been occupied, an additional > 125 people, including families with children, would have > been in harm's way, he said. > > Reeves said most of the people he talked with after the > tornado struck said they had heard the town's siren, > but some said they had not. The siren was sounded three > times in three-minutes intervals before the tornado struck. > Picher overheard radio traffic from a firefighter at Welch, > a community a few miles west of Picher, that a tornado was > on the ground and headed due east for Picher. > > As the tornado approached Picher, it looked like it was > going to cut a swath across the middle of the town that > would have involved the city's fire station, Reeves > said. But as the tornado approached the town, it started > drifting to the southeast. > > "We saw it seven to eight miles out before it > impacted," Reeves said. "You could hear 1? to 2 > miles away. It was the loudest roar I have ever heard. You > knew it was coming." > > Reeves said the tornado would have missed Picher entirely > had it drifted a little farther than it did. But if that > had happened, the nearby town of Quapaw would have > sustained a maximum hit. > > Reeves said a sweep of Picher by firefighters and rescue > workers occurred immediately after the tornado struck. He > said 67 people were triaged and transported within a > 90-minute period after the tornado hit. At one point, the > triage involved nine ambulances and five helicopters. > > Szatkowski said the team will use the comments from Reeves > and others in Picher and Newton County to put together a > report for the NWS. > > "It will be reviewed internally by the Weather Service > and then made public," he said. "We could come up > with some proposed changes that could help us do something > better in the future. The desired result is one where no > one gets hurt or killed by a tornado. That is the ultimate > goal." > > > > WAS*IS mission statement > > To establish a framework for building an interdisciplinary > community of practitioners, researchers, and stakeholders - > from the grassroots up - who are dedicated to the > integration of meteorology and social science, and > providing this community with a means to learn about and > further examine ideas, methods, and examples related to > integrated weather-society > work._______________________________________________ > F5 mailing list > F5 at tornadonerds.com > http://lists.tornadonerds.com/mailman/listinfo/f5 From cosmic_ufo at yahoo.com Mon Jun 2 08:12:22 2008 From: cosmic_ufo at yahoo.com (michael rains) Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2008 06:12:22 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [F5] NWS team determines sociological aspects of May 10 tornado In-Reply-To: <000c01c8c443$5faaa150$1effe3f0$@com> Message-ID: <792318.94609.qm@web35106.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Ted, The design of most older tornado sirens prevents them from continuously operating. Older sirens consist of a rotating horn atop a pole or structure with a 240volt or larger 3phase motor running a very large air compressor/blower unit that forces air up a conduit into the horn. The control circuit has a three-minute timer to prevent overheating of the compressor/blower unit, with a cool-down timer that is usually three or four minutes before the siren can sound again. During a recent storm event, Laclede County (Lebanon area) had several older siren units fail from overheating after operating for several hours, even with the built-in cool-down period. Some of the newer sirens are more efficient, running on 48volt battery sets; and are capable of up to ten minutes of continuous operation. Unfortunately, the vast majority of sirens in Southwest Missouri are of the older Federal Signal type that were purchased with Civil Defense funds way back during the Cold War era. For some reason, probably related to the early Cold War-era CD air raid drills, many folks in SW Missouri mistake the cool-down period and subsequent reactivation of the siren for an "all-clear" signal. Mike Rains, k0rfi SWMO_Skywarn yahoo group Ted Keller wrote: I do have one question: why wouldn?t the sirens sound continuously? From: f5-bounces at tornadonerds.com [mailto:f5-bounces at tornadonerds.com] On Behalf Of Joey Ketcham Sent: Sunday, June 01, 2008 6:29 PM To: f5 at tornadonerds.com Subject: [F5] NWS team determines sociological aspects of May 10 tornado For those not in the area or hadn't seen it, this was in the Joplin Globe today: NWS team determines sociological aspects of May 10 tornado By Wally Kennedy PICHER, Okla. ? Jeff Reeves is nearly surrounded by six people who are armed with pens and notebooks, and an arsenal of questions. Reeves, who heads Picher?s fire department, is once again being asked to relive what happened Saturday, May 10, when a powerful tornado swept across the south end of Picher, killing six people and leveling virtually everything in its path. ?We didn?t have to watch for this one. It was watching us,? said Reeves. As Reeves relives the moment, the National Weather Service Assessment Team who is interviewing him will attempt to pin down the facts about what happened that day and whether the Weather Service might have been able to do something different that could have saved more lives. This team, however, is not like the Weather Service team that assessed the damage caused by the twister the day after it swept through this town of 700 or so people. This team has WAS*IS training and will attempt to understand the sociological implications of what happened that day. Gary Szatkowski, a NWS meteorologist from Mount Holly, N.J., who is heading the team, said, ?We have a greater interest in the sociological aspect. When you heard the watch and the warning had been issued, what did you do? How did they find out about the watch and warning? ?If you did not know a warning had been issued, we want to find out why. This tornado killed 22 people (at Picher and in Southwest Missouri). We want to know why there was such loss of life?? A different approach Weather and Society*Integrated Studies (WAS*IS) is being sponsored by the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. It?s a grassroots movement that is changing the approach to understanding how people react to the weather by integrating social science into meteorological research and practice. So far, 145 people have received WAS*IS training. At least three members of the team who visited Picher over two days last week had that training. What they would learn from Reeves would provide stark confirmation for something they already had heard. When Picher?s lone tornado siren was activated and after the NWS had issued a tornado warning, people got in their vehicles and left the town. That is contrary to NWS guidance. A person should instead seek cover in a sturdy dwelling or find shelter underground. Getting in a car is the last thing you should do when a tornado is approaching. But that?s not what happened at Picher, which does not have a public storm shelter. Reeves described the mass exodus he observed. ?I had been in Miami. I was coming in from the south side of Picher. I could see the tornado heading straight east,? he said. ?What I saw was a line of cars coming out of Picher. Maybe 75 to 125 cars.? Reeves also saw the taillights of vehicles headed north from the town. He said the last vehicle in the line on the town?s south side was a Picher fire truck. It escaped by the slimmest margin. The rear end of the truck was damaged by the tornado. Reeves could see the tornado bearing down on the fire truck. ?When the driver came to where I was, his eyes were wide open. I told him he had called it a little too close,? he said. ?Then, I immediately told him to turn around and go back.? Reeves said he knew the people in the cars had a choice of either hunkering down or fleeing. He said the decision to flee was the right choice. He told the assessment team that more people would have died had they stayed. ?It was luck for those who stayed and survived in their homes,? he said. ?In a couple of cases I know of, the people who survived in their homes where next to the only walls standing in their homes. They survived by the grace of God.? Reeve said the path of destruction through Picher might have been a half-mile wide in places, but its core was the deadliest part. ?You can see a block-wide area through the damage where nothing survived,? he said. Three people in a car were killed in Picher. They were traveling from the north side of Picher to the south side to warn a family member. A fourth person in the car, a young woman, was tossed from the vehicle when it was in the air near the treetops. She survived. Three other people in structures were killed. One of them whose wife was killed told Reeves they had been inside and did not know a tornado was coming. ?You knew it was coming? Reeves said the residents of Picher who fled from the path of the tornado had two things going for them. It was daylight. They could see the tornado and the direction it was headed. They also had enough lead time in terms of a 10- to 12-minute warning to get in their vehicles and flee. The one thing working against them was the speed of the tornado as it approached the town, he said. Reeves said there would have been greater loss of life in Picher if the tornado had struck at night. He said many people were out of town attending events in Miami and elsewhere that Saturday who should have been in Picher when the tornado struck. He also said more people would have died had a federally-funded buyout and relocation of families at the Tar Creek Superfund Site not been under way in Picher. The buyout led to the closure last year of several dwellings operated by the Picher Housing Authority on the south side of Picher. Had those dwellings been occupied, an additional 125 people, including families with children, would have been in harm?s way, he said. Reeves said most of the people he talked with after the tornado struck said they had heard the town?s siren, but some said they had not. The siren was sounded three times in three-minutes intervals before the tornado struck. Picher overheard radio traffic from a firefighter at Welch, a community a few miles west of Picher, that a tornado was on the ground and headed due east for Picher. As the tornado approached Picher, it looked like it was going to cut a swath across the middle of the town that would have involved the city?s fire station, Reeves said. But as the tornado approached the town, it started drifting to the southeast. ?We saw it seven to eight miles out before it impacted,? Reeves said. ?You could hear 1? to 2 miles away. It was the loudest roar I have ever heard. You knew it was coming.? Reeves said the tornado would have missed Picher entirely had it drifted a little farther than it did. But if that had happened, the nearby town of Quapaw would have sustained a maximum hit. Reeves said a sweep of Picher by firefighters and rescue workers occurred immediately after the tornado struck. He said 67 people were triaged and transported within a 90-minute period after the tornado hit. At one point, the triage involved nine ambulances and five helicopters. Szatkowski said the team will use the comments from Reeves and others in Picher and Newton County to put together a report for the NWS. ?It will be reviewed internally by the Weather Service and then made public,? he said. ?We could come up with some proposed changes that could help us do something better in the future. The desired result is one where no one gets hurt or killed by a tornado. That is the ultimate goal.? WAS*IS mission statement To establish a framework for building an interdisciplinary community of practitioners, researchers, and stakeholders ? from the grassroots up ? who are dedicated to the integration of meteorology and social science, and providing this community with a means to learn about and further examine ideas, methods, and examples related to integrated weather-society work. _______________________________________________ F5 mailing list F5 at tornadonerds.com http://lists.tornadonerds.com/mailman/listinfo/f5 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.tornadonerds.com/pipermail/f5/attachments/20080602/573a6511/attachment-0001.html From jeff at ozarkstorms.com Mon Jun 2 08:45:52 2008 From: jeff at ozarkstorms.com (Jeff Morrissey) Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2008 08:45:52 -0500 Subject: [F5] NWS team determines sociological aspects of May 10 tornado In-Reply-To: <006501c8c43f$53621620$6801a8c0@joeydesktop> References: <006501c8c43f$53621620$6801a8c0@joeydesktop> Message-ID: <7b7f799c0806020645x48983baaxa00286294836817a@mail.gmail.com> I think this is a very good project. The three biggest problems I see with public awareness are: 1. Not caring, or not taking seriously, the dangers of severe weather. 