Tornado May Coverage

[Karried]

Was the coverage this specific back in May 99? I can't imagine how so many people got hurt and killed with all of the storm coverage I see. Why didn't more people know that an F5 tornado was coming their way? I'm amazed because the storms are broadcast all over the place and they are just little storms. Did people not heed the warnings or were they not taking it seriously or did they even have warnings like now?

Did it get much better because of that tornado?

[Keith]

Was the coverage this specific back in May 99? I can't imagine how so many people got hurt and killed with all of the storm coverage I see. Why didn't more people know that an F5 tornado was coming their way? I'm amazed because the storms are broadcast all over the place and they are just little storms. Did people not heed the warnings or were they not taking it seriously or did they even have warnings like now?

Did it get much better because of that tornado?

Actually, Karrie, before the May 3rd tornado, I think that many people did not really take tornadoes that seriously. There is a joke that goes around all the time through e-mail. "You know you are an Okie........if, when the tornado sirens go off, you go outside and watch for the tornado instead of taking cover."

Many of my friends did exactly that. Even though Gary England had announced that the safest place to be was underground, many people still did not realize the magnitude of this tornado and felt they were safe in their closets, bathtubs, etc.....

Then you have the others who are listening to the weather on their radios, while traveling on the highway or in the city, and they hear about the approaching tornado, yet they do nothing to take cover until they see the tornado...most of the time it's too late by then.

The thing is, there were storm chasers all over this storm, tracking it every second, so there was really no reason for all the injuries and the deaths. People had plenty of time to take cover or to get out of the path of the tornado.

Currently, the warning system we have is top notch, I believe. With all the storm chasers, and the top of the line radars that can pinpoint exactly where a tornado is, we have the best warning system around. Plus, since the May 3rd tornado, more people take these warnings more seriously.

It does get aggravating, though, when there is a tornado in western Okla. , or somewhere outside the viewing area, and the meteoroligists feel they have to have continuous coverage. I only want continuous coverage when the storm is starting to threaten the metro area.

[windowphobe]

Then again, there aren't any other stations to fill in the gap way out west; the next stations of any size are in Lawton/Wichita Falls (which won't help much if you're in Woodward) or Amarillo.

[metro]

Not to mention the advent of new technology since 1999, think how dramatically our whole society has timewarped since then with the Internet rapidly developing and other new technologies, I mean everyone was running on Windows 98 back then, not to mention meterology equipment. Esp. after May 3rd, people took it more seriously and stations budgeted more for the newest technology. Fortunately since we are the weather capital of the world, we get it first anyways.

[soonerdm]

KFOR was following it from where it started and was broadcasting video from their helicopter. They filmed it for so long the copter had to land to get fuel and go back up. I remember watching it at my girlfriends house (now wife) talking to her about how dumb all this tornado coverage was. Drove home to Norman and then going oh crap that is headed straight for her house. Luckily it missed everyone I knew within a few blocks.

[OUman]

The coverage was some of the best back on May 3rd, '99. The thing is not that people didn't take tornadoes seriously, it was the fact that the metro hadn't been hit dead-on by an F5 w/ 318mph winds. The closest that came to was the Union City tornado (of May '73? I'm not good w/ dates, sorry), which was an F4. An F5 hitting a metro area is a rare event.

Another reason why there were fatalities was because people took shelter under overpasses. The one thing all of of us learnt was that it's the worst place to be in the case that a tornado's coming straight at you. But most of the fatalities occurred simply because there weren't (and still aren't) basements or storm cellars in many of the homes in the cities and town the tornado passed through.

Keith:
I can understand what you mean, but what if an F4/F5 were headed straight for Altus or Lawton, or some smaller town like Woodward or Enid? I definitely wouldn't mind the local stations interrupting programming for long hours to make sure the people in these cities took shelter long before the tornado would come through. The local stations cover a huge viewing area-all of western and central OK, and some counties east of here. They are required to warn people of such storms if the need is there. However, if a storm isn't doing much, or is over open country, all they do is warn people about it and give updates during the commercial breaks.

Also, you can never say that there's really no reason for fatalities. Even if you have the coverage and people tracking the tornado and sending out warning, if people just don't have a place to go underground or in a storm room or cellar, there are going to be fatalities, especially when an F5 hits a densely populated area-it's a bad deal.

IMO, and in the opinions of the NWS and meteorology community, it was due to the warnings and great coverage that the fatalities were kept this low, if there wasn't such good advancement in the lead time of the warning, many more people might have been killed.

