Flightless Bird: Storm Chasers
2023-08-22 00:43:26
Hi, I’m Dax Shepard, and I love talking to people. I am endlessly fascinated by the messiness of being human, and I find people who are vulnerable and honest about their struggles and shortcomings to be incredibly sexy. I invite you to join me as I explore other people’s stories. We will celebrate, above all, the challenges and setbacks that ultimately lead to growth and betterment. What qualifies me for such an endeavor? More than a decade of sobriety, a degree in Anthropology and four years of improv training. I will attempt to discover human “truths” without any laboratory work, clinical trials or data collection. I will be, in the great tradition of 16th-century scientists, an Armchair Expert.
I'm David Farrier, a New Zealander, accidentally marooned in America, and I want to figure out what makes this country tick. Now, 1996 was a huge year for action movies. We had Independence Day, Mars Attacks, and the first Mission Impossible film. We also had Twister.
What are you doing? I want to see it! I want to see it! I want to see it!
Twister introduced me to the world of storm chasers. Americans who put themselves in the middle of hideous weather just for the thrill of it all. Before Twister, storm chasing wasn't really all that well known to me. Today, of course, it's everywhere, thanks to various reality TV shows and YouTube channels. And while people do chase storms the world over, America is where it really pops off, getting craziest in May and June, in a place charmingly called Tornado Alley, the Great Plains of the United States.
There are about 1,200 tornadoes in America each year, and so what else was I to do but set off for Tornado Alley to see what all the fuss was about? I set out to meet some of those who chased the storms, but I also wanted to find out what it was like for those that weren't chasing. For those that were out there, having a normal day in America, only to have a giant tornado arrive on their doorstep and change their lives forever. So, grab your weather gear, GPS, and heavily fortified vehicle, because this is the Storm Chasers episode.
Flightless, flightless, flightless. bird, touchdown in America.
I'm a flightless bird, touchdown in America.
When you first told me that you were thinking about doing this episode, this was while we were at the DMV, the first time.
Yeah, seems like a lifetime ago.
It really does. We said, I'm considering looking into these Storm Chasers and going with some Storm Chasers. Shotgunning. That's right, and getting sucked into a tornado. Mm-hmm.
And then that's where my artistic self and my personal self collide and conflict, because I don't want you to go into a tornado, but I knew it would probably be a good episode.
Yes. Look, to sort of allay any fears that you had, and this is a bit of a spoiler, I went to Oklahoma, and the time of the month that storms were meant to be the biggest, the weather was beautiful. It was amazing. Climate change. So I'm safe.
I'm fine. Don't worry about it. I did not ride shotgun in this episode, but the Storm Chasers I spoke to, they were great, and next year, I've got a few offers to come out with them and try again, but it was basically just incredibly bad timing.
And what time of year was it? What is the time?
May, June is the time when it kicks off, and it just happened, honestly, it was the nicest weather of all time. Have you ever been near a big storm in America?
Georgia has tornadoes. You're right. So I've been in them. We used to have tornado drills all the time.
See, this is what's so foreign. What was that like living, knowing that that could happen? You could just be randomly hit by a tornado.
Well, at school, we'd have tornado drills, like you had fire drills, which is just basically you just get under your desk. I'm pretty sure that was it. We just practiced getting under our desk.
Right, similar to like an earthquake drill, almost.
So that's what's funny. It's depending on where you live. in this country, there's a drill you will have for the South. In Georgia, it was tornadoes. Here, in LA, it's earthquakes.
And I remember when I was little, because I was scared of everything, and you know part of my prayer was no natural disasters and diseases.
Right, two really scary things. Yeah. That would be built into every prayer.
Yeah, they were in my prayer. I was really scared of natural disasters, but for some reason, I was more scared of the ones that I didn't know about. Tornadoes didn't scare me that much, even though I was at much higher risk of dying that way, but earthquakes, I was so scared of.
They scared the shit out of you.
Oh, my God. And look, now my house is on a fault line.
That's something I'm fascinated with, because I was thinking about this. I was thinking, why would anyone choose to live in a place where, in Tornado Alley? Why would you do that? Here we are in California, where the big one is meant to hit at some point, and that will be horrific, and we know it's going to happen at some point, and here we are.
