So there we were, a whole bunch of storm chasers, stuck in the middle of a flooded field north of Roscoe, South Dakota. Why were we there? Believe me, it wasn’t for the beer.
It was Saturday evening, May 22, 2010. A few minutes earlier, caught down a dead-end road with a snake’s nest of tornadoes breathing down our neck, we had taken last-ditch, evasive action by bailing south down the fence line, and finally, cut off by standing water, out into the field until we could go no farther. Then we braced ourselves and rode out the storm.
It was the closest call I can imagine experiencing without going airborne. A funnel materialized right in our midst, barely missing one of the vehicles. Rear-flank downdraft winds in the neighborhood of 100 mph blasted us. But in the end the storm moved off, having destroyed an old barn north of where the road had dead-ended but leaving us none the worse.
Except that now we were stuck in a rain-soaked, flooded field. And a new set of problems began to emerge.
Most of the guys in the other vehicles were people whom I had never or only recently met, but whose names I was well acquainted with. Two of them, Bart Comstock and Mike Umscheid, became the heroes of the day–the only guys who managed to make it out of that morass with their vehicles and subsequently pushed themselves well beyond exhaustion to make sure that every last man-Jack of the rest of us was accounted for and found lodging for the night.
Now, I’ll be the first to say that I probably don’t have all the details straight. It was a complex scenario, and to this day I still don’t know who all was involved. To the best of my understanding, though, Bart notified local authorities that a bunch of chasers were stuck out in a field, and the authorities notified the property owner, and the property owner was majorly pissed.
Back in the field, the first news we got–in our vehicle, anyway–was that three tractors were on the way to pull us out. By this time, the sun had set and it was dark, with lightning from other storms in the area flickering all around. I didn’t relish the thought of spending the rest of the night out in the middle of nowhere, so I was glad to hear that help was on the way. But that hope soon got dashed when we learned that the farmer was mad as hell at us and had no intention of helping us out, or, for that matter, of letting us leave.
This just flat-out blew my mind. From my perspective at that point, the man had damn near gotten us killed by plowing over our escape route, and now he was angry at us for fleeing across his field in order to preserve our lives. What were we supposed to do, sit there and let the tornadoes hit us? If we hadn’t taken the action that we did, chances were good that we’d have wound up on his property anyway as a bunch of crumpled vehicles and injured or dead chasers. It amazed me that anyone would have such little regard for human lives.
Those were my thoughts at the time. In retrospect, I think the farmer simply didn’t understand what we had been up against, any more than I and my fellow chasers understood what he was up against. Seeing through another person’s eyes doesn’t come easily. We are hampered by the sheer force of our own perspective. We take limited information, process it through the filter of personal experience, and draw swift conclusions colored by self-interest without considering what other pieces of the puzzle may exist.
This particular puzzle was a large one and I’ll never know all the pieces that were involved. I just know there were a lot.
There were us chasers who, having survived the tornadoes, found that our ordeal was far from over. There was the farmer, who had just gotten word that a bunch of crazy storm chasers were stuck out in his field after driving across his newly planted wheat. There was a local sheriff with a lot on his plate after a large tornado had plowed through his area, who–partly due to an infuriating experience with a storm chaser earlier in the evening–used his authority in a way that, in my opinion, tarnished his badge.
There were also some drunken farmers who, as I understand it, tore an antenna off one of the chasers’ vehicles and tried to pick a fight with its owner. There were other locals who showed understanding, goodwill, and helpfulness toward both the farmer and the chasers. There was one from our number who got arrested on the pretext of a ridiculous charge, and there were the deputies who treated him with courtesy and interest during his brief detention at the Ipswich jail. There were lots of people, each with a story to tell and each bringing a unique point of view to the mix.
It’s never wise to jump to conclusions in such cases. It takes time for details to filter in and the big picture to emerge, or at least a better view of it than a person is likely to get at first glance.
