Storm Chasers... A Nuisance?

On Tuesday a story came out of the Hays Daily News in Kansas featuring a story in which storm chasers were portrayed as being a nuisance on the highways in Trego and Graham counties. It featured quotes from the Trego county Sheriff and the emergency manager in Graham county. You can read the whole story on the Hays Daily News Website. Today another story came out with the similar reports, however this one not quite as skewed to portray chasers as the nuisance. This story came out in the Lawrence Journal and can be read online as well. Well here is my response to these stories:

This may be a nitpicking of stories here, but if it's there choice to be quoted or write the story they can also deserve to have some criticism about that. First off, I wasn't able to chase these days and I may not be what you call a seasoned chaser as this is only my third year. Nonetheless I call myself a chaser and several of my colleagues deserve to have some defense here. We'll start off with the Hays story:

Trego county sheriff was quoted saying that there was some 200 chasers in his county, which is believable when looking at SpotterNetwork and by the amount of reports that have came in from the storms in that county on Monday. The next quote however is something that gets me, “We had to get rough on them to get them to move.” I so far have not heard of any reports indicating that chasers were ticketed or even had run-ins with the sheriff or his deputies. Could it be that the only people causing problems for him were his own residents?? It has become known that quite a few locals will simply jump in their cars and go out looking for the storms as well with their video cameras, etc. There is yet another sentence showing something wrong with the story here, "Once that message got passed along among the spotters, they left, he said." First off, I assume we are still talking about the chasers, not the spotters as I certainly hope he is not bashing his local residents that are out there to specifically help him. If there are some 200 chasers out there, how did this message get down the lines so quickly as within even an hour? I don't deem it possible, plus the fact that they were warned to stay out of the way would make everybody leave? Highly doubtful...

Moving onto the EM of Graham county and his quotes; “They are a hindrance to emergency services wherever they are,” well that is something you certainly wouldn't expect to hear. As many reports to the NWS are given by chasers that are on the storm, what if the EM was to lose all of this chasers out there? Well he would likely not have as many reports and eyes on the storm as he would like. The next couple lines in the story, I'm not sure if they came from the EM or if it the writer who seems to have no idea what he is writing/talking about. Pointing out the Univ. of Oklahoma and saying how they understand the ways of chasing and help him out? Isn't there at least half of those 200 that are out there doing the same, as I know quite a few of them are veteran chasers who are also emergency personal or NWS employees. One of the last statements mentioned indicates "It's the other chasers that are problematic." What other chasers? Is he meaning that only the OU and NCAR people are not causing trouble? I have a hard time believing that there are nearly 200 chasers out there all causing trouble. Either way, enough of this crap shoot of a story.

The Lawrence Journal article today I have to admit was better written and kind of shows both sides of things as far as chasers are concerned. It at least isn't a complete negative reaction, as the last statement reads how one of the 'higher ups' hasn't heard of any problems with chasers before this. Much of the quotes are the same, thus no need to rehash those. But, as you read through the story and think of the chasers you usually encounter and the ones you know, or for those that were there, the ones you encountered. Think hard about how many true chasers were the ones getting in the way, I think it is a mix between some of the more 'daring' chasers that we know of along with the public that is seemingly running around with their heads chopped off trying to see a tornado. I see it locally even here in Iowa, knowing that it is going to be worse in Kansas. The best comment to come out of these stories is not that chasers are a big problem, but the public that has no training and is simply trying to 'tag along' is the bigger problem here.

Alright, rant over... Hope that this was an enjoyable read for some. Comment if you like... Thanks for reading!

EDIT: A much calmer and well written story can be found on the KMEG 14 Community Correspondent webpage.