Here we are. Okay, but back to tornadoes, sorry. So I had one I remember being very bad. I think I may have been in fifth-ish grade, or fourth. There was a big tornado, and we had to get down to the basement.
There were many times where we had to go down to the basement, but this one was scary. It was near us. I think we had some big trees fall.
So in your house, you went into your basement, or at school?
Yes, in my house. Sorry, this was at night. We all had to go down to the basement, and then the thought was to get in the tub, in the bathroom, in the basement, but it came and went. We only had some small damage, but nothing crazy, but one of my very best friends at the time, her house, was completely ruined, completely destroyed.
Just gone. Did you guys have tornado sirens in the neighborhood?
I think they would put the sirens on if- Yeah, we had that in the Midwest. Every Tuesday morning, they would run them as a drill, and it's just this eerie, creepy siren that goes on. Play it on YouTube.
It's almost like what they'd play in war, when a bomb was coming in, or a little bomb warning or something. I do remember that.
Yeah, that's what it was.
It's scary.
Yeah.
So, so, so eerie. So you'd hear that, and you need to get in your basement.
Right. It's like, oh, that sound means get into shelter under your desk or anything.
And was that a fun, exciting activity, like when the power goes out, or were you scared? It was scary when it happened for real, for me.
I bet some people did find it exciting. I think some people would go outside and see, and like these chasers.
These are probably the people that would turn into chasers, that want to chase this thing.
So it's a type of personalities. I'm interested in learning about these people.
Have you both seen Twister? Rob and Mon?
Yeah, I loved Twister. I've never seen it.
You've never seen it. We've got to get you watching more disaster movies, Independence Day and Twister are top of the list now.
I have a huge gap in movies.
Disaster movies.
Yes, I do.
I mean, it's a genre. I mean, look, it's a very specific genre, and if you don't like disaster movies, it's fine.
Well, I think my parents thought I was too scared, which I probably was.
It would just make you more scared.
Well, it's a very specific era too, when we were in high school and junior high, that those were all coming out.
Yeah. Twister would have been- Volcano, Twister, Armageddon. Yeah, Dante's P.
Oh, I loved Armageddon.
I say, okay, if you like Armageddon.
That's because of Ben. That's because of Ben. Oh. That was because it was sexy. Like, they became sexy, those movies.
Yeah. Twister was pre-sexy.
Yeah, true. True, true, true. Independence Day is sexy.
Okay.
Any opinions before we meet some storm chasers. on Storm Chasers? Do you have any, kind of, like, this is delusional, this is exciting, this is interesting?
My knee jerk visceral. My knee jerk visceral reaction is, what is wrong with these people?
Yeah, this is bonkers.
Like, this is crazy. I don't understand people who are literally driving into chaos, love, danger. Those people make me eye roll a bit, and also feel annoyed, but then, you know, I met Dax, and he's a chaos monger, and I think that changed my opinion about those types of people.
Who wants to rush into something that could be super dangerous.
Yes, and I think I have much more compassion for the childhood of a person like that. I don't think an extremely well-adjusted, totally idyllic childhood, I don't even know that that ever exists, but ends up as a storm chaser, I think you have to have some background.
Something's going on. Uh-huh. Yeah, yeah. I feel you. I am still undecided, but I would not do it myself.
It seems too unpredictable and too crazy. Even though... If I'm saying that next year, I'm going to go, I'm going to do it once, and I'm going to travel with someone that knows what they're doing.
Yeah, but this is like people who tame tigers, and they, quote, know what they're doing until they get mauled by a tiger.
Until they get eaten by a tiger. Yeah. Yeah, and we touch on that. I mean, some storm chasers end up dead. It happens.
Yeah. Okay. It was the end of May, and I'd set off for Oklahoma. For months now, I've been watching an Instagram account called Oklahoma Weather Couple. They're a couple from Oklahoma who love the weather.
Mainly bad weather. I was glued to their various storm chasing videos before sliding into their DMs, wondering if I could come to Oklahoma to meet them. They were into it, and here I was. We'd lined up a date in May. Good storm weather.
