Another storm chaser tragedy: three killed in Texas accident

When I first saw the tweet last night, my stomach dropped. We've had so many tragedies in storm chasing over the last decade, I couldn't believe that three storm chasers were killed in a traffic accident, but they were, and the chaser community was shocked to see it happening live, via Social Media and GPS positioning from the Spotter Network.

I immediately checked the Spotter Network icons in my GREarth software, where I had been watching the storms, and saw the following people were at the intersection (quoted in a news article) of a major crash at Farm Market Road 2794 & FM 1081 (County Road 419):

• There was Jeff Piotrowski, who reported the accident first on Social Media.

• There was Bret Hendrickson.

• There was Kelley Williamson (with Randy Yarnall) whose live stream was shown on the Weather Channel earlier that day.

• There was Corbin Jaeger

A quick check of Kelley Williamson's YouTube Live Stream showed the stream ending suddenly at that very intersection near the time of the crash. Not good. This led to speculation in storm chaser circles that he was involved in the accident. His Facebook Page started blowing up with people concerned about his status, along with Twitter and Facebook posts begging the Weather Channel for confirmation. Official information wasn't released until the Weather Channel confirmed in a statement and on-air later Tuesday night that, in fact, Kelley Williamson, Randy Yarnall and Corbin Jaeger were all killed in the crash.

Just prior to the accident, one of them (not sure who) had done exactly what they were supposed to do -- issued a Local Storm Report of a tornado near Spur, TX (shown along with the Tornado Warning that was in effect just before the crash):

A number of chasers have posted nice tributes today to the three; this CNN article was particularly good, talking about how the chasers lived and quoted fellow chasers. AccuWeather.com's Extreme Meteorologist Reed Timmer also issued a statement in the video below, and the AccuWeather.com story. People spoke highly of Williamson, arguably the most "famous" of the three who were killed. I had been friends with him on Facebook for several years but had never really talked to him. Apparently he was a friendly, stand-up guy who was dedicated to storm chasing, and I'm sure Randy and Corbin were as well.

It's simply too soon to start talking about what this might mean for the future of the chaser community, but it's a good opportunity to think about safety of yourselves, other chasers, and the general public. This adds to the previous storm chasing tragic deaths of Tim Samaras, Paul Samaras, and Carl Young, who were killed by a massive tornado in 2013, Andy Gabrielson, who was killed in a traffic accident off-season in 2012, and Matt Hughes, who committed suicide in 2010.

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