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Storm chaser delivers message of preparedness
When another tornado shreds a swath across Hitchcock and Red Willow County ... when the Republican River spills out of its banks because of heavy rain ... when the lights go out because ice and wind have downed the power lines ... Will you be ready? Will you have on hand what it'll take to take care of yourself and your family for three to five days?
"Think of everything you've needed during the past three days -- food, water, clothes, your glasses, your medicine -- those are the things you'll need in your disaster kit," Dr. Eddie Weiss, KHAS (Hastings) storm chaser and disaster preparedness trainer, told those gathered at his presentation sponsored in McCook by Great Plains Communications and the McCook Rotary Club.
"Me? All I need is Skittles and coffee," Weiss laughed. Everyone else, he said, might want to consult ready.gov for an longer list.
Weiss and members of his "Chasing4Life" (C4L) team are not just tornado chasers. Their mission, Weiss said, is to educate Americans about disaster preparedness and to battle complacency and bad role modeling.
Weiss said this mission started with his "storm spotting duties" as a volunteer firefighter in mid-Nebraska in the mid-1980s. "I was supposed to go to the top of the hill and radio back what I saw," he said. "The first time out, it drizzled, and I thought, 'This is so boring ... this system sucks'."
He continued the story, "The second time out, there were 31 tornadoes in the area, and I thought, 'Wow, this really rocks!'"
But, disillusionment set in when he realized just how many people do not know what to do when bad weather threatens their homes, their lives and their livelihood.
So, he started a quest -- "It was quite a hunt" -- that led ultimately to the Department of Homeland Security in Washington, D.C., where finally, "the lowest member of the Department of Homeland Security who did not push a broom" told him there are educational materials, books, pamphlets, programs -- lots and lots of them -- stored in warehouses, with no way to get them to the American public.
Weiss said he knew then what he had to do, and, in 2000, he developed an organization -- Chasing4Life -- that created the connection between existing government programs and the people on the street.
Weiss's organization ad-ded its own educational programs on disaster preparedness, starting with first responders in the New Madrid, Mo., earthquake zone.
The team's response to a tornado in Oconto on Halloween evening 2000 started "The Oconto Project," in which Chasing4Life tests new preparedness and response ideas, new systems for first responders. "If we can do it in a town of 140 people with no money, we can do it anywhere," Weiss said.
"Our greatest joy comes in educating in our school systems," Weiss said. It is the children of America who will educate their parents, he said, that parents are not to send the kids to the basement and then go stand outside to watch and video-tape and take pictures of the approaching tornado.
"We're battling complacency and bad, bad role modeling," Weiss said. Complacency because people believe, "A tornado'll never hit town. It never has before." "Oh, never say 'never ... ' and never say, "But I wanna see one ... '," Weiss said.
And bad role modeling because too many parents believe they can stay outside and watch a tornado approach. "Young kids get it," he said, asking the kids in the crowd: "What do you do when bad weather comes?" And they yelled, "Take cover!" Weiss asked, "How many tornadoes does it take to kill?" And they answered loudly, in unison, "Just one!" And he asked, "Who watches the tornado while you're taking cover?" And they shouted, "You do!"
But it's about seventh or eighth grade, Weiss said, when those same kids start to believe, "You've lived stupid this long. I can too," and they join their parents on the front lawn.
Weiss bemoaned the thought that this generation of youngsters -- born with technology in their blood -- is the first generation that could develop state-of-the-art-and-beyond life-saving warning and response systems, but, he said, "They won't live long enough."
"America's obsession with disaster has grown way out of proportion," Weiss said. "You watch way too much TV. Not everything you see on TV and DVD is real."
Weiss pointed out the inaccuracies in what is quite possibly the most popular disaster movie of all time -- Helen Hunt's "Twister."
It's supposed to be early June -- how tall is the corn in early June, in Oklahoma and Kansas? Weiss asked. Not nine feet tall and drying, he said.
How many times does the windshield of Helen Hunt's and Bill Paxton's bright red Dodge Ram "get magically healed" after it's hit with a combine auger, a tricycle, a teddy bear, and the pickup plows bumper-first into and out of a rolling two-story house? "Only a CHEVY could do that!" Weiss shouts. (P.S. His own chase vehicle, named "Dorothy," is a Chevy Blazer.)
"It's Hollywood" he said. "All Hollywood."
A better movie, a more accurate portrayal of twister weather, Weiss said, is John Schneider's "Night of the Twisters," which is based on the tornadoes that hit Grand Island on June 3, 1980.
It's chasing storms throughout Mid-America that helps the Chasing4Life team develop their training programs for schools, businesses, governmental agencies, organizations -- and Weiss admits, it's what lures the public to his presentations. "You'll come to hear a storm chaser," he said, "not a disaster preparedness guy."
Even storm clouds that look ominous, but don't produce tornadoes are valuable learning experiences, Weiss said, providing information to add to and enhance their educational presentations.
"We're constantly educating ourselves," he said. " ... sharpening our skills. It's a continual self-test."
Their focus on education is what sets Chasing4Life apart from other storm chasing teams. Weiss said his team does not chauffeur tourists and tornado junkies -- or reporters -- on tours. They sell no pictures and no videos.
There's no speeding, no driving on the wrong side of the highway/interstate and no blowin' through red lights, he said. "We don't drive on private property," he said, although he added, with a grin, "If you see me there, it's because that's where I've landed."
The C4L team coordinates its storm chasing with local responders, he said, and also helps with disaster response work.
The C4L storm chasing team has a purpose, Weiss said, and that is to gather enough information from storms and natural disasters of all kinds to teach Americans how to prepare for them, mitigate their damage and recover from them.
As an example of the value of recent first-hand experience, Weiss said, experts have learned that tornadoes approaching from the southwest do not always rip a house off its foundation and throw it toward the northeast, protecting those hunkered down in the southwest corner of the basement. Experts have noticed, Weiss said, that a tornado will most often just shove a house off its foundation and drop it in the southwest corner of the basement -- right where its occupants are sheltering.
This sheltering technique, Weiss said, has been taught since it was printed in an 1887 book called "Tornadoes," by John Park Finley. "Lots of antiquated rules have been changed with today's first-hand experiences, findings and research," Weiss said.
The value of a weather radio cannot be overstated, Weiss said, although he added that newer weather radios can be programmed to focus on one area, rather than run all day all night forever constant never-ending monotonous weather bureau information.
Weiss disagreed with Aunt Meg's statement, "We didn't have any warning," in "Twister."
Weiss said, "The thing that scares us the most is that you're not ready." Educate yourself, he said, make a plan, assemble an emergency kit, update the plan and the kit. And take cover.
Weiss said, "We're out there. You've got warning. Use it."