But God had other plans. We were hoping that everything would work out for us to be able to chase some storms.
while you were here.
But unfortunately, Mother Nature didn't want to cooperate. So we've got this beautiful weather here today. Oklahoma Weather Couple on Instagram turned out to be Justin and Stephanie. They had offered to take me out on the road with them, storm chasing in Oklahoma. But that wasn't going to happen today.
This is typically like our peak season, like our busiest time is right now. It's been quiet. There's been setups, but they've been more of your mesoscale type setups, a little bit harder to find and forecast.
I'm not quite sure what I expected from storm chasers, but this couple wasn't it. We've met up in a random park in Oklahoma City, and they're just a couple of quiet nerds like me. Stephanie works from home, and Justin works in banking. I'll be doing the day. It's the most boring job ever.
I audit loans, and then by night, we're chasing tornadoes. So it's kind of like a Batman film or something, you know.
And how did you guys meet? Did you meet over storms or something completely different?
We actually met storm chasing. One of his friends introduced us, so that's how he met us, storm chasing him in a gas station parking lot in the middle of nowhere. It was in Shattuck, Oklahoma, before a chase in 2017.. So yeah, that is how we met. Somehow, we had never crossed paths before storm chasing, because we'd both been storm chasing for years.
I would always kind of keep more to myself, like on the back dirt roads, you know. I chased solo at the time before I met him. So, you know, especially being a woman, I was very careful about who I hung around. Obviously, you know, for safety reasons and stuff like that. So I would kind of just keep to myself, but we just happened to be at the same gas station, and that's how we met.
Then we realized we had a lot of other things in common besides storm chasing, like music.
Yes, they also shared a love of Guns N' Roses and Tool. Maybe not surprising, as one of Tool's biggest hits is about praying for a great big storm. I'm praying for rain.
I'm praying for tidal wave.
The interesting thing about these two is that they say they're less scared of the storms they find and more scared of the other chasers.
We've had storm chasers killed in wrecks from other chasers not paying attention, and it gets crazy out there. So that's my main concern is you're not only worried about the storm, but you're worried about how are these other people driving.
So, what of those other storm chasers? Who are they? I leave Oklahoma with a couple to their day. They invite me back again to try next year. I was curious about what made storm chasers tick.
What do they have in common? What was their origin story? To help find out, I called up Jennifer Brindley.
So storm chasing has traditionally been seen as a male-dominated thing, and that's because that's what we've seen in the media. And there have always been more men, but women have always been there.
Jennifer's a professional photographer who usually takes photos of faces, but she takes May and June off to take photos of tornadoes. She's one of the most prominent female chasers in the country, documenting the fastest and largest tornadoes on record within the last 10 years.
Many storm chasers have a foundational experience as a child, like a big tornado hits a town near them when they're young, or their own home, or different things like that.
But for her, it was something else.
My first exposure to storm chasing as a concept was actually in the movie Twister that came out in the 90s.
It wasn't just me.
It was a global phenomenon. And because we didn't have the internet back then, it was a fresh concept to everyone.
Jennifer says, while some people chase solo, it can be a huge bonus to have a chasing partner.
In the action of the chase, two sets of eyes, two sets of ears, two brains. It's so much better than one. Whereas one person might be a little bit hyper-focused on one area, the other person can have a big picture view.
Her partner, Skip Talbot is a veteran chaser, doing it for over two decades now, and he agrees that Twister has a big part to play in America's storm chasing scene. We've seen a number of booms over the years with popular media. The largest was probably the 1996 release of Twister, which is also, I'm not ashamed to admit, what inspired me as a 12-year-old to eventually become a storm chaser. And then Discovery Channel, storm chasers. in the mid-2000s.
We probably also saw another large boom. There was probably steady growth with the rise of the internet, mobile data, and the apps that we use today. And that's probably fueling a large amount of the growth. I always kind of assumed that maybe chasing had kind of plateaued in the early teens. And I'm not sure, though.