2. Not providing a method for alert. A NOAA All Hazard's Radio should be had by all. I preach it and preach it, and have an opinion article on it at ozarkstorms.comthat I refer people to quite a bit. 3. Not understanding how warning sirens work. I think that the availability of alerts is there if people want it (or understand that they should). I also think people know what they SHOULD do, I think that lack of planning or taking it seriously gets in the way of actually doing it. That's why this project is such a good idea. Finding a way to get the message across and for people to act on it would be a HUGE benefit to the public. That's my 2 cents. 2008/6/1 Joey Ketcham : > For those not in the area or hadn't seen it, this was in the Joplin Globe > today: > > *NWS team determines sociological aspects of May 10 tornado* > By Wally Kennedy > > > PICHER, Okla. ? Jeff Reeves is nearly surrounded by six people who are > armed with pens and notebooks, and an arsenal of questions. > > Reeves, who heads Picher's fire department, is once again being asked to > relive what happened Saturday, May 10, when a powerful tornado swept across > the south end of Picher, killing six people and leveling virtually > everything in its path. > > "We didn't have to watch for this one. It was watching us," said Reeves. > > As Reeves relives the moment, the National Weather Service Assessment Team > who is interviewing him will attempt to pin down the facts about what > happened that day and whether the Weather Service might have been able to do > something different that could have saved more lives. > > This team, however, is not like the Weather Service team that assessed the > damage caused by the twister the day after it swept through this town of 700 > or so people. This team has WAS*IS training and will attempt to understand > the sociological implications of what happened that day. > > Gary Szatkowski, a NWS meteorologist from Mount Holly, N.J., who is heading > the team, said, "We have a greater interest in the sociological aspect. When > you heard the watch and the warning had been issued, what did you do? How > did they find out about the watch and warning? > > "If you did not know a warning had been issued, we want to find out why. > This tornado killed 22 people (at Picher and in Southwest Missouri). We want > to know why there was such loss of life?" > > A different approach > > Weather and Society*Integrated Studies (WAS*IS) is being sponsored by the > National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. It's a grassroots > movement that is changing the approach to understanding how people react to > the weather by integrating social science into meteorological research and > practice. > > So far, 145 people have received WAS*IS training. At least three members of > the team who visited Picher over two days last week had that training. > > What they would learn from Reeves would provide stark confirmation for > something they already had heard. When Picher's lone tornado siren was > activated and after the NWS had issued a tornado warning, people got in > their vehicles and left the town. That is contrary to NWS guidance. A person > should instead seek cover in a sturdy dwelling or find shelter underground. > Getting in a car is the last thing you should do when a tornado is > approaching. > > But that's not what happened at Picher, which does not have a public storm > shelter. Reeves described the mass exodus he observed. > > "I had been in Miami. I was coming in from the south side of Picher. I > could see the tornado heading straight east," he said. "What I saw was a > line of cars coming out of Picher. Maybe 75 to 125 cars." Reeves also saw > the taillights of vehicles headed north from the town. He said the last > vehicle in the line on the town's south side was a Picher fire truck. It > escaped by the slimmest margin. The rear end of the truck was damaged by the > tornado. > > Reeves could see the tornado bearing down on the fire truck. > > "When the driver came to where I was, his eyes were wide open. I told him > he had called it a little too close," he said. "Then, I immediately told him > to turn around and go back." > > Reeves said he knew the people in the cars had a choice of either hunkering > down or fleeing. He said the decision to flee was the right choice. He told > the assessment team that more people would have died had they stayed. > > "It was luck for those who stayed and survived in their homes," he said. > "In a couple of cases I know of, the people who survived in their homes > where next to the only walls standing in their homes. They survived by the > grace of God." > > Reeve said the path of destruction through Picher might have been a > half-mile wide in places, but its core was the deadliest part. > > "You can see a block-wide area through the damage where nothing survived," > he said. > > Three people in a car were killed in Picher. They were traveling from the > north side of Picher to the south side to warn a family member. A fourth > person in the car, a young woman, was tossed from the vehicle when it was in > the air near the treetops. She survived. Three other people in structures > were killed. One of them whose wife was killed told Reeves they had been > inside and did not know a tornado was coming. > > 'You knew it was coming' > > Reeves said the residents of Picher who fled from the path of the tornado > had two things going for them. It was daylight. They could see the tornado > and the direction it was headed. They also had enough lead time in terms of > a 10- to 12-minute warning to get in their vehicles and flee. The one thing > working against them was the speed of the tornado as it approached the town, > he said. > > Reeves said there would have been greater loss of life in Picher if the > tornado had struck at night. He said many people were out of town attending > events in Miami and elsewhere that Saturday who should have been in Picher > when the tornado struck. > > He also said more people would have died had a federally-funded buyout and > relocation of families at the Tar Creek Superfund Site not been under way in > Picher. The buyout led to the closure last year of several dwellings > operated by the Picher Housing Authority on the south side of Picher. Had > those dwellings been occupied, an additional 125 people, including families > with children, would have been in harm's way, he said. > > Reeves said most of the people he talked with after the tornado struck said > they had heard the town's siren, but some said they had not. The siren was > sounded three times in three-minutes intervals before the tornado struck. > Picher overheard radio traffic from a firefighter at Welch, a community a > few miles west of Picher, that a tornado was on the ground and headed due > east for Picher. > > As the tornado approached Picher, it looked like it was going to cut a > swath across the middle of the town that would have involved the city's fire > station, Reeves said. But as the tornado approached the town, it started > drifting to the southeast. > > "We saw it seven to eight miles out before it impacted," Reeves said. "You > could hear 1? to 2 miles away. It was the loudest roar I have ever heard. > You knew it was coming." > > Reeves said the tornado would have missed Picher entirely had it drifted a > little farther than it did. But if that had happened, the nearby town of > Quapaw would have sustained a maximum hit. > > Reeves said a sweep of Picher by firefighters and rescue workers occurred > immediately after the tornado struck. He said 67 people were triaged and > transported within a 90-minute period after the tornado hit. At one point, > the triage involved nine ambulances and five helicopters. > > Szatkowski said the team will use the comments from Reeves and others in > Picher and Newton County to put together a report for the NWS. > > "It will be reviewed internally by the Weather Service and then made > public," he said. "We could come up with some proposed changes that could > help us do something better in the future. The desired result is one where > no one gets hurt or killed by a tornado. That is the ultimate goal." > > WAS*IS mission statement > > To establish a framework for building an interdisciplinary community of > practitioners, researchers, and stakeholders ? from the grassroots up ? who > are dedicated to the integration of meteorology and social science, and > providing this community with a means to learn about and further examine > ideas, methods, and examples related to integrated weather-society work. > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > F5 mailing list > F5 at tornadonerds.com > http://lists.tornadonerds.com/mailman/listinfo/f5 > > -- Jeff Morrissey - KB0WVT jeff at ozarkstorms.com http://www.ozarkstorms.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.tornadonerds.com/pipermail/f5/attachments/20080602/938e6ea0/attachment.html From ted at ceaselesswind.com Mon Jun 2 08:52:03 2008 From: ted at ceaselesswind.com (Ted Keller) Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2008 08:52:03 -0500 Subject: [F5] NWS team determines sociological aspects of May 10 tornado In-Reply-To: <792318.94609.qm@web35106.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <000c01c8c443$5faaa150$1effe3f0$@com> <792318.94609.qm@web35106.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <000f01c8c4b7$d71d9ac0$8558d040$@com> Thanks, I often wondered about that. Given the circumstances, intermittent is better than complete failure. Another question: in the event of loss of power, how long are the sirens designed to operate? -Ted From: f5-bounces at tornadonerds.com [mailto:f5-bounces at tornadonerds.com] On Behalf Of michael rains Sent: Monday, June 02, 2008 8:12 AM To: f5 at tornadonerds.com; Steven Runnels; David Williams Subject: Re: [F5] NWS team determines sociological aspects of May 10 tornado Ted, The design of most older tornado sirens prevents them from continuously operating. Older sirens consist of a rotating horn atop a pole or structure with a 240volt or larger 3phase motor running a very large air compressor/blower unit that forces air up a conduit into the horn. The control circuit has a three-minute timer to prevent overheating of the compressor/blower unit, with a cool-down timer that is usually three or four minutes before the siren can sound again. During a recent storm event, Laclede County (Lebanon area) had several older siren units fail from overheating after operating for several hours, even with the built-in cool-down period. Some of the newer sirens are more efficient, running on 48volt battery sets; and are capable of up to ten minutes of continuous operation. Unfortunately, the vast majority of sirens in Southwest Missouri are of the older Federal Signal type that were purchased with Civil Defense funds way back during the Cold War era. For some reason, probably related to the early Cold War-era CD air raid drills, many folks in SW Missouri mistake the cool-down period and subsequent reactivation of the siren for an "all-clear" signal. Mike Rains, k0rfi SWMO_Skywarn yahoo group Ted Keller wrote: I do have one question: why wouldn?t the sirens sound continuously? From: f5-bounces at tornadonerds.com [mailto:f5-bounces at tornadonerds.com] On Behalf Of Joey Ketcham Sent: Sunday, June 01, 2008 6:29 PM To: f5 at tornadonerds.com Subject: [F5] NWS team determines sociological aspects of May 10 tornado For those not in the area or hadn't seen it, this was in the Joplin Globe today: NWS team determines sociological aspects of May 10 tornado By Wally Kennedy PICHER, Okla. ? Jeff Reeves is nearly surrounded by six people who are armed with pens and notebooks, and an arsenal of questions. Reeves, who heads Picher?s fire department, is once again being asked to relive what happened Saturday, May 10, when a powerful tornado swept across the south end of Picher, killing six people and leveling virtually everything in its path. ?We didn?t have to watch for this one. It was watching us,? said Reeves. As Reeves relives the moment, the National Weather Service Assessment Team who is interviewing him will attempt to pin down the facts about what happened that day and whether the Weather Service might have been able to do something different that could have saved more lives. This team, however, is not like the Weather Service team that assessed