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I guess its just appropriate that I was born and raised in
Tornado Alley....because Weather is "my life".
I have often been described as outrageous, larger
than life, a gonzo chaser and it is true that I go after a storm with an intense
passion. A passion that began when I was 13 years old. On June 8, 1974
the only information source for weather that I had was a little am radio, giving town by
town accounts of Tornado activity moving northeast along I-44 from Oklahoma City. I
was really scared that day but at the same time I felt the adrenaline rush as I plotted
the tornadoes on a map, and I knew that Tulsa was going to get hit. I watched out
the west window of our Broken Arrow home as the sky turned from gray to gray-black and
green with mammatus everywhere. And then I saw a large black cone descending to the
ground. I was spellbound and my mom said "its time to go to shelter".
My family headed for the First Baptist Church in Broken Arrow where we sought
shelter in the basement.
Weather had another big surprise for me on May
30,1976. I was one of three persons in a 2-ton truck that was swept by the raging
floodwaters of Mingo Creek and narrowly escaped drowning.
I have "chased storms" now for over 2
decades. Storms ranging from blizzards, tornadoes, hurricanes, and flash
flooding. I have driven an average of 30,000 miles a year just chasing. I've
traveled as far north as Montana, as far south as Florida to chase, with New Mexico,
Colorado, Wyoming, North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana,
Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Tennessee, Alabama, North and South Carolina, Maryland, New
York, in between. I think that it would have been simpler to tell where I haven't
been.
My video footage has aired on Discovery Channel,
Weather Channel, National Geographic, CNN, StormWarn, Grenada Television in London, and in
the UK. In 1994 I won an Emmy for "Outstanding Spot News, Day of
Tornadoes". I have hundreds of hours of video and hundreds of
photos documenting Mother Nature at her worst. |
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