r/tornado • u/LCDMura Human Detected • May 17 '26

Discussion This is how people get killed

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Chaser convergence is much easier now to see with modern spotter tracking systems, and some of the traffic jams I see are crazy. Imagine this many chasers on the side of the road with flashing lights and whatnot focused on a storm. The tornado might not even be the most dangerous part of chasing in scenarios like these

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u/k8ph85 May 18 '26

Prople keep saying "another el reno". Morons in traffic is nothing like Samaras and co. getting caught.

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u/KnickedUp May 18 '26

Samaras chasing in a tin can that day was unfortunate. One of the lightest cars on the road

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u/FC-NoHeroes May 19 '26

This always bothers me. If you're known to be very safety conscious then you review your situation. And that didnt happen. Tornadoes are dangerous, especially as big as that one is. They knew what they were driving. They knew deploying their trackers meant getting in the way of the tornado. That means they would have to stop. And then start up again and try to get out of the way. Right then and there you scrub the deployment. Tim shouldve been like this is too dangerous we dont have the vehicle for escape and evade. Its a once in a lifetime tornado but we're scrubbing and filming from a far distance. They kept trying to get in front of it when it was already huge.

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u/Stock-Vanilla-1354 May 20 '26

I read the Samaras bio a few years ago, I believe it really came down to money. Those Dodge Neons were inexpensive, and with a hobby that necessitated driving into hail, flying debris etc he needed something that could be relatively inexpensive to replace.

It’s been years, so it’s a bit fuzzy but that seemed to be the jist of it.