the damage caused by the twister the day after it swept through this town of 700 or so people. This team has WAS*IS training and will attempt to understand the sociological implications of what happened that day. Gary Szatkowski, a NWS meteorologist from Mount Holly, N.J., who is heading the team, said, ?We have a greater interest in the sociological aspect. When you heard the watch and the warning had been issued, what did you do? How did they find out about the watch and warning? ?If you did not know a warning had been issued, we want to find out why. This tornado killed 22 people (at Picher and in Southwest Missouri). We want to know why there was such loss of life?? A different approach Weather and Society*Integrated Studies (WAS*IS) is being sponsored by the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. It?s a grassroots movement that is changing the approach to understanding how people react to the weather by integrating social science into meteorological research and practice. So far, 145 people have received WAS*IS training. At least three members of the team who visited Picher over two days last week had that training. What they would learn from Reeves would provide stark confirmation for something they already had heard. When Picher?s lone tornado siren was activated and after the NWS had issued a tornado warning, people got in their vehicles and left the town. That is contrary to NWS guidance. A person should instead seek cover in a sturdy dwelling or find shelter underground. Getting in a car is the last thing you should do when a tornado is approaching. But that?s not what happened at Picher, which does not have a public storm shelter. Reeves described the mass exodus he observed. ?I had been in Miami. I was coming in from the south side of Picher. I could see the tornado heading straight east,? he said. ?What I saw was a line of cars coming out of Picher. Maybe 75 to 125 cars.? Reeves also saw the taillights of vehicles headed north from the town. He said the last vehicle in the line on the town?s south side was a Picher fire truck. It escaped by the slimmest margin. The rear end of the truck was damaged by the tornado. Reeves could see the tornado bearing down on the fire truck. ?When the driver came to where I was, his eyes were wide open. I told him he had called it a little too close,? he said. ?Then, I immediately told him to turn around and go back.? Reeves said he knew the people in the cars had a choice of either hunkering down or fleeing. He said the decision to flee was the right choice. He told the assessment team that more people would have died had they stayed. ?It was luck for those who stayed and survived in their homes,? he said. ?In a couple of cases I know of, the people who survived in their homes where next to the only walls standing in their homes. They survived by the grace of God.? Reeve said the path of destruction through Picher might have been a half-mile wide in places, but its core was the deadliest part. ?You can see a block-wide area through the damage where nothing survived,? he said. Three people in a car were killed in Picher. They were traveling from the north side of Picher to the south side to warn a family member. A fourth person in the car, a young woman, was tossed from the vehicle when it was in the air near the treetops. She survived. Three other people in structures were killed. One of them whose wife was killed told Reeves they had been inside and did not know a tornado was coming. ?You knew it was coming? Reeves said the residents of Picher who fled from the path of the tornado had two things going for them. It was daylight. They could see the tornado and the direction it was headed. They also had enough lead time in terms of a 10- to 12-minute warning to get in their vehicles and flee. The one thing working against them was the speed of the tornado as it approached the town, he said. Reeves said there would have been greater loss of life in Picher if the tornado had struck at night. He said many people were out of town attending events in Miami and elsewhere that Saturday who should have been in Picher when the tornado struck. He also said more people would have died had a federally-funded buyout and relocation of families at the Tar Creek Superfund Site not been under way in Picher. The buyout led to the closure last year of several dwellings operated by the Picher Housing Authority on the south side of Picher. Had those dwellings been occupied, an additional 125 people, including families with children, would have been in harm?s way, he said. Reeves said most of the people he talked with after the tornado struck said they had heard the town?s siren, but some said they had not. The siren was sounded three times in three-minutes intervals before the tornado struck. Picher overheard radio traffic from a firefighter at Welch, a community a few miles west of Picher, that a tornado was on the ground and headed due east for Picher. As the tornado approached Picher, it looked like it was going to cut a swath across the middle of the town that would have involved the city?s fire station, Reeves said. But as the tornado approached the town, it started drifting to the southeast. ?We saw it seven to eight miles out before it impacted,? Reeves said. ?You could hear 1? to 2 miles away. It was the loudest roar I have ever heard. You knew it was coming.? Reeves said the tornado would have missed Picher entirely had it drifted a little farther than it did. But if that had happened, the nearby town of Quapaw would have sustained a maximum hit. Reeves said a sweep of Picher by firefighters and rescue workers occurred immediately after the tornado struck. He said 67 people were triaged and transported within a 90-minute period after the tornado hit. At one point, the triage involved nine ambulances and five helicopters. Szatkowski said the team will use the comments from Reeves and others in Picher and Newton County to put together a report for the NWS. ?It will be reviewed internally by the Weather Service and then made public,? he said. ?We could come up with some proposed changes that could help us do something better in the future. The desired result is one where no one gets hurt or killed by a tornado. That is the ultimate goal.? WAS*IS mission statement To establish a framework for building an interdisciplinary community of practitioners, researchers, and stakeholders ? from the grassroots up ? who are dedicated to the integration of meteorology and social science, and providing this community with a means to learn about and further examine ideas, methods, and examples related to integrated weather-society work. _______________________________________________ F5 mailing list F5 at tornadonerds.com http://lists.tornadonerds.com/mailman/listinfo/f5 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.tornadonerds.com/pipermail/f5/attachments/20080602/8d9fbea0/attachment-0001.html From ted at ceaselesswind.com Mon Jun 2 08:56:14 2008 From: ted at ceaselesswind.com (Ted Keller) Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2008 08:56:14 -0500 Subject: [F5] Chasing Message-ID: <001401c8c4b8$6cf3e950$46dbbbf0$@com> Well, I have time off again so barring any tornadic threat to the viewing area, I'm free to chase. I might go today (Monday), Wednesday probably and if we're capped down here like I think we will be, Thursday. 417-894-4044 cell Ted Keller Senior Meteorologist KOLR/KSFX-TV Check Out: Ceaseless Wind Builder: Keller Quality Homes Lecturer, Missouri State University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.tornadonerds.com/pipermail/f5/attachments/20080602/80fddd62/attachment.html From joeyk22 at cox.net Mon Jun 2 09:08:52 2008 From: joeyk22 at cox.net (Joey Ketcham) Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2008 09:08:52 -0500 Subject: [F5] NWS team determines sociological aspects of May 10 tornado References: <006501c8c43f$53621620$6801a8c0@joeydesktop> <7b7f799c0806020645x48983baaxa00286294836817a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <015101c8c4ba$30131fe0$6801a8c0@joeydesktop> It always amazes me at the number of people who are completely unaware of what's going on during severe weather, unless they have someone telling them that there is severe weather then they simply just have no clue. Just this past Saturday I had a friend text me asking what was going on with the weather. I don't know why people won't simply turn the TV on or dish out $30-$40 for a NOAA Weather Radio. After the May 10th tornado the Joplin Globe quoted a resident in Newton County saying that the tornado hit without warning, considering the fact that Newton and Jasper Counties were under a tornado warning 25 minutes before the tornado event crossed into Missouri, that's hardly without warning. Furthermore, tornado watches went up early in the day before storms even developed. Joey ----- Original Message ----- From: Jeff Morrissey To: f5 at tornadonerds.com Sent: Monday, June 02, 2008 8:45 AM Subject: Re: [F5] NWS team determines sociological aspects of May 10 tornado I think this is a very good project. The three biggest problems I see with public awareness are: 1. Not caring, or not taking seriously, the dangers of severe weather. 2. Not providing a method for alert. A NOAA All Hazard's Radio should be had by all. I preach it and preach it, and have an opinion article on it at ozarkstorms.com that I refer people to quite a bit. 3. Not understanding how warning sirens work. I think that the availability of alerts is there if people want it (or understand that they should). I also think people know what they SHOULD do, I think that lack of planning or taking it seriously gets in the way of actually doing it. That's why this project is such a good idea. Finding a way to get the message across and for people to act on it would be a HUGE benefit to the public. That's my 2 cents. 2008/6/1 Joey Ketcham : For those not in the area or hadn't seen it, this was in the Joplin Globe today: NWS team determines sociological aspects of May 10 tornado By Wally Kennedy PICHER, Okla. ? Jeff Reeves is nearly surrounded by six people who are armed with pens and notebooks, and an arsenal of questions. Reeves, who heads Picher's fire department, is once again being asked to relive what happened Saturday, May 10, when a powerful tornado swept across the south end of Picher, killing six people and leveling virtually everything in its path. "We didn't have to watch for this one. It was watching us," said Reeves. As Reeves relives the moment, the National Weather Service Assessment Team who is interviewing him will attempt to pin down the facts about what happened that day and whether the Weather Service might have been able to do something different that could have saved more lives. This team, however, is not like the Weather Service team that assessed the damage caused by the twister the day after it swept through this town of 700 or so people. This team has WAS*IS training and will attempt to understand the sociological implications of what happened that day. Gary Szatkowski, a NWS meteorologist from Mount Holly, N.J., who is heading the team, said, "We have a greater interest in the sociological aspect. When you heard the watch and the warning had been issued, what did you do? How did they find out about the watch and warning? "If you did not know a warning had been issued, we want to find out why. This tornado killed 22 people (at Picher and in Southwest Missouri). We want to know why there was such loss of life?" A different approach Weather and Society*Integrated Studies (WAS*IS) is being sponsored by the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. It's a grassroots movement that is changing the approach to understanding how people react to the weather by integrating social science into meteorological research and practice. So far, 145 people have received WAS*IS training. At least three members of the team who visited Picher over two days last week had that training. What they would learn from Reeves would provide stark confirmation for something they already had heard. When Picher's lone tornado siren was activated and after the NWS had issued a tornado warning, people got in their vehicles and left the town. That is contrary to NWS guidance. A person should instead seek cover in a sturdy dwelling or find shelter underground. Getting in a car is the last thing you should do when a tornado is approaching. But that's not what happened at Picher, which does not have a public storm shelter. Reeves described the mass exodus he observed. "I had been in Miami. I was coming in from the south side of Picher. I could see the tornado heading straight east," he said. "What I saw was a line of cars coming out of Picher. Maybe 75 to 125 cars." Reeves also saw the taillights of vehicles headed north from the town. He said the last vehicle in the line on the town's south side was a Picher fire truck. It escaped by the slimmest margin. The rear end of the truck was damaged by the tornado. Reeves could see the tornado bearing down on the fire truck. "When the driver came to where I was, his eyes were wide open. I told him he had called it a little too close," he said. "Then, I immediately told him to turn around and go back." Reeves said he knew the people in the cars had a choice of either hunkering down or fleeing. He said the decision to flee was the right choice. He told the assessment team that more people would have died had they stayed. "It was luck for those who stayed and survived in their homes," he said. "In a couple of cases I know of, the people who survived in their homes where next to the only walls standing in their homes. They survived by the grace of God." Reeve said the path of destruction through Picher might have been a half-mile wide in places, but its core was the deadliest part. "You can see a block-wide area through the damage where nothing survived," he said. Three people in a car were killed in Picher. They were traveling from the north side of Picher to the south side to warn a family member. A fourth person in the car, a young woman, was tossed from the vehicle when it was in the air near the treetops. She survived. Three other people in structures were killed. One of them whose wife was killed told Reeves they had been inside and did not know a tornado was coming. 'You knew it was coming' Reeves said the residents of Picher who fled from the path of the tornado had two things going for them. It was daylight. They could see the tornado and the direction it was headed. They also had enough lead time in terms of a 10- to 12-minute warning to get in their vehicles and flee. The one thing working against them was the speed of the tornado as it approached the town, he said. Reeves said there would have been greater loss of life in Picher if the tornado had struck at night. He said many people were out of town attending events in Miami and elsewhere that Saturday who should have been in Picher when the tornado struck. He also said more people would have died had a federally-funded buyout and relocation of families at the Tar Creek Superfund Site not been under way in Picher. The buyout led to the closure last year of several dwellings operated by the Picher Housing Authority on the south side of Picher. Had those dwellings been occupied, an additional 125 people, including families with children, would have been in harm's way, he said. Reeves said most of the people he talked with after the tornado struck said they had heard the town's siren, but some said they had not. The siren was sounded three times in three-minutes intervals before the tornado struck. Picher overheard radio traffic from a firefighter at Welch, a community a few miles west of Picher, that a tornado was on the ground and headed due east for Picher. As the tornado approached Picher, it looked like it was going to cut a swath across the middle of the town that would have involved the city's fire station, Reeves said. But as the tornado approached the town, it started drifting to the southeast. "We saw it seven to eight miles out before it impacted," Reeves said. "You could hear 1? to 2 miles away. It was the loudest roar I have ever heard. You knew it was coming." Reeves said the tornado would have missed Picher entirely had it drifted a little farther than it did. But if that had happened, the nearby town of Quapaw would have sustained a maximum hit. Reeves said a sweep of Picher by firefighters and rescue workers occurred immediately after the tornado struck. He said 67 people were triaged and transported within a 90-minute period after the tornado hit. At one point, the triage involved nine ambulances and five helicopters. Szatkowski said the team will use the comments from Reeves and others in Picher and Newton County to put together a report for the NWS. "It will be reviewed internally by the Weather Service and then made public," he said. "We could come up with some proposed changes that could help us do something better in the future. The desired result is one where no one gets hurt or killed by a tornado. That is the ultimate goal." WAS*IS mission statement To establish a framework for building an interdisciplinary community of practitioners, researchers, and stakeholders ? from the grassroots up ? who are dedicated to the integration of meteorology and social science, and providing this community with a means to learn about and further examine ideas, methods, and examples related to integrated weather-society work. _______________________________________________ F5 mailing list F5 at tornadonerds.com http://lists.tornadonerds.com/mailman/listinfo/f5 -- Jeff Morrissey - KB0WVT jeff at ozarkstorms.com http://www.ozarkstorms.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ F5 mailing list F5 at tornadonerds.com http://lists.tornadonerds.com/mailman/listinfo/f5 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.tornadonerds.com/pipermail/f5/attachments/20080602/e6415779/attachment-0001.html From jeff at ozarkstorms.com Mon Jun 2 09:24:20 2008 From: jeff at ozarkstorms.com (Jeff Morrissey) Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2008 09:24:20 -0500 Subject: [F5] NWS team determines sociological aspects of May 10 tornado In-Reply-To: <015101c8c4ba$30131fe0$6801a8c0@joeydesktop> References: <006501c8c43f$53621620$6801a8c0@joeydesktop> <7b7f799c0806020645x48983baaxa00286294836817a@mail.gmail.com> <015101c8c4ba$30131fe0$6801a8c0@joeydesktop> Message-ID: <7b7f799c0806020724l3ea15ef1s921d3bbca444df67@mail.gmail.com> I posted this last Octoberabout a severe weather event in Tulsa. The only change I would make now is that the responsibility wasn't totally on the event coordinators, the public has some responsibility too. My point of that article was that event coordinators should pay more attention than the average citizen. 2008/6/2 Joey Ketcham : > It always amazes me at the number of people who are completely unaware of > what's going on during severe weather, unless they have someone telling them > that there is severe weather then they simply just have no clue. Just this > past Saturday I had a friend text me asking what was going on with the > weather. I don't know why people won't simply turn the TV on or dish out > $30-$40 for a NOAA Weather Radio. > > After the May 10th tornado the Joplin Globe quoted a resident in Newton > County saying that the tornado hit without warning, considering the fact > that Newton and Jasper Counties were under a tornado warning 25 minutes > before the tornado event crossed into Missouri, that's hardly without > warning. Furthermore, tornado watches went up early in the day before storms > even developed. > Joey > > ----- Original Message ----- > *From:* Jeff Morrissey > *To:* f5 at tornadonerds.com > *Sent:* Monday, June 02, 2008 8:45 AM > *Subject:* Re: [F5] NWS team determines sociological aspects of May 10 > tornado > > I think this is a very good project. The three biggest problems I see with > public awareness are: > > 1. Not caring, or not taking seriously, the dangers of severe weather. > 2. Not providing a method for alert. A NOAA All Hazard's Radio should be > had by all. I preach it and preach it, and have an opinion article on it > at ozarkstorms.comthat I refer people to quite a bit. > 3. Not understanding how warning sirens work. > > I think that the availability of alerts is there if people want it (or > understand that they should). I also think people know what they SHOULD do, > I think that lack of planning or taking it seriously gets in the way of > actually doing it. That's why this project is such a good idea. Finding a > way to get the message across and for people to act on it would be a HUGE > benefit to the public. > > That's my 2 cents. > > 2008/6/1 Joey Ketcham : > >> For those not in the area or hadn't seen it, this was in the Joplin >> Globe today: >> >> *NWS team determines sociological aspects of May 10 tornado* >> By Wally Kennedy >> >> >> PICHER, Okla. ? Jeff Reeves is nearly surrounded by six people who are >> armed with pens and notebooks, and an arsenal of questions. >> >> Reeves, who heads Picher's fire department, is once again being asked to >> relive what happened Saturday, May 10, when a powerful tornado swept across >> the south end of Picher, killing six people and leveling virtually >> everything in its path. >> >> "We didn't have to watch for this one. It was watching us," said Reeves. >> >> As Reeves relives the moment, the National Weather Service Assessment Team >> who is interviewing him will attempt to pin down the facts about what >> happened that day and whether the Weather Service might have been able to do >> something different that could have saved more lives. >> >> This team, however, is not like the Weather Service team that assessed the >> damage caused by the twister the day after it swept through this town of 700 >> or so people. This team has WAS*IS training and will attempt to understand >> the sociological implications of what happened that day. >> >> Gary Szatkowski, a NWS meteorologist from Mount Holly, N.J., who is >> heading the team, said, "We have a greater interest in the sociological >> aspect. When you heard the watch and the warning had been issued, what did >> you do? How did they find out about the watch and warning? >> >> "If you did not know a warning had been issued, we want to find out why. >> This tornado killed 22 people (at Picher and in Southwest Missouri). We want >> to know why there was such loss of life?" >> >> A different approach >> >> Weather and Society*Integrated Studies (WAS*IS) is being sponsored by the >> National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. It's a grassroots >> movement that is changing the approach to understanding how people react to >> the weather by integrating social science into meteorological research and >> practice. >> >> So far, 145 people have received WAS*IS training. At least three members >> of the team who visited Picher over two days last week had that training. >> >> What they would learn from Reeves would provide stark confirmation for >> something they already had heard. When Picher's lone tornado siren was >> activated and after the NWS had issued a tornado warning, people got in >> their vehicles and left the town. That is contrary to NWS guidance. A person >> should instead seek cover in a sturdy dwelling or find shelter underground. >> Getting in a car is the last thing you should do when a tornado is >> approaching. >> >> But that's not what happened at Picher, which does not have a public storm >> shelter. Reeves described the mass exodus he observed. >> >> "I had been in Miami. I was coming in from the south side of Picher. I >> could see the tornado heading straight east," he said. "What I saw was a >> line of cars coming out of Picher. Maybe 75 to 125 cars." Reeves also saw >> the taillights of vehicles headed north from the town. He said the last >> vehicle in the line on the town's south side was a Picher fire truck. It >> escaped by the slimmest margin. The rear end of the truck was damaged by the >> tornado. >> >> Reeves could see the tornado bearing down on the fire truck. >> >> "When the driver came to where I was, his eyes were wide open. I told him >> he had called it a little too close," he said. "Then, I immediately told him >> to turn around and go back." >> >> Reeves said he knew the people in the cars had a choice of either >> hunkering down or fleeing. He said the decision to flee was the right >> choice. He told the assessment team that more people would have died had >> they stayed. >> >> "It was luck for those who stayed and survived in their homes," he said. >> "In a couple of cases I know of, the people who survived in their homes >> where next to the only walls standing in their homes. They survived by the >> grace of God." >> >> Reeve said the path of destruction through Picher might have been a >> half-mile wide in places, but its core was the deadliest part. >> >> "You can see a block-wide area through the damage where nothing survived," >> he said. >> >> Three people in a car were killed in Picher. They were traveling from the >> north side of Picher to the south side to warn a family member. A fourth >> person in the car, a young woman, was tossed from the vehicle when it was