OUman

[venture]

May 3rd was done just about as good as it could have been. People were given warning lead times up to an hour before the storm hit. All local channels were following this thing from its birth by Lawton, KOCO and FOX25 were even being rebroadcasted on CNN and the Weather Channel. Unfortunately, as has been said, some people didn't take things serious enough or took the wrong precautions. When Gary clearly stated you need to be below ground for this thing - a bell should have gone off. However with the lack of many underground shelters at the time and some people being stupid and getting under overpasses (just like the morons in that video all the major news networks and TWC love to show)...people were going to die. Had that thing hit anywhere except Oklahoma City - I would bet the death toll would have been at least triple.

As far as continous tornado coverage outside "the viewing area." You first have to understand the viewing area. All major local stations have a 50 county local viewing area. Just because they are based in Oklahoma City doesn't mean the half a dozen counties area here are all that matters. Southwest Oklahoma has some coverage from the station in Lawton and the other in Wichita Falls...there is also one in Ardmore. However, Northwest Oklahoma has no one else to turn to. I think you'll also find from talking to people as far away as Hollis and Altus, that they will say they heard the weather from Gary, Mike or Rick.

[Karried]

This still makes me laugh, since I'm from California and yes have seen Twister many times, you can imagine my first experience when the sirens went off for the first time for me. I diligently gathered my two boys, (my husband was at work) and ran to the shelter in the backyard, scared to death. I had my Nextel with me and there I sat ...lo and behold my husband called in a bit "Karrie, our neighbor just called and said she saw you running into the shelter, the tornado is in Jones or something - you can come out of the shelter now." I didn't know that sirens went off everywhere - the tornado was miles and miles past me. I'm still the laughing stock of the neighborhood :-)

But, still, I can only imagine what one of my neighbors would do in an earthquake, which I would think nothing about.........

[Keith]

The coverage was some of the best back on May 3rd, '99. The thing is not that people didn't take tornadoes seriously, it was the fact that the metro hadn't been hit dead-on by an F5 w/ 318mph winds. The closest that came to was the Union City tornado (of May '73? I'm not good w/ dates, sorry), which was an F4. An F5 hitting a metro area is a rare event.

Another reason why there were fatalities was because people took shelter under overpasses. The one thing all of of us learnt was that it's the worst place to be in the case that a tornado's coming straight at you. But most of the fatalities occurred simply because there weren't (and still aren't) basements or storm cellars in many of the homes in the cities and town the tornado passed through.

Keith:
I can understand what you mean, but what if an F4/F5 were headed straight for Altus or Lawton, or some smaller town like Woodward or Enid? I definitely wouldn't mind the local stations interrupting programming for long hours to make sure the people in these cities took shelter long before the tornado would come through. The local stations cover a huge viewing area-all of western and central OK, and some counties east of here. They are required to warn people of such storms if the need is there. However, if a storm isn't doing much, or is over open country, all they do is warn people about it and give updates during the commercial breaks.

Also, you can never say that there's really no reason for fatalities. Even if you have the coverage and people tracking the tornado and sending out warning, if people just don't have a place to go underground or in a storm room or cellar, there are going to be fatalities, especially when an F5 hits a densely populated area-it's a bad deal.

IMO, and in the opinions of the NWS and meteorology community, it was due to the warnings and great coverage that the fatalities were kept this low, if there wasn't such good advancement in the lead time of the warning, many more people might have been killed.

OUman

I did not realize that so many communities in Okla. depended on OKC stations for their weather. I just thought that there were other stations in western, northern, and southern Oklahoma, that could provide these other communities with severe storm coverage.

[Patrick]

I did not realize that so many communities in Okla. depended on OKC stations for their weather. I just thought that there were other stations in western, northern, and southern Oklahoma, that could provide these other communities with severe storm coverage.

There are other stations out there, affliates of the major networks, but obviously, they just don't have the resources our weather stations do. Thus, our viewing area basically covers the western 2/3 of the state.

[OUman]

There are other stations out there, affliates of the major networks, but obviously, they just don't have the resources our weather stations do. Thus, our viewing area basically covers the western 2/3 of the state.

Right. I have been on chases in western and SW OK, and Lawton and Altus have their own stations. These stations have all the latest radars, but I don't think they have their as many of their own storm chasers, which come in very handy for severe weather coverage.

OUman

[venture]

KSWO in Lawton I think is the only one with their own chasers...but I don't know if they still do. I know David Drummond out of the station in Lubbock makes his way up the panhandle quite a bit and close to SW Oklahoma. However its usually pretty clear who provides the best coverage...everytime we (our little chase clan) go out there are the folks from KOCO, KFOR, and of course Val in that pretty black truck. One thing, we always find it interesting that once we pick a place to go to, not 2-4 minutes later Val from KWTV is there. Must be something of having our own laptop running Baron's FasTrac on it.