I think it still might be seeing some growth. So a few thousand chasers, if I had to guess. Both Jennifer and Skip watched Twister years ago, before seeing the real thing for themselves and getting hooked.
The bug really bites you. And the supercells and the storms and the lightning and the structure are all really magnificent to behold. But once you see that tornado, you're just itching for the next one. It is like a drug.
And if you want that drug, Tornadoes with a capital T, America is the place to be.
In America, we have the perfect meteorological setup for tornadoes and supercells. The Gulf of Mexico has a massive role in that, bringing up all that moisture. And then upper level winds come across. It's a dry air from the west, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico. And when those things collide with upper air support, we need moisture, we need instability.
The nice heating, that daytime heating in the spring and the summer that we get, those are our sources of lift. So it's just like the perfect melting pot for all of those ingredients together. And there are people around the world who come to the United States to do storm chasing annually. It's a trek people take.
She tells me she's seen 57 tornadoes so far, but is that 57 too many? I find myself wondering about how dangerous this is, really.
In terms of the number of storm chasers who have actually died in a tornado, it's like half a dozen. It's like less than that. And so there are risks involved, but it also depends on how you chase and certainly who you're with. But the truth is, if you look at the numbers, it's way more dangerous to do things like horseback riding or rock climbing or windsurfing or any number of things where people die regularly.
But, that being said, a caveat of sorts.
But we've also lost very, very experienced storm chasers. The El Reno, Oklahoma tornado on May 31st, 2013.. And that was the big, well-known tornado that killed very experienced storm chasers. Researcher Tim Samaras, his son, Paul Samaras, and their chase partner, Carl Young. It happened to be the largest tornado on record.
It was 2.6 miles wide and it had a forward motion of about 50 miles per hour. It was so large that the vortices inside that tornado were the size of regular tornadoes.
Thinking about this, I'm sort of glad I'm not out storm chasing today. I'm not sure it's for me. I guess I've got the rest of the year to decide if I come back in 2024.. I guess what struck me the most about the storm chasers I'd met was how obsessed they are with what they do. You can see the glint in their eyes.
For them, storm chasing is number one. I met my wife in college when I was already chasing, and that has been one of the compromises in our relationship, dealing with the storm chasing. And so everything from when the children are born, such that they're not born in the spring, to minor family holidays and events, all of that stuff needs to be worked around, this thing that I do.
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Skip is very passionate about, yeah, tornadoes. Just like scheduling the birth so that they know that the kids' birthdays won't interrupt storm chasing season. He might have been joking then, but I feel like he wasn't.
I don't think he was. I want to do a real-time fact check.
Yeah.
I don't think that's correct, which she said, that it's way more dangerous to horseback ride and stuff.
Oh, yeah. Statistically, yeah.
She's talking about the number of deaths, but she's not talking about percentage of people who do it versus how many deaths. So I would venture to say no.
Yeah, I'm with you on that as well. There are about 2,000 people storm chasing. Very small number.
Compared to how many people horseback ride.
Yeah, and as a group, she mentioned, 12 people had died. It's high. Wow.
It's a hard brain for me to relate to. I mean, it really is.
Yeah, when it's not your brain.
Yeah.
The thing that I found very funny is that, honestly, it's mostly Twister. Kids watch. Twister, thought, this is fucking cool.
The power.
Bill Paxton. It's Bill Paxton.
And Helen Hunt.
Yeah, and Helen Hunt.
And Philip Seymour Hoffman. Oh, yes.
Holy shit. When I was in Oklahoma, they're shooting Twister too. Oh, really? Yeah, they're making another one. So I mean, that's probably not going to have the same impact that Twister had.
I mean, Twister was this perfect idea where no one really knew that storm chasing was a thing. And so everyone watching it was like, holy shit. I can do that. I can do that. It's like people watch Jurassic Park and get excited about dinosaurs.
Like people watch Twister and got excited about that. They're calling it Twisters. Oh. Very original.
Well, I find it funny. Our first couple, our Oklahoma couple, she was saying how she would normally stick to herself because she had to be careful, because she doesn't want to hang out with strangers.
Which is a woman out on the road. On her own in these really small towns.
But that made me laugh because she's saying I have to be careful.