in >> the air near the treetops. She survived. Three other people in structures >> were killed. One of them whose wife was killed told Reeves they had been >> inside and did not know a tornado was coming. >> >> 'You knew it was coming' >> >> Reeves said the residents of Picher who fled from the path of the tornado >> had two things going for them. It was daylight. They could see the tornado >> and the direction it was headed. They also had enough lead time in terms of >> a 10- to 12-minute warning to get in their vehicles and flee. The one thing >> working against them was the speed of the tornado as it approached the town, >> he said. >> >> Reeves said there would have been greater loss of life in Picher if the >> tornado had struck at night. He said many people were out of town attending >> events in Miami and elsewhere that Saturday who should have been in Picher >> when the tornado struck. >> >> He also said more people would have died had a federally-funded buyout and >> relocation of families at the Tar Creek Superfund Site not been under way in >> Picher. The buyout led to the closure last year of several dwellings >> operated by the Picher Housing Authority on the south side of Picher. Had >> those dwellings been occupied, an additional 125 people, including families >> with children, would have been in harm's way, he said. >> >> Reeves said most of the people he talked with after the tornado struck >> said they had heard the town's siren, but some said they had not. The siren >> was sounded three times in three-minutes intervals before the tornado >> struck. Picher overheard radio traffic from a firefighter at Welch, a >> community a few miles west of Picher, that a tornado was on the ground and >> headed due east for Picher. >> >> As the tornado approached Picher, it looked like it was going to cut a >> swath across the middle of the town that would have involved the city's fire >> station, Reeves said. But as the tornado approached the town, it started >> drifting to the southeast. >> >> "We saw it seven to eight miles out before it impacted," Reeves said. "You >> could hear 1? to 2 miles away. It was the loudest roar I have ever heard. >> You knew it was coming." >> >> Reeves said the tornado would have missed Picher entirely had it drifted a >> little farther than it did. But if that had happened, the nearby town of >> Quapaw would have sustained a maximum hit. >> >> Reeves said a sweep of Picher by firefighters and rescue workers occurred >> immediately after the tornado struck. He said 67 people were triaged and >> transported within a 90-minute period after the tornado hit. At one point, >> the triage involved nine ambulances and five helicopters. >> >> Szatkowski said the team will use the comments from Reeves and others in >> Picher and Newton County to put together a report for the NWS. >> >> "It will be reviewed internally by the Weather Service and then made >> public," he said. "We could come up with some proposed changes that could >> help us do something better in the future. The desired result is one where >> no one gets hurt or killed by a tornado. That is the ultimate goal." >> >> WAS*IS mission statement >> >> To establish a framework for building an interdisciplinary community of >> practitioners, researchers, and stakeholders ? from the grassroots up ? who >> are dedicated to the integration of meteorology and social science, and >> providing this community with a means to learn about and further examine >> ideas, methods, and examples related to integrated weather-society work. >> >> >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> F5 mailing list >> F5 at tornadonerds.com >> http://lists.tornadonerds.com/mailman/listinfo/f5 >> >> > > > -- > Jeff Morrissey - KB0WVT > jeff at ozarkstorms.com > http://www.ozarkstorms.com > > ------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > F5 mailing list > F5 at tornadonerds.com > http://lists.tornadonerds.com/mailman/listinfo/f5 > > > _______________________________________________ > F5 mailing list > F5 at tornadonerds.com > http://lists.tornadonerds.com/mailman/listinfo/f5 > > -- Jeff Morrissey - KB0WVT jeff at ozarkstorms.com http://www.ozarkstorms.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.tornadonerds.com/pipermail/f5/attachments/20080602/d75bc296/attachment-0001.html From cosmic_ufo at yahoo.com Mon Jun 2 09:42:45 2008 From: cosmic_ufo at yahoo.com (michael rains) Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2008 07:42:45 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [F5] topic now storm siren operation (was NWS team...) In-Reply-To: <000f01c8c4b7$d71d9ac0$8558d040$@com> Message-ID: <776151.92849.qm@web35107.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Ted, The older sirens I have dealt with have no built in provision for power backup. In many cities, the sirens will not operate if the electric power fails. Some have backup generators available, but the older sirens have power requirements beyond all but the largest portable generators. As a two-way radio tech I have been asked several times to calculate the size of the backup generator needed to run sirens. In many cases, the sirens would require 16kW or more of backup power. The cost of installation of generator backup for each siren in many cities far exceeds budget capabilities, and portable generators cannot be left at each siren due to theft, vandalism, or other damage. Some of the newer models of sirens are designed to operate on battery sets and only require electric power for battery charging and maintenance. A quick look at Whelen Engineering's literature for one of their battery powered sirens states that the siren will operate for at least 15 minutes at full output using their recommended batteries. http://www.whelen.com/pb/Mass_Notification/OA4.pdf Another brochure says that many of their products will switch to a battery saver mode after loss of electrical power, conserving enough energy to operate once for at least two weeks after power loss. http://www.whelen.com/pb/Mass_Notification/Mass_Notification_Products.pdf Hope this helps answer most of your questions. Mike, k0rfi SWMO_Skywarn@ yahoogroups.com Ted Keller wrote: Thanks, I often wondered about that. Given the circumstances, intermittent is better than complete failure. Another question: in the event of loss of power, how long are the sirens designed to operate? -Ted From: f5-bounces at tornadonerds.com [mailto:f5-bounces at tornadonerds.com] On Behalf Of michael rains Sent: Monday, June 02, 2008 8:12 AM To: f5 at tornadonerds.com; Steven Runnels; David Williams Subject: Re: [F5] NWS team determines sociological aspects of May 10 tornado Ted, The design of most older tornado sirens prevents them from continuously operating. Older sirens consist of a rotating horn atop a pole or structure with a 240volt or larger 3phase motor running a very large air compressor/blower unit that forces air up a conduit into the horn. The control circuit has a three-minute timer to prevent overheating of the compressor/blower unit, with a cool-down timer that is usually three or four minutes before the siren can sound again. During a recent storm event, Laclede County (Lebanon area) had several older siren units fail from overheating after operating for several hours, even with the built-in cool-down period. Some of the newer sirens are more efficient, running on 48volt battery sets; and are capable of up to ten minutes of continuous operation. Unfortunately, the vast majority of sirens in Southwest Missouri are of the older Federal Signal type that were purchased with Civil Defense funds way back during the Cold War era. For some reason, probably related to the early Cold War-era CD air raid drills, many folks in SW Missouri mistake the cool-down period and subsequent reactivation of the siren for an "all-clear" signal. Mike Rains, k0rfi SWMO_Skywarn yahoo group Ted Keller wrote: I do have one question: why wouldn?t the sirens sound continuously? From: f5-bounces at tornadonerds.com [mailto:f5-bounces at tornadonerds.com] On Behalf Of Joey Ketcham Sent: Sunday, June 01, 2008 6:29 PM To: f5 at tornadonerds.com Subject: [F5] NWS team determines sociological aspects of May 10 tornado For those not in the area or hadn't seen it, this was in the Joplin Globe today: NWS team determines sociological aspects of May 10 tornado By Wally Kennedy PICHER, Okla. ? Jeff Reeves is nearly surrounded by six people who are armed with pens and notebooks, and an arsenal of questions. Reeves, who heads Picher?s fire department, is once again being asked to relive what happened Saturday, May 10, when a powerful tornado swept across the south end of Picher, killing six people and leveling virtually everything in its path. ?We didn?t have to watch for this one. It was watching us,? said Reeves. As Reeves relives the moment, the National Weather Service Assessment Team who is interviewing him will attempt to pin down the facts about what happened that day and whether the Weather Service might have been able to do something different that could have saved more lives. This team, however, is not like the Weather Service team that assessed the damage caused by the twister the day after it swept through this town of 700 or so people. This team has WAS*IS training and will attempt to understand the sociological implications of what happened that day. Gary Szatkowski, a NWS meteorologist from Mount Holly, N.J., who is heading the team, said, ?We have a greater interest in the sociological aspect. When you heard the watch and the warning had been issued, what did you do? How did they find out about the watch and warning? ?If you did not know a warning had been issued, we want to find out why. This tornado killed 22 people (at Picher and in Southwest Missouri). We want to know why there was such loss of life?? A different approach Weather and Society*Integrated Studies (WAS*IS) is being sponsored by the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. It?s a grassroots movement that is changing the approach to understanding how people react to the weather by integrating social science into meteorological research and practice. So far, 145 people have received WAS*IS training. At least three members of the team who visited Picher over two days last week had that training. What they would learn from Reeves would provide stark confirmation for something they already had heard. When Picher?s lone tornado siren was activated and after the NWS had issued a tornado warning, people got in their vehicles and left the town. That is contrary to NWS guidance. A person should instead seek cover in a sturdy dwelling or find shelter underground. Getting in a car is the last thing you should do when a tornado is approaching. But that?s not what happened at Picher, which does not have a public storm shelter. Reeves described the mass exodus he observed. ?I had been in Miami. I was coming in from the south side of Picher. I could see the tornado heading straight east,? he said. ?What I saw was a line of cars coming out of Picher. Maybe 75 to 125 cars.? Reeves also saw the taillights of vehicles headed north from the town. He said the last vehicle in the line on the town?s south side was a Picher fire truck. It escaped by the slimmest margin. The rear end of the truck was damaged by the tornado. Reeves could see the tornado bearing down on the fire truck. ?When the driver came to where I was, his eyes were wide open. I told him he had called it a little too close,? he said. ?Then, I immediately told him to turn around and go back.? Reeves said he knew the people in the cars had a choice of either hunkering down or fleeing. He said the decision to flee was the right choice. He told the assessment team that more people would have died had they stayed. ?It was luck for those who stayed and survived in their homes,? he said. ?In a couple of cases I know of, the people who survived in their homes where next to the only walls standing in their homes. They survived by the grace of God.? Reeve said the path of destruction through Picher might have been a half-mile wide in places, but its core was the deadliest part. ?You can see a block-wide area through the damage where nothing survived,? he said. Three people in a car were killed in Picher. They were traveling from the north side of Picher to the south side to warn a family member. A fourth person in the car, a young woman, was tossed from the vehicle when it was in the air near the treetops. She survived. Three other people in structures were killed. One of them whose wife was killed told Reeves they had been inside and did not know a tornado was coming. ?You knew it was coming? Reeves said the residents of Picher who fled from the path of the tornado had two things going for them. It was daylight. They could see the tornado and the direction it was headed. They also had enough lead time in terms of a 10- to 12-minute warning to get in their vehicles and flee. The one thing working against them was the speed of the tornado as it approached the town, he said. Reeves said there would have been greater loss of life in Picher if the tornado had struck at night. He said many people were out of town attending events in Miami and elsewhere that Saturday who should have been in Picher when the tornado struck. He also said more people would have died had a federally-funded buyout and relocation of families at the Tar Creek Superfund Site not been under way in Picher. The buyout led to the closure last year of several dwellings operated by the Picher Housing Authority on the south side of Picher. Had those dwellings been occupied, an additional 125 people, including families with children, would have been in harm?s way, he said. Reeves said most of the people he talked with after the tornado struck said they had heard the town?s siren, but some said they had not. The siren was sounded three times in three-minutes intervals before the tornado struck. Picher overheard radio traffic from a firefighter at Welch, a community a few miles west of Picher, that a tornado was on the ground and headed due east for Picher. As the tornado approached Picher, it looked like it was going to cut a swath across the middle of the town that would have involved the city?s fire station, Reeves said. But as the tornado approached the town, it started drifting to the southeast. ?We saw it seven to eight miles out before it impacted,? Reeves said. ?You could hear 1? to 2 miles away. It was the loudest roar I have ever heard. You knew it was coming.? Reeves said the tornado would have missed Picher entirely had it drifted a little farther than it did. But if that had happened, the nearby town of Quapaw would have sustained a maximum hit. Reeves said a sweep of Picher by firefighters and rescue workers occurred immediately after the tornado struck. He said 67 people were triaged and transported within a 90-minute period after the tornado hit. At one point, the triage involved nine ambulances and five helicopters. Szatkowski said the team will use the comments from Reeves and others in Picher and Newton County to put together a report for the NWS. ?It will be reviewed internally by the Weather Service and then made public,? he said. ?We could come up with some proposed changes that could help us do something better in the future. The desired result is one where no one gets hurt or killed by a tornado. That is the ultimate goal.? WAS*IS mission statement To establish a framework for building an interdisciplinary community of practitioners, researchers, and stakeholders ? from the grassroots up ? who are dedicated to the integration of meteorology and social science, and providing this community with a means to learn about and further examine ideas, methods, and examples related to integrated weather-society work. _______________________________________________ F5 mailing list F5 at tornadonerds.com http://lists.tornadonerds.com/mailman/listinfo/f5 _______________________________________________ F5 mailing list F5 at tornadonerds.com http://lists.tornadonerds.com/mailman/listinfo/f5 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.tornadonerds.com/pipermail/f5/attachments/20080602/857de560/attachment-0001.html From jeff at ozarkstorms.com Mon Jun 2 09:45:34 2008 From: jeff at ozarkstorms.com (Jeff Morrissey) Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2008 09:45:34 -0500 Subject: [F5] NWS team determines sociological aspects of May 10 tornado In-Reply-To: <015101c8c4ba$30131fe0$6801a8c0@joeydesktop> References: <006501c8c43f$53621620$6801a8c0@joeydesktop> <7b7f799c0806020645x48983baaxa00286294836817a@mail.gmail.com> <015101c8c4ba$30131fe0$6801a8c0@joeydesktop> Message-ID: <7b7f799c0806020745q1056bdb0h74354a25f01b4630@mail.gmail.com> One other thing in comment to your post... Yes, it's always my favorite thing to be in the heat of the battle with a storm and have my phone ring. It's even better when it's a friend or family member who asks generally...what's going on with the weather, is there anything bad coming? Any more, if I have a passenger...the phone ends up in their lap. It's one thing to be on the phone while driving...it's another to be on the road, while driving on wet pavement, monitoring 3 frequencies, coordinating with your chase partner, and analyzing all of that to be as safe as possible...AND answering a phone and carrying on an unrelated conversation. My other option is to just tell them to turn on their TV and hang up. :) 2008/6/2 Joey Ketcham : > It always amazes me at the number of people who are completely unaware of > what's going on during severe weather, unless they have someone telling them > that there is severe weather then they simply just have no clue. Just this > past Saturday I had a friend text me asking what was going on with the > weather. I don't know why people won't simply turn the TV on or dish out > $30-$40 for a NOAA Weather Radio. > > After the May 10th tornado the Joplin Globe quoted a resident in Newton > County saying that the tornado hit without warning, considering the fact > that Newton and Jasper Counties were under a tornado warning 25 minutes > before the tornado event crossed into Missouri, that's hardly without > warning. Furthermore, tornado watches went up early in the day before storms > even developed. > Joey > > ----- Original Message ----- > *From:* Jeff Morrissey > *To:* f5 at tornadonerds.com > *Sent:* Monday, June 02, 2008 8:45 AM > *Subject:* Re: [F5] NWS team determines sociological aspects of May 10 > tornado > > I think this is a very good project. The three biggest problems I see with > public awareness are: > > 1. Not caring, or not taking seriously, the dangers of severe weather. > 2. Not providing a method for alert. A NOAA All Hazard's Radio should be > had by all. I preach it and preach it, and have an opinion article on it > at ozarkstorms.comthat I refer people to quite a bit. > 3. Not understanding how warning sirens work. > > I think that the availability of alerts is there if people want it (or > understand that they should). I also think people know what they SHOULD do, > I think that lack of planning or taking it seriously gets in the way of > actually doing it. That's why this project is such a good idea. Finding a > way to get the message across and for people to act on it would be a HUGE > benefit to the public. > > That's my 2 cents. > > 2008/6/1 Joey Ketcham : > >> For those not in the area or hadn't seen it, this was in the Joplin >> Globe today: >> >> *NWS team determines sociological aspects of May 10 tornado* >> By Wally Kennedy >> >> >> PICHER, Okla. ? Jeff Reeves is nearly surrounded by six people who are >> armed with pens and notebooks, and an arsenal of questions. >> >> Reeves, who heads Picher's fire department, is once again being asked to >> relive what happened Saturday, May 10, when a powerful tornado swept across >> the south end of Picher, killing six people and leveling virtually >> everything in its path. >> >> "We didn't have to watch for this one. It was watching us," said Reeves. >> >> As Reeves relives the moment, the National Weather Service Assessment Team >> who is interviewing him will attempt to pin down the facts about what >> happened that day and whether the Weather Service might have been able to do >> something different that could have saved more lives. >> >> This team, however, is not like the Weather Service team that assessed the >> damage caused by the twister the day after it swept through this town of 700 >> or so people. This team has WAS*IS training and will attempt to understand >> the sociological implications of what happened that day. >> >> Gary Szatkowski, a NWS meteorologist from Mount Holly, N.J., who is >> heading the team, said, "We have a greater interest in the sociological >> aspect. When you heard the watch and the warning had been issued, what did >> you do? How did they find out about the watch and warning? >> >> "If you did not know a warning had been issued, we want to find out why. >> This tornado killed 22 people (at Picher and in Southwest Missouri). We want >> to know why there was such loss of life?" >> >> A different approach >> >> Weather and Society*Integrated Studies (WAS*IS) is being sponsored by the >> National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. It's a grassroots >> movement that is changing the approach to understanding how people react to >> the weather by integrating social science into meteorological research and >> practice. >> >> So far, 145 people have received WAS*IS training. At least three members >> of the team who visited Picher over two days last week had that training. >> >> What they would learn from Reeves would provide stark confirmation for >> something they already had heard. When Picher's lone tornado siren was >> activated and after the NWS had issued a tornado warning, people got in >> their vehicles and left the town. That is contrary to NWS guidance. A person >> should instead seek cover in a sturdy dwelling or find shelter underground. >> Getting in a car is the last thing you should do when a tornado is >> approaching. >> >> But that's not what happened at Picher, which does not have a public storm >> shelter. Reeves described the mass exodus he observed. >> >> "I had been in Miami. I was coming in from the south side of Picher. I >> could see the tornado heading straight east," he said. "What I saw was a >> line of cars coming out of Picher. Maybe 75 to 125 cars." Reeves also saw >> the taillights of vehicles headed north from the town. He said the last >> vehicle in the line on the town's south side was a Picher fire truck. It >> escaped by the slimmest margin. The rear end of the truck was damaged by the >> tornado. >> >> Reeves could see the tornado bearing down on the fire truck. >> >> "When the driver came to where I was, his eyes were wide open. I told him >> he had called it a little too close," he said. "Then, I immediately told him >> to turn around and go back." >> >> Reeves said he knew the people in the cars had a choice of either >> hunkering down or fleeing. He said the decision to flee was the right >> choice. He told the assessment team that more people would have died had >> they stayed. >> >> "It was luck for those who stayed and survived in their homes," he said. >> "In a couple of cases I know of, the people who survived in their homes >> where next to the only walls standing in their homes. They survived by the >> grace of God." >> >> Reeve said the path of destruction through Picher might have been a >> half-mile wide in places, but its core was the deadliest part. >> >> "You can see a block-wide area through the damage where nothing survived," >> he said. >> >> Three people in a car were killed in Picher. They were traveling from the >> north side of Picher to the south side to warn a family member. A fourth >> person in the car, a young woman, was tossed from the vehicle when it was in >> the air near the treetops. She survived. Three other people in structures >> were killed. One of them whose wife was killed told Reeves they had been >> inside and did not know a tornado was coming. >> >> 'You knew it was coming' >> >> Reeves said the residents of Picher who fled from the path of the tornado >> had two things going for them. It was daylight. They could see the tornado >> and the direction it was headed. They also had enough lead time in terms of >> a 10- to 12-minute warning to get in their vehicles and flee. The one thing >> working against them was the speed of the tornado as it approached the town, >> he said. >> >> Reeves said there would have been greater loss of life in Picher if the >> tornado had struck at night. He said many people were out of town attending >> events in Miami and elsewhere that Saturday who should have been in Picher >> when the tornado struck. >> >> He also said more people would have died had a federally-funded buyout and >> relocation of families at the Tar Creek Superfund Site not been under way in >> Picher. The buyout led to the closure last year of several dwellings >> operated by the Picher Housing Authority on the south side of Picher. Had >> those dwellings been occupied, an additional 125 people, including families >> with children, would have been in harm's way, he said. >> >> Reeves said