May 10th Tornado Devastation

Well, I had to beg my boss to let me off early. Thanks Kevin and Joshua. I left at 3 and busted @$$ north on 75 to catch a Supercell already in progress. Well, by the time i got to it, it had weakened, and a storm ahead of it had strengthened. It was an HP mess, so I tried to intercept the storm that had just started rotating S of the HP mess. I met the storm near Chetopa. There was a confirmed large tornado on the ground just S of Chetopa. I was just W of Chetopa and I couldn't see it. I could have made it, but my S option was flooded by storms earlier this week. So I kept pushing E behind the now right turning storm. I needed to drop S ASAP. I made it to Baxter Springs and decided to hit 44 to get ahead of the storm, and drop S again to intercept near Seneca. Well, as I neared Seneca, it was obvious my chase was over. The storm was screaming SE at 60mph and there was extreme tornado damage in the towns of Seneca, Racine, and Neosho, MO. I came upon a small community of residential victims, most of which had minor injuries. I made sure they had help on the way, and tried to keep going. About 1/4 of a mile further, I came into a valley with homes that were once big and beautiful, completely demolished. Cars thrown around like toys. The hillside was scoured clean of grass and trees, and littered with the belongings of those who lived nearby. It was a war-zone. I came upon more victims who had ridden the beast out in a small van. Luckily, they were next to a small ridge and the worst winds jumped right over them, but a large tree branch landed right on the front windshield, smashing the front 1/2 of the van. 4 of the 5 occupants were fine and only sustained minor injurys, but the driver had major bleeding from a gash on his head. there were ambulances on the way, but they were having trouble getting past downed trees and powerlines, so I told him and one of his friends to get in the Tahoe. I tried to get them to Neosho, but there was major damage all the way there, so I decided to run them up to Joplin. I had to drive through trees to get through the damage. The 911 dispatcher was very helpful and gave me directions to Freeman Hospital in Joplin, MO. The young guy with the head injury kept asking where we were and if his wife and kids were ok. Luckily, their house was about 1/2 mile from the damage path, and they were fine. I dropped them at the hospital, and told the nurses to get ready for a busy night due to a large damaging tornado 10 miles S of them. We were the first tornado victims there. I went back to where I picked them up to let the other victims what hospital he was at and see if they were all ok. They had rides on the way and thanked me. I shot some damage video for about an hour at the mercy of the local Sherriffs. I was in tears pretty much the whole time. It unbelievable how fast it all happened. One minute you're driving to a church buddies house for dinner and the next theres grapefruit sized hail smashing your windows as a mile wide F3 tornado barrels into you and drops a 100 year old tree on your car. Its all very surreal. The whole thing hasn't really sunk in yet. I must have been in the zone or something because it was all just a blur.

Overall a terrible day. Many, many fatalities from this storm, and others as this system spawned tornadoes from KS all the way through SC and GA. My prayers go out to the families and friends of the victims.

407 miles. I've decided to take some first responder classes and some emergency management training classes. I don't like the feeling of seeing people in need and not being able to help.

May 4th Greensburg, KS

Wow. What a bittersweet chase for us. Randy Rhea and I basically farted our way west slowly waiting for storms to go up. I didn't want to wait for the south cells to move into our area, so we just tried to keep from getting bored and held our ground. It paid off. We were heading west toward the new cell west of Coldwater when we heard the first TOR warning. The only equipment we had was a weather radio. So we were already scared. Night chasing with no radar is not a good idea. So we're about 8 miles east of Coldwater flying west when we hear the first funnel reports. SHOWTIME! Not even 2 minutes later that funnel turned into a large tornado with a small(er) tornado forming under a new meso. Well, that newer "small" tornado grew at an alarming rate. As we were turning north onto 183 in Coldwater, we could see the southern area of circulation, and it looked iffy. We get up onto a hill, to see a large cone to the west, and a growing stovepipe on the east side of the updraft base. With each lightning flash, the stovepipe grew into a moster. Absolutely massive. We were at least 10 miles away and it was a beast. As we got closer, the western tornado weakened, but at least 2 satellite tornadoes were dancing around the wedge. There were at least 4 on the ground at this time, 2 strong ones. My buddy Randy Hicks was very close to these tornadoes and saw 6 at once. 2 more satellites on the north side of the wedge. As we followed it north, it only got bigger. At one point, it looked like it was wrapping up in rain. We stopped, i got out and took some pictures, and it looked at least 1.5 miles wide. we were more than 5 miles south of it and it takes up the whole frame. We continued to follow it north as it went through Greensburg. We were sure the roads were blocked due to significant damage, so we tried to take a county road around town. Bad idea. Stuck in the mud. With a new meso trying to funnel to our west. Luckily, we're awesome, so we got unstuck, and got the hell out of there. We watch a new wedge move NE and decide we can't catch it(we thought it was the same one, but damage paths and radar say otherwise). Then we decided to go home, due to damage reports and basically knowing we couldn't get to it. We left the wx-radio on just to hear damage reports. It produced numerous strong tornadoes for somewhere around 5 hours. Amazingly there were only 12 confirmed deaths as Greensburg sustained a direct hit. The warning system won the battle tonight. 95% of the town was destroyed, and only 12 people lost their lives. thats amazing to me. Props to Mike Umshied, the Warning coordinator for the NWS in DDC. He was in touch with spotters and issued a "Tornado Emergency" for Greensburg and saved countless lives. Its just amazing how well the spotters, chasers, NWS, and local TV Mets worked together tonight. If the warning system worked this well all the time, tornado deaths could be cut in half.

Another death was confirmed as an on-duty police officer was spotting around Macksville. The damn tornado was so big he didn't know it was there. He died protecting his town and he is a hero. Our hearts and prayers go out to all of those affected by this outbreak.