Yeah, whilst driving into a storm.
Yes. Is like the most dangerous thing already.
The danger she's thinking of is like bad people on the road while she's heading into like this giant storm.
Yeah.
The thing that I didn't know about is that there are solo chases, but mostly they pair up. They often won't be husband and wife, because one in the couple will love it and the other won't. So there'll be buddies that will go out and chase. Because when you're looking out the window and you're driving or you're looking at your GPS and trying to film, really difficult. So generally, like you, have someone driving and then the other person's spotting and seeing what's going on.
And the other thing that people get speaking of is the main danger is that there's a big storm. So all these people just congregate in this area. They're all driving, I imagine, quite intensely.
Yes.
And then suddenly, if the storm changes as well direction and everyone's fleeing at the same time. It's not like you're on your own driving. There's a bunch of other people also terrified. And so you're dealing with all of that. It's surreal.
That was brand new. I never thought about that aspect of it. That there's multiple out there and everyone's trying to do the same thing very recklessly.
All congregating. Yeah, it's kind of nuts. And some people go in with a lot of skills and other people go in who are just starting, and the ones that are just starting then create danger for the people that do know what they're doing. Because it's a spectrum of craziness. Like some people are so safe and so careful and have things mapped out, compared with others who are just like, oh, I hear there's going to be a storm.
Jump in the Toyota and like tear into it, you know?
Do you think you could be married to someone who was off doing something like this? Was a storm chaser, yeah.
I'm an avoidant in a relationship. So for me, it would probably be quite good, because it'd always be the idea of them dying would sort of entice me back into the relationship a bit. David! I'm just being honest.
Yeah, it would. 2023 is your year of honesty. And that was really good that you said that. That was vulnerable.
Thank you. Yeah, I know it's not a great trait and I'm trying to fix it. Right. But that would, I think it would literally make me stay with my partner.
Because they could die.
They could die. And that would like sort of get me sort of interested again.
Can you tell me more about that?
So, if you avoid, my nightmare scenario is being in a relationship with someone that really loves me a lot and is always there. Because I'm just like, oh, just no. I need to get away from this.
Okay.
But if someone is sort of off in the distance somewhere, for me and my stupid brain is much more enticing kind of thing.
Well, is it like, it's hard to have, hard to get. Once you have it, it's like boring.
That's part of it. It's like, oh, you know, like the chase is over. This is boring. It's like a really stupid, bizzard brain thing. But I think if someone is off chasing tornadoes, that might be quite not healthy.
But it would definitely like.
It would be very unhealthy, actually.
It would be super unhealthy.
You'd be steeped in your.
But it would temporarily solve my problem.
That's really interesting. I would advise you to take contrary action if you want to be healthier and not date a storm chaser.
Not date someone who's always potentially going to die at any moment.
Well, you know, the other thing is, maybe this is a good brain hack for you. We're all going to die at any moment.
Just imagine that. Just imagine my partner dead any moment.
We are at any moment. Any one of us could die.
So hang on to them in that, in that day and in that moment.
Well, yeah, or if you want to, like, tap into your avoidant nature, you can maybe trick yourself by saying, well, even someone who's with you all the time, who loves you a lot, they could also die.
Just be imagining hideous deaths for them all the time. And just that balance things.
Yeah, that's what I said. Yeah.
OK, storm chasing.
Let's get back in.
I mean, there was no storm, so I had to sort of deviate off the plan. So this is where things went. Just because there was no stormy weather around me right now in Oklahoma, that doesn't mean there hadn't been stormy weather recently. Justin and Stephanie, the Oklahoma weather couple, had reminded me of this.
So the strange thing is, is the town of Cole, just south of Oklahoma City, they've been hit twice in less than a month, which is highly unusual.
I realized that Cole was just a little over 30 minutes drive away from Oklahoma City. And back on April 19th, it had got hit by a big tornado. And then, three weeks ago, it had got hit again. Tornado on the ground, we believe. Just incredible.
There's a field about a mile and a half from me. And that's where that dust is coming from.