most of the people he talked with after the tornado struck >> said they had heard the town's siren, but some said they had not. The siren >> was sounded three times in three-minutes intervals before the tornado >> struck. Picher overheard radio traffic from a firefighter at Welch, a >> community a few miles west of Picher, that a tornado was on the ground and >> headed due east for Picher. >> >> As the tornado approached Picher, it looked like it was going to cut a >> swath across the middle of the town that would have involved the city's fire >> station, Reeves said. But as the tornado approached the town, it started >> drifting to the southeast. >> >> "We saw it seven to eight miles out before it impacted," Reeves said. "You >> could hear 1? to 2 miles away. It was the loudest roar I have ever heard. >> You knew it was coming." >> >> Reeves said the tornado would have missed Picher entirely had it drifted a >> little farther than it did. But if that had happened, the nearby town of >> Quapaw would have sustained a maximum hit. >> >> Reeves said a sweep of Picher by firefighters and rescue workers occurred >> immediately after the tornado struck. He said 67 people were triaged and >> transported within a 90-minute period after the tornado hit. At one point, >> the triage involved nine ambulances and five helicopters. >> >> Szatkowski said the team will use the comments from Reeves and others in >> Picher and Newton County to put together a report for the NWS. >> >> "It will be reviewed internally by the Weather Service and then made >> public," he said. "We could come up with some proposed changes that could >> help us do something better in the future. The desired result is one where >> no one gets hurt or killed by a tornado. That is the ultimate goal." >> >> WAS*IS mission statement >> >> To establish a framework for building an interdisciplinary community of >> practitioners, researchers, and stakeholders ? from the grassroots up ? who >> are dedicated to the integration of meteorology and social science, and >> providing this community with a means to learn about and further examine >> ideas, methods, and examples related to integrated weather-society work. >> >> >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> F5 mailing list >> F5 at tornadonerds.com >> http://lists.tornadonerds.com/mailman/listinfo/f5 >> >> > > > -- > Jeff Morrissey - KB0WVT > jeff at ozarkstorms.com > http://www.ozarkstorms.com > > ------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > F5 mailing list > F5 at tornadonerds.com > http://lists.tornadonerds.com/mailman/listinfo/f5 > > > _______________________________________________ > F5 mailing list > F5 at tornadonerds.com > http://lists.tornadonerds.com/mailman/listinfo/f5 > > -- Jeff Morrissey - KB0WVT jeff at ozarkstorms.com http://www.ozarkstorms.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.tornadonerds.com/pipermail/f5/attachments/20080602/9e3c9506/attachment-0001.html From joeyk22 at cox.net Mon Jun 2 10:58:11 2008 From: joeyk22 at cox.net (Joey Ketcham) Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2008 10:58:11 -0500 Subject: [F5] NWS team determines sociological aspects of May 10 tornado References: <006501c8c43f$53621620$6801a8c0@joeydesktop><7b7f799c0806020645x48983baaxa00286294836817a@mail.gmail.com><015101c8c4ba$30131fe0$6801a8c0@joeydesktop> <7b7f799c0806020745q1056bdb0h74354a25f01b4630@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <018f01c8c4c9$7588a860$6801a8c0@joeydesktop> That drives me nuts, soon as severe weather warnings rolls in my phone begins to ring. If people simply turned their TV on or had a NOAA Weather Radio, or better yet both, then they would know what was going on and wouldn't have to call me. ----- Original Message ----- From: Jeff Morrissey To: f5 at tornadonerds.com Sent: Monday, June 02, 2008 9:45 AM Subject: Re: [F5] NWS team determines sociological aspects of May 10 tornado One other thing in comment to your post... Yes, it's always my favorite thing to be in the heat of the battle with a storm and have my phone ring. It's even better when it's a friend or family member who asks generally...what's going on with the weather, is there anything bad coming? Any more, if I have a passenger...the phone ends up in their lap. It's one thing to be on the phone while driving...it's another to be on the road, while driving on wet pavement, monitoring 3 frequencies, coordinating with your chase partner, and analyzing all of that to be as safe as possible...AND answering a phone and carrying on an unrelated conversation. My other option is to just tell them to turn on their TV and hang up. :) 2008/6/2 Joey Ketcham : It always amazes me at the number of people who are completely unaware of what's going on during severe weather, unless they have someone telling them that there is severe weather then they simply just have no clue. Just this past Saturday I had a friend text me asking what was going on with the weather. I don't know why people won't simply turn the TV on or dish out $30-$40 for a NOAA Weather Radio. After the May 10th tornado the Joplin Globe quoted a resident in Newton County saying that the tornado hit without warning, considering the fact that Newton and Jasper Counties were under a tornado warning 25 minutes before the tornado event crossed into Missouri, that's hardly without warning. Furthermore, tornado watches went up early in the day before storms even developed. Joey ----- Original Message ----- From: Jeff Morrissey To: f5 at tornadonerds.com Sent: Monday, June 02, 2008 8:45 AM Subject: Re: [F5] NWS team determines sociological aspects of May 10 tornado I think this is a very good project. The three biggest problems I see with public awareness are: 1. Not caring, or not taking seriously, the dangers of severe weather. 2. Not providing a method for alert. A NOAA All Hazard's Radio should be had by all. I preach it and preach it, and have an opinion article on it at ozarkstorms.com that I refer people to quite a bit. 3. Not understanding how warning sirens work. I think that the availability of alerts is there if people want it (or understand that they should). I also think people know what they SHOULD do, I think that lack of planning or taking it seriously gets in the way of actually doing it. That's why this project is such a good idea. Finding a way to get the message across and for people to act on it would be a HUGE benefit to the public. That's my 2 cents. 2008/6/1 Joey Ketcham : For those not in the area or hadn't seen it, this was in the Joplin Globe today: NWS team determines sociological aspects of May 10 tornado By Wally Kennedy PICHER, Okla. ? Jeff Reeves is nearly surrounded by six people who are armed with pens and notebooks, and an arsenal of questions. Reeves, who heads Picher's fire department, is once again being asked to relive what happened Saturday, May 10, when a powerful tornado swept across the south end of Picher, killing six people and leveling virtually everything in its path. "We didn't have to watch for this one. It was watching us," said Reeves. As Reeves relives the moment, the National Weather Service Assessment Team who is interviewing him will attempt to pin down the facts about what happened that day and whether the Weather Service might have been able to do something different that could have saved more lives. This team, however, is not like the Weather Service team that assessed the damage caused by the twister the day after it swept through this town of 700 or so people. This team has WAS*IS training and will attempt to understand the sociological implications of what happened that day. Gary Szatkowski, a NWS meteorologist from Mount Holly, N.J., who is heading the team, said, "We have a greater interest in the sociological aspect. When you heard the watch and the warning had been issued, what did you do? How did they find out about the watch and warning? "If you did not know a warning had been issued, we want to find out why. This tornado killed 22 people (at Picher and in Southwest Missouri). We want to know why there was such loss of life?" A different approach Weather and Society*Integrated Studies (WAS*IS) is being sponsored by the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. It's a grassroots movement that is changing the approach to understanding how people react to the weather by integrating social science into meteorological research and practice. So far, 145 people have received WAS*IS training. At least three members of the team who visited Picher over two days last week had that training. What they would learn from Reeves would provide stark confirmation for something they already had heard. When Picher's lone tornado siren was activated and after the NWS had issued a tornado warning, people got in their vehicles and left the town. That is contrary to NWS guidance. A person should instead seek cover in a sturdy dwelling or find shelter underground. Getting in a car is the last thing you should do when a tornado is approaching. But that's not what happened at Picher, which does not have a public storm shelter. Reeves described the mass exodus he observed. "I had been in Miami. I was coming in from the south side of Picher. I could see the tornado heading straight east," he said. "What I saw was a line of cars coming out of Picher. Maybe 75 to 125 cars." Reeves also saw the taillights of vehicles headed north from the town. He said the last vehicle in the line on the town's south side was a Picher fire truck. It escaped by the slimmest margin. The rear end of the truck was damaged by the tornado. Reeves could see the tornado bearing down on the fire truck. "When the driver came to where I was, his eyes were wide open. I told him he had called it a little too close," he said. "Then, I immediately told him to turn around and go back." Reeves said he knew the people in the cars had a choice of either hunkering down or fleeing. He said the decision to flee was the right choice. He told the assessment team that more people would have died had they stayed. "It was luck for those who stayed and survived in their homes," he said. "In a couple of cases I know of, the people who survived in their homes where next to the only walls standing in their homes. They survived by the grace of God." Reeve said the path of destruction through Picher might have been a half-mile wide in places, but its core was the deadliest part. "You can see a block-wide area through the damage where nothing survived," he said. Three people in a car were killed in Picher. They were traveling from the north side of Picher to the south side to warn a family member. A fourth person in the car, a young woman, was tossed from the vehicle when it was in the air near the treetops. She survived. Three other people in structures were killed. One of them whose wife was killed told Reeves they had been inside and did not know a tornado was coming. 'You knew it was coming' Reeves said the residents of Picher who fled from the path of the tornado had two things going for them. It was daylight. They could see the tornado and the direction it was headed. They also had enough lead time in terms of a 10- to 12-minute warning to get in their vehicles and flee. The one thing working against them was the speed of the tornado as it approached the town, he said. Reeves said there would have been greater loss of life in Picher if the tornado had struck at night. He said many people were out of town attending events in Miami and elsewhere that Saturday who should have been in Picher when the tornado struck. He also said more people would have died had a federally-funded buyout and relocation of families at the Tar Creek Superfund Site not been under way in Picher. The buyout led to the closure last year of several dwellings operated by the Picher Housing Authority on the south side of Picher. Had those dwellings been occupied, an additional 125 people, including families with children, would have been in harm's way, he said. Reeves said most of the people he talked with after the tornado struck said they had heard the town's siren, but some said they had not. The siren was sounded three times in three-minutes intervals before the tornado struck. Picher overheard radio traffic from a firefighter at Welch, a community a few miles west of Picher, that a tornado was on the ground and headed due east for Picher. As the tornado approached Picher, it looked like it was going to cut a swath across the middle of the town that would have involved the city's fire station, Reeves said. But as the tornado approached the town, it started drifting to the southeast. "We saw it seven to eight miles out before it impacted," Reeves said. "You could hear 1? to 2 miles away. It was the loudest roar I have ever heard. You knew it was coming." Reeves said the tornado would have missed Picher entirely had it drifted a little farther than it did. But if that had happened, the nearby town of Quapaw would have sustained a maximum hit. Reeves said a sweep of Picher by firefighters and rescue workers occurred immediately after the tornado struck. He said 67 people were triaged and transported within a 90-minute period after the tornado hit. At one point, the triage involved nine ambulances and five helicopters. Szatkowski said the team will use the comments from Reeves and others in Picher and Newton County to put together a report for the NWS. "It will be reviewed internally by the Weather Service and then made public," he said. "We could come up with some proposed changes that could help us do something better in the future. The desired result is one where no one gets hurt or killed by a tornado. That is the ultimate goal." WAS*IS mission statement To establish a framework for building an interdisciplinary community of practitioners, researchers, and stakeholders ? from the grassroots up ? who are dedicated to the integration of meteorology and social science, and providing this community with a means to learn about and further examine ideas, methods, and examples related to integrated weather-society work. _______________________________________________ F5 mailing list F5 at tornadonerds.com http://lists.tornadonerds.com/mailman/listinfo/f5 -- Jeff Morrissey - KB0WVT jeff at ozarkstorms.com http://www.ozarkstorms.