Thanks to Bart and Mike, all of us eventually made it out of the field that night. We had to leave the vehicles behind, but there’s a point where nothing else can be done and all a body wants is to get some rest. Through a mix-up I won’t even try to explain, I wound up separated from my group and found myself trudging across the field with Ben Holcomb, Adam Lucio, and Danny Neal. Lugging as much of our belongings with us as we could, we walked along the fence line–now a slippery mud pit strewn with intermittent post holes–up to the road. A pickup truck was waiting there. We threw our stuff into the back and clambered aboard.
The driver of the truck turned out to be the land owner. Whatever his mood may have been, he was decent enough to give us a ride partway up the road. At that point, we were delayed by a bottleneck farther up, so we got a chance to talk with the farmer and with another of his neighbors who walked up to the vehicle.
Ben and Adam did a good job of engaging these guys. I was in no conversational mood myself, but I listened and heard enough to conclude that this had been a terrible spring for South Dakota farmers. A massive amount of El Nino rains had flooded large swaths of cropland, delaying or altogether scuttling planting in some sections. Considering how hard these folks work to make a living and what a tough deal this year was handing them, I began to understand something of how the land owner might have felt: a hellish winter, ruinous flooding, tornadoes blowing through and taking out the power grid, and now this–a bunch of crazy chasers stuck in his field after tearing through his wheat.
The farmer drove us partway back up CR 130, then left us to fend for ourselves. Fortunately, his neighbor in the pickup ahead of us was willing to give us a lift. He was a decent man, sympathetic toward both his fellow farmer and toward us. A storm spotter himself, he seemed to understand what we’d been up against. He told us that if it had been any other year, we’d have had no problem, but that this year, many side roads in the area were impassable due to the rain.
The man dropped Ben, Adam, Danny, and me off at a Shell station in Ipswich. Power was out in the town thanks to the tornadoes, which had taken down high-tension lines back down the road in Bowdle.
I had been in touch with one of my chase partners, Bill Oosterbaan, via cell phone, and I gave him another call to find out his status. He, his brother Tom, and Mike Kovalchick were all with Bart, who had run out of gas en route to Aberdeen. Like us, they were stranded. Fortunately, Mike Umscheid had gone to get gas for them, so it was just a matter of waiting till he returned. Then Bart would drop off my buddies at a hotel and come for us.
The time now was something like 1:00, and from the sound of it, we had a few hours to kill before Bart would show up. There was nothing to do but hunker down and wait. My legs were coated with mud from trying to push out Mike’s vehicle earlier in the evening, and my tennis shoes were little more than big, wet clumps of black clay. The other guys weren’t quite such a mess as I was, but they were wearing T-shirts and it was cold out.
It was at this point that the sheriff drove up to check us out. When he learned that we were some of the storm chasers who had gotten stuck in the field, he smiled one of those smiles that tells you the person behind it is not your friend. “I’ve been looking for you guys,” he said. “I need to see your driver’s licenses.”
(To be continued.)
Bob,
I never realized until now–over two years later–that you were one of the chasers stuck in the field. I also haven’t said anything in public about the event, because until now, I haven’t felt like I had gotten enough of the story to offer informed commentary. You did a great job of documenting the ordeal, which is not surprising considering your expository skill.
I had been out the day before near the NE/WY border, but couldn’t chase the obvious northeastern SD target on this day due to a family commitment the following morning in Denver. Maybe that was a blessing in disguise, given what unfolded. I was upset that day at having to miss such an opportunity, especially given the photogenic and profusely tornadic character of that storm that became obvious as photos and stories started streaming into my I-Phone that evening. Then I heard about a bunch of chasers, most of whose names I didn’t recognize (but one I did–Mike’s), getting stuck in a farmer’s field with multiple tornadoes bearing down. My impulsive first reaction was, “What were those clowns thinking?”; but that was tempered by my knowledge of Mike, and that he wouldn’t be involved in any deliberately yahoo-like scenario.
Now, with the passage of time (and having finally photographed a high-contrast, violent wedge since), the personal sting is gone, and I can look at the whole day in a more balanced way. Would I have been in the same east-turn scenario at the same time, making the same decision? There’s no way to know for sure. Given my usual biases against getting close amidst only dirt-road escape options, and the vehicle I was driving at the time (a 2WD sedan), probably not, but I can’t say with utter certainty.
What is certain is that you and a bunch of others ended up in a messy, exhausting, complex and costly situation, thanks in part to inaccurate mapping. Your experiences and those of the others reinforced some valuable lessons for all chasers, including those of us not out that day:
* Don’t trust the maps with your life, especially for dirt roads.
* Have more than one viable escape option. [I too have learned this the hard way.]
* Take a few minutes beforehand to check on the antecedent road conditions in the target area, and account for the possibility of flooding if it has been a wet year/month/week.
* 4WD is useless when all four wheels get stuck.
* There’s nothing quite like a bunch of strangers helping each other out amidst a sudden calamity.
These lessons seem obvious now, to you and me, but some reinforcement for us veterans and hammering the point home for the less-experienced can’t hurt. What sucks is that it took your (collective) experiences that evening to fortify those points.
In the end, I sympathize with both the farmer and the chasers here. I’m just glad you all got out of there uninjured, with nothing more lost than some time and money.
==== Roger =====
I meant “nearly” two years later. Dates used to be my strong suit…no more!
Yep, I was one of the lucky chosen. We took a bit of a drubbing from a few–though by no means many–in the storm chasing community who insisted that they’d never have gotten themselves into a similar situation. So I much appreciate your evenhanded and constructive approach, Roger, in suspending judgment until you got as full a picture as possible of what transpired.
The chasers who wound up in the field that evening ranged from novice to highly experienced, and from ones who like to get close to the more cautious who prefer to keep their distance. But no one there was looking for or expecting an “extreme” encounter; I am certain that everyone chose that particular road because, based on the maps, it seemed like a reasonable eastern option, and probably the best one available given our northern approach to the storm at that point.
It’s human nature to justify our decisions, even the ones that get us into a peck of trouble and make us look like irresponsible morons. On the other hand, it’s also true that even those gifted with considerable foresight can find themselves caught with their pants down and nowhere to pee. It just happens, and second-guessing is only helpful for the future. So to those who judged us, all I can say is, be careful with the hubris. It can come back to bite you.
With this situation, based on what information was available at the time, I can’t fault the logic behind the decision any of us made. We couldn’t possibly have known that a farmer had plowed over our escape route two miles down. That, not flooding, is what got us into trouble, and only the locals would have known about it. Previously, we had spent much of our time driving on wet dirt roads without a hitch. South Dakota, or at least that part of it, is a whole lot easier going overall than those ribbons of pudding in Kansas that masquerade as county roads.
That said, a body is a fool not to learn from such an experience. I’d like to think that everyone involved would exercise greater situational awareness in the future. I’d be more wary of trusting a dirt road in unfamiliar territory as an escape route. I’m not saying I wouldn’t do it, but as you said, I sure wouldn’t trust the maps with my life. Moreover, with all the ponds shown on the map, we were clearly in prairie pothole territory. Given the wetness of that year, flooding certainly could have been an issue. Indeed, while we didn’t encounter any problems in that respect, I understand that had we chosen to continue south instead of bailing east, we’d have gotten cut off by water over the road.
You wrote, “Take a few minutes beforehand to check on the antecedent road conditions in the target area.” How would you go about doing that?
By the way, I have to chuckle when you include me among the “veterans.” Roger, you’re a veteran, one of the few chasers who I think accurately fits that description. I think you know how much I respect you. Thanks for taking the time to share your input, which is spot-on and offered in a gracious spirit.
As for me, well, I’ve been at it for a while, but my relative handful of successes have come only in recent years. I’m no Eagle Scout. I just love the storms, love the sky, love everything about chasing except the expenses that keep me from doing it as often as I’d like.