And it's being lifted up into the storm. Justin and Stephanie were actually there for the first one, the biggest. And so they were in shock when they realized Cole was about to get hit again. I was in disbelief as we're watching a tornado developing from the exact same location where.
we filmed the first one.
And so I decided to drive to Cole. I wanted to know how this tiny town of 600 people was doing after being hit twice in the space of a month. It didn't take long to drive there. A small sign announced I'd arrived after about 40 minutes. And it wasn't needed because it was obvious where I was.
I could see the damage the tornado had left behind. The two tornadoes. There was a lot of farmland around me. And to my left, an entire metal shed had been leveled. I kept driving and pulled into the parking lot of a local church.
Part of its roof had been torn off. And I wanted up to a contractor who had turned up to fix it. Do a lot of inspections, damage assessments, mainly due to storm-related weather damage. Living in this part of America, do you just kind of get used to the fact that the weather is just going to be an issue that's always there? Yeah, you prepare for it.
My house has actually been hit by a tornado. living here in Oklahoma. You'll see a lot of catastrophe. adjusters show up from insurance companies. A lot of contractors waiting outside just to get your pen on the paper.
No, kidding. America. The land of opportunity, I guess. I leave Adam to do his work and wander back down the hill towards the destroyed farm building I'd seen earlier. There's still cleanup going on everywhere.
Big trucks driving by with rubble and old bits of building. There's a big digger over here, digging a whole lot of junk out into the back of another truck. Off to my side, I see Main Street. I'd missed it when I'd driven by. There are a bunch of small houses scattered along it, and I see a sign for FEMA.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency had set up a temporary command center here. They have a few trailers, and five people are sat outside on laptops. Hey, how are you? How you doing? They're friendly enough, but no one at FEMA will go on the record, telling me I need to get approval from their main PR people.
So I decide just to wander along the road to see if anyone who lives here wants to talk to me about what went on. The houses here are small and humble, and weather beaten. I see one house is blown over, a tree branch through the front windshield of a rusty old Chevy parked out the front. I remember I'm in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of America, and I'm not sure if it's the dogs barking, but suddenly I remember, guns exist here, and I wonder if it's okay to just wander up to houses here and knock on doors, holding a mic. And I give it a try.
Hey, how are you? I didn't have worried. A woman emerges with a tired but friendly smile. Her dogs are loud, but thankfully small and very friendly. You've got a lot of dogs.
Well, this one and the little weenie dog is ours,
and we babysit our granddog every day while our son goes to work. I don't know if you've noticed,
but we're just getting over the tornado.
She says she's a bit under the weather, but walks me around the back of their house and yells to someone who's apparently up on the roof. Are you up on the roof, baby?
Yeah.
You want to come talk to this young man?
Eventually, a very tall, wiry and tanned man emerges from around the back of their house. He's wearing a cap and wipes some sweat from his brow. I'm David. Hi. I feel bad bringing you down from the roof.
Oh, you didn't bother to do it. Let's go around the shade. The man gestures to a couple of deck chairs that are sitting under some trees. Some wind chimes, gently chiming in the wind. Gentle wind today, thankfully.
And we sit down. I'm Jural. It's nice to meet you.
Where are you from?
I'm from New Zealand.
New Zealand? Oh, man, you've been walking far.
Jural cracks himself up. And I remember how, 30 seconds ago, I was worried about being shot. Seems very silly now.
I've been here for 67 years, man. I grew up here. My family's been here since the 1800s, you know. So this is hometown. What's good about this is the crime and stuff like.
that's not so bad as in Oklahoma City. You know, there's a shooting there every day on TV and all that. And the only bad thing about it is, if you need something, you have to go to town to get it.
He tells me he's a truck driver, but he always comes back here.
This is home, man. Everybody asks me, you know, I'm already in heaven, man.
Of course, there is the small case of all the tornadoes.
It was bad. I mean, we all got in the cellar. I've got a cellar and had my son, grandson, granddaughter and the dogs were all in there. When you come out, you don't know if anything's left, because you're seeing stuff. Bang off the walls and then you step out and then it's kind of like walking into hell.
Trees laying down, houses blowed away. Like my neighbor down here, she was in Norