The Last Chase: Remembering Tim Samaras | National Geographic

you know I've been doing this for 20 years I enjoy the hell up I really do out here watching the great clowns the great storms you never know exactly what you're going to find you need to get below ground if you possibly can you know if it's on top of you you can't outrun it don't we got a very large wall cloud forming in this before anything is fitting it getting faster and faster and faster Gary back to you it's looking that way not that you think it I got all I could see was this giant wall of cloud to the ground I've never seen a tornado do what this woman had done the tornado which had been moving to the southeast suddenly made a turn to the left all of a sudden it was over them and it was around tim was a genius great concept to try to get a pod that would survive a tornado that was his passion is to make something survive a tornado and get great data and therefore understand what the air is doing what the pressure is doing right there near the ground where people live once we understand all that the models will be better and the warnings will be better and I think more lives be saved I was shooting with Tim Paul and cars in smaller less twelve years I don't know how many times I circled around the globe with them squeeze them and cause sometimes I wondered how a single man could be so creative he was not only planning but he was doing Tim would have never risked anything for his son never ever Paul had this qualities as a videographer and suddenly this father-and-son couple they became really a great team and for Tim it was just a a perfect match yeah rotating your ring around I believe it's right in there but it's going to be rain Rapids most dangerous tornado you're gonna have because you can't see shake these reports it's a gigantic tornado at least a mile wide we were seriously concerned we were on the air well ahead of time even for the watch was issued saying look there's going to be tornadoes in Central Oklahoma make your plans now do it now who would have expected that a tornado to do three things at once widen out and turn and accelerate when they came back says two point six miles wide I think it was surprised most everyone tim was actually a pretty laid-back guy most of the time very easygoing but when we were out in the field there was an intensity then there has to be right there leading storm edge there is now severe warned he wanted to contribute to the tornado science and it just kept him going he was continually trying to improve his and city measurements go back down the road a little bit tornadoes move unpredictably and you don't know exactly where they're going to go the closer you can get to the tornado before you deploy your instrument obviously the better chance you have of success and that's what he did and he was very good at it he also put video cameras inside and so you could actually see this fantastic video the inside of a tornado so I knew there was something special about him if you were to say which is the safest chaser that you know I would say Tim Samaras is the safest chaser I saw him out there and he knew when to back off so the fact that this happened on May 31st where he was caught in the path is surreal to me this is the person that I would last expect to be caught in the tornado one of our teammates Matt Grich called us saying that he was seeing rumors flying around that Tim Karl and Paul had been killed and then he actually had gotten some kind of message from Tim son Matt telling him that they had been killed in the El Reno tornado this thing is unique it is meaning it's rotating and it looks like to me it's just a matter of time because the rotation is getting stronger and stronger gary policies savour disease that were themselves as big as an ordinary tornado and they were wrapping around like a merry-go-round around a common center and if you're watching these tornadoes right here if one forms your left you're history you can't get away from it when a tornado gets rain-wrapped you just see rain curtains and usually the tornadoes in that rain somewhere but the El Reno tornado the whole area of rain was the tornado you might be standing there not knowing that you're very very close to a tornado you might not have enough time to get away once that storm forms it becomes very obvious very quickly that's going to be a major supercell and that's when it it ceases to be fun it's before it is fun because you're mother nature you just wrestle all over the place but once the storm starts going up for me it's not fun it's not exciting to me because I know people are going to die because not everyone gets the message and sometimes tornadoes didn't expected things I was absolutely shocked absolutely and actually I can't believe it until now I mean I always think it can't be true it must be I don't know what about stone I mean I could I really couldn't understand life is not like before anymore and all that fun times I mean it's like storm-chasing for me completely changed completely by the time I'm old and retired I'm hoping to contribute enough that that that people can take this piece and run with it than others younger people such as the college students that are participating on this can take off and then finish out the mission when I'm long gone you

Channel: National Geographic

Views: 800,160

Keywords: national geographic, nat geo, natgeo, animals, wildlife, science, explore, discover, survival, nature, documentary, National Geographic, Tim Samaras, Samaras, El Reno, Oklahoma, OK, Carl Young, Paul Samaras, death, tornado, storm, biggest storm, storm chaser, chaser, news, May, died, weather, National Geographic magazine, magazine, video, youtube

Id: oPrc8z4VW4w

Length: 6min 58sec (418 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 04 2013