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ F5 mailing list F5 at tornadonerds.com http://lists.tornadonerds.com/mailman/listinfo/f5 _______________________________________________ F5 mailing list F5 at tornadonerds.com http://lists.tornadonerds.com/mailman/listinfo/f5 -- Jeff Morrissey - KB0WVT jeff at ozarkstorms.com http://www.ozarkstorms.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ F5 mailing list F5 at tornadonerds.com http://lists.tornadonerds.com/mailman/listinfo/f5 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.tornadonerds.com/pipermail/f5/attachments/20080602/f4630211/attachment-0001.html From meteorologist101 at yahoo.com Mon Jun 2 12:59:17 2008 From: meteorologist101 at yahoo.com (Genaro Estrada) Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2008 10:59:17 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [F5] NWS team determines sociological aspects of May 10 tornado In-Reply-To: <015101c8c4ba$30131fe0$6801a8c0@joeydesktop> Message-ID: <99140.81517.qm@web82708.mail.mud.yahoo.com> I've noticed that myself when I was out chasing with you guys, people were always asking us when/where the storm would be coming in! -Genaro --- Joey Ketcham wrote: > It always amazes me at the number of people who are > completely unaware of what's going on during severe > weather, unless they have someone telling them that > there is severe weather then they simply just have > no clue. Just this past Saturday I had a friend text > me asking what was going on with the weather. I > don't know why people won't simply turn the TV on or > dish out $30-$40 for a NOAA Weather Radio. > > After the May 10th tornado the Joplin Globe quoted a > resident in Newton County saying that the tornado > hit without warning, considering the fact that > Newton and Jasper Counties were under a tornado > warning 25 minutes before the tornado event crossed > into Missouri, that's hardly without warning. > Furthermore, tornado watches went up early in the > day before storms even developed. > > Joey > ----- Original Message ----- > From: Jeff Morrissey > To: f5 at tornadonerds.com > Sent: Monday, June 02, 2008 8:45 AM > Subject: Re: [F5] NWS team determines sociological > aspects of May 10 tornado > > > I think this is a very good project. The three > biggest problems I see with public awareness are: > > 1. Not caring, or not taking seriously, the > dangers of severe weather. > 2. Not providing a method for alert. A NOAA All > Hazard's Radio should be had by all. I preach it > and preach it, and have an opinion article on it at > ozarkstorms.com that I refer people to quite a bit. > 3. Not understanding how warning sirens work. > > I think that the availability of alerts is there > if people want it (or understand that they should). > I also think people know what they SHOULD do, I > think that lack of planning or taking it seriously > gets in the way of actually doing it. That's why > this project is such a good idea. Finding a way to > get the message across and for people to act on it > would be a HUGE benefit to the public. > > That's my 2 cents. > > > 2008/6/1 Joey Ketcham : > > For those not in the area or hadn't seen it, > this was in the Joplin Globe today: > > NWS team determines sociological aspects of May > 10 tornado > By Wally Kennedy > > PICHER, Okla. ? Jeff Reeves is nearly surrounded > by six people who are armed with pens and notebooks, > and an arsenal of questions. > > Reeves, who heads Picher's fire department, is > once again being asked to relive what happened > Saturday, May 10, when a powerful tornado swept > across the south end of Picher, killing six people > and leveling virtually everything in its path. > > "We didn't have to watch for this one. It was > watching us," said Reeves. > > As Reeves relives the moment, the National > Weather Service Assessment Team who is interviewing > him will attempt to pin down the facts about what > happened that day and whether the Weather Service > might have been able to do something different that > could have saved more lives. > > This team, however, is not like the Weather > Service team that assessed the damage caused by the > twister the day after it swept through this town of > 700 or so people. This team has WAS*IS training and > will attempt to understand the sociological > implications of what happened that day. > > Gary Szatkowski, a NWS meteorologist from Mount > Holly, N.J., who is heading the team, said, "We have > a greater interest in the sociological aspect. When > you heard the watch and the warning had been issued, > what did you do? How did they find out about the > watch and warning? > > "If you did not know a warning had been issued, > we want to find out why. This tornado killed 22 > people (at Picher and in Southwest Missouri). We > want to know why there was such loss of life?" > > A different approach > > Weather and Society*Integrated Studies (WAS*IS) > is being sponsored by the National Center for > Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. It's a > grassroots movement that is changing the approach to > understanding how people react to the weather by > integrating social science into meteorological > research and practice. > > So far, 145 people have received WAS*IS > training. At least three members of the team who > visited Picher over two days last week had that > training. > > What they would learn from Reeves would provide > stark confirmation for something they already had > heard. When Picher's lone tornado siren was > activated and after the NWS had issued a tornado > warning, people got in their vehicles and left the > town. That is contrary to NWS guidance. A person > should instead seek cover in a sturdy dwelling or > find shelter underground. Getting in a car is the > last thing you should do when a tornado is > approaching. > > But that's not what happened at Picher, which > does not have a public storm shelter. Reeves > described the mass exodus he observed. > > "I had been in Miami. I was coming in from the > south side of Picher. I could see the tornado > heading straight east," he said. "What I saw was a > line of cars coming out of Picher. Maybe 75 to 125 > cars." Reeves also saw the taillights of vehicles > headed north from the town. He said the last vehicle > in the line on the town's south side was a Picher > fire truck. It escaped by the slimmest margin. The > rear end of the truck was damaged by the tornado. > > Reeves could see the tornado bearing down on the > fire truck. > > "When the driver came to where I was, his eyes > were wide open. I told him he had called it a little > too close," he said. "Then, I immediately told him > to turn around and go back." > > Reeves said he knew the people in the cars had a > choice of either hunkering down or fleeing. He said > the decision to flee was the right choice. He told > the assessment team that more people would have died > had they stayed. > > "It was luck for those who stayed and survived > in their homes," he said. "In a couple of cases I > know of, the people who survived in their homes > where next to the only walls standing in their > homes. They survived by the grace of God." > > Reeve said the path of destruction through > Picher might have been a half-mile wide in places, > but its core was the deadliest part. > > "You can see a block-wide area through the > damage where nothing survived," he said. > > Three people in a car were killed in Picher. > They were traveling from the north side of Picher to > the south side to warn a family member. A fourth > person in the car, a young woman, was tossed from > the vehicle when it was in the air near the > treetops. She survived. Three other people in > structures were killed. One of them whose wife was > killed told Reeves they had been inside and did not > know a tornado was coming. > > 'You knew it was coming' > > Reeves said the residents of Picher who fled > from the path of the tornado had two things going > for them. It was daylight. They could see the > tornado and the direction it was headed. They also > had enough lead time in terms of a 10- to 12-minute > warning to get in their vehicles and flee. The one > thing working against them was the speed of the > tornado as it approached the town, he said. > > Reeves said there would have been greater loss > of life in Picher if the tornado had struck at > night. He said many people were out of town > attending events in Miami and elsewhere that > Saturday who should have been in Picher when the > tornado struck. > > He also said more people would have died had a > federally-funded buyout and relocation of families > at the Tar Creek Superfund Site not been under way > in Picher. The buyout led to the closure last year > of several dwellings operated by the Picher Housing > Authority on the south side of Picher. Had those > dwellings been occupied, an additional 125 people, > including families with children, would have been in > harm's === message truncated ===> _______________________________________________ > F5 mailing list > F5 at tornadonerds.com > http://lists.tornadonerds.com/mailman/listinfo/f5 > From jaycazel at yahoo.com Mon Jun 2 13:18:24 2008 From: jaycazel at yahoo.com (Jay Cazel) Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2008 11:18:24 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [F5] NWS team determines sociological aspects of May 10 tornado In-Reply-To: <99140.81517.qm@web82708.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <8373.29481.qm@web82904.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Genaro and eveyone else is right....most people just don't care. Unless you are like us or a pilot most people just care about weather, all they want to know is what the temp is going to be the next day, they only care when it is too late. --- Genaro Estrada wrote: > I've noticed that myself when I was out chasing with > you guys, people were always asking us when/where > the > storm would be coming in! > > -Genaro > > --- Joey Ketcham wrote: > > > It always amazes me at the number of people who > are > > completely unaware of what's going on during > severe > > weather, unless they have someone telling them > that > > there is severe weather then they simply just have > > no clue. Just this past Saturday I had a friend > text > > me asking what was going on with the weather. I > > don't know why people won't simply turn the TV on > or > > dish out $30-$40 for a NOAA Weather Radio. > > > > After the May 10th tornado the Joplin Globe quoted > a > > resident in Newton County saying that the tornado > > hit without warning, considering the fact that > > Newton and Jasper Counties were under a tornado > > warning 25 minutes before the tornado event > crossed > > into Missouri, that's hardly without warning. > > Furthermore, tornado watches went up early in the > > day before storms even developed. > > > > Joey > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: Jeff Morrissey > > To: f5 at tornadonerds.com > > Sent: Monday, June 02, 2008