The Historic 2011 Tornado Season in Review: A Video Interview with Storm Chaser Bill Oosterbaan, Part 1

Just about any way you look at it, the 2011 tornado season has been exceptional, disastrous, spectacular, and heartbreaking. On April 25–28, the largest tornado outbreak in United States history claimed over 340 lives over a span of 78 1/2 hours. Hardest hit was northern Alabama, where 239 of the fatalities occurred. Of the 335 confirmed tornadoes that drilled across 21 states from Texas and Oklahoma to as far north as upstate New York, four received an EF-5 rating, a figure surpassed only by the 1974 Super Outbreak. In other ways, what is now known as the 2011 Super Outbreak rivaled its infamous predecessor of 37 years ago. There were more tornadoes. And, in an age when warning technology and communications far outstrips what existed on April 3–4, 1974, there were nevertheless more deaths.

The 2011 Super Outbreak alone would have set the year apart as a mile marker in weather history. But less than a month later, on May 22, another longstanding record got broken–and tornado records are rarely anything one hopes to see beaten. In this case, a mile-wide EF-5 wedge that leveled Joplin, Missouri, became not only the first single tornado since the 1953 Flint–Beecher, Michigan, tornado to kill over 100 people, but also, with a death toll of 153, the deadliest US tornado since the Woodward, Oklahoma, tornado of 1943.

This has been a year when large cities have gotten smeared, churned into toothpicks and spit out at 200 mph. Tusacaloosa, Birmingham, Huntsville, Joplin…if you survived the storms that trashed these towns, you were blessed. And chances are, you know people who weren’t so fortunate.

Rarely has the dark side of the storms that storm chasers so passionately pursue been on such grim and devastating display. This has been an awful tornado season, and that’s the truth. It has also been a spectacular one, and if many of the storms were man eaters, yet many others spun out their violent beauty harmlessly out on the open plains. Chasers this year have witnessed the full gamut, from April’s deadly monsters that raced across Dixie Alley to slow-moving, late-season funnels that meandered grandly over the grasslands.

For me, the season has largely been a washout. Family and economic constraints kept me mostly benched this spring, and the few times when I made it out west to chase were unproductive.

Not so, however, with my friend and chase partner of 15 years, Bill Oosterbaan. Bill has had a spectacular and a sobering season–and in this first-ever Stormhorn.com video interview, he’s here to talk about it.

The 40-minute length of this video requires that it be broken into four sections in order to fit YouTube requirements. It’s a lengthy process, and me being a novice at video editing–particularly with high definition–it has taken me a while to figure out how to make it work. This evening I finally had a breakthrough, and now I’m pleased to say that Part 1 is available for viewing. I will be working on the remaining three parts tomorrow, and I hope to have them available in their entirety on YouTube by Wednesday. [UPDATE: Parts 2–4 are now available for viewing.]

For now, by way of a teaser with some substance to it, here is the first part.

Interview with Paul and Elizabeth Huffman: Insights into a Historic Tornado Photograph

Meet Paul “Pic” Huffman and his wife, Elizabeth. A very photogenic couple, wouldn’t you say? And, I might add, a lovely one–two very nice, warm people who welcomed me into their house near Elkhart, Indiana, yesterday for a conversation I’ve been looking forward to a long, long time.

Forty-five years ago, on the evening of April 11, 1965, Paul and Elizabeth were homeward bound on US 33 when Elizabeth spotted what looked like a column of smoke off to the west. “Look at that smoke,” she told Paul. “Something’s burning.”

“That’s not smoke,” Paul replied.

Pulling the car off onto the shoulder, he grabbed his camera out of the back seat. Then, scrambling out of the vehicle and hooking his leg around the front bumper to steady himself in the wind, Paul Huffman began snapping photos as a tornado moved across the field, broadening and intensifying on its rapid journey toward the Midway Trailer Park less than half a mile up the road.

One of Paul’s photos, taken as debris from mobile homes exploded skyward, became not only the instant icon of the second worst tornado outbreak in Midwestern history, but also what is undoubtedly the most famous tornado photograph of all time. With the emotional impact peculiar to black-and-white photography, Paul’s photo depicts twin funnels straddling US 33 like a pair of immense, black legs. It is a chilling image, instantly recognizable to anyone interested in tornado research or severe weather history.

Researching for a book I’m writing on the 1965 Palm Sunday Tornadoes, I’ve come across several variations of Paul’s story by different writers. The discrepancies have been enough to leave me feeling frustrated. The Huffmans’ account strikes me as integral to a book on the outbreak, and as a matter of both responsible writing and simple respect, I’ve wanted to learn the facts and offer as accurate a writeup as possible. I was delighted last year, then, to learn that Paul would be one of the featured speakers at a Palm Sunday Outbreak commemorative event at the Bristol Museum.

Of course I attended the commemoration, where I connected with my friends Pat Bowman and Debbie Watters (my two “tornado ladies”) and also met Paul and Elizabeth for the first time. It was then that I requested an interview. Now, a year-and-a-half later, I finally got the opportunity.

When I arrived at their house, the Huffmans were standing outside surveying damage to their property from the previous day’s derecho. A small tree was down, a flagpole had gotten blown over, and a lot of tree litter had filled the yard. It seemed ironic that I was meeting Paul and Elizabeth on the wings of another bad storm.

They invited me inside, and we had a great chat that covered a lot more ground than just the tornadoes. In their early 80s, the Huffmans are an engaging twosome with plenty of stories to share. Paul, who served as a reporter for the Elkhart Truth, regaled me with several accounts from back in the day, including a flyover directly over a smokestack of the newly built Cook nuclear power plant, and a humorous mishap on the roof of a quonset hut. But of course, the main focus was his experience with the Midway tornado.

I won’t go into details here because it’s been a long day and I’m tired, and besides, I haven’t had a chance to review the interview tape. But here are a few noteworthy highlights:

* Paul never saw the twin funnels when they occurred. He was too busy snapping pictures, and he saw only the rightmost funnel in his viewfinder. Not until later, when he developed his film in his darkroom at home, did he realize what an unusual image he had captured.

* Among the larger pieces of debris raining around the Huffmans’ vehicle was a car which got flung overhead and landed on the other side of the railroad tracks that parallel US 33.

* The Huffmans never heard any of the tornado forecasts that were broadcast that day. But Paul, working outdoors earlier in that balmy afternoon sunshine, sensed that bad weather was on the way and mentioned it to Elizabeth.

* Ted Fujita interviewed the Huffmans at their house. Paul said that during his visit, Fujita seemed, oddly enough, to be more interested in Saint Elmo’s fire than in the tornado.

Paul’s overall work as a photojournalist won him a number of awards, but I’m sure that he and Elizabeth would agree that it was his one remarkable, serendipitous photograph of “The Twins” that gained him fame, if not necessarily fortune. It is strange to think how an ordinary, down-to-earth man can find himself in the right place at the right time, doing what he was designed to do–in Paul’s case, taking photographs–and wind up having an impact that shapes lives and vocations. It’s impossible to say how many people have been affected by Paul’s powerful and horrifying photo of the Midway tornado, but I know that it has helped to inspire a few notable careers in meteorology and media, not to mention many a storm chaser. It was a treat to finally get to sit down and talk with the man who took that picture, and to enjoy him and his wife not merely for their fascinating account, but also for the fine, intelligent, humorous, hospitable people that they are.