Three storm chasers among 13 killed by Oklahoma tornadoes

Three storm chasers were among 13 people killed by tornadoes that rampaged through central Oklahoma on Friday, underscoring the high risk of tracking tornadoes and forcing the media to rethink how they cover deadly twisters.

Tim Samaras, 55, a leading storm chaser and founder of the tornado research company Twistex, was killed in the Oklahoma City suburb of El Reno along with his son, Paul Samaras, 24, and Carl Young, 45, a Twistex meteorologist, according to a statement from Tim Samaras’ brother, Jim Samaras.

“He’s mostly going to be remembered as somebody who tried to help save lives,” Jim Samaras told Reuters, saying his brother had done a lot of research and work with probes and other instruments to capture scientific data from storms.

“He died doing what he loved and literally put his life on the line to save others,” he said.

Five tornadoes touched down in central Oklahoma and caused flash flooding just 11 days after a twister categorized as EF5, the most powerful ranking, tore up the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore and killed 24 people. Severe storms also swept into neighboring Missouri, while Moore experienced only limited damage.

The Oklahoma Office of the Chief Medical Examiner on Sunday raised the death toll to 13 after listing 10 fatalities earlier. The toll included four children.

On Sunday, authorities in neighboring Missouri confirmed at least three other deaths in flooding triggered by the violent storms on Friday.

As usual, so-called storm chasers closely tracked the storm to measure its power, gather research and take video to feed the television and Internet appetite for dramatic images.

“It is too early to say specifically how this tornado might change how we cover severe weather, but we certainly plan to review and discuss this incident,” said David Blumenthal, a spokesman for The Weather Channel, for which Tim Samaras and Young had worked in the past.

Three employees of the channel suffered minor injuries when their sport-utility vehicle was thrown some 200 yards by the winds while tracking the El Reno storm on Friday.

In a field known for risk-takers seeking the most dramatic video images of tornadoes, Samaras was seen as a cautious professional whose driving passion was research rather than getting the “money shot,” said friend and fellow storm chaser Tony Laubach.

“Tim Samaras was the best there was and he was the last person you would think this would happen to,” said Laubach, a photojournalist who had been storm chasing with Samaras since 2007.

“It’s going to bring everybody down to earth. A lot of chasing has been getting very, very careless, and Tim is not a careless person. He is as nimble and skilled as he could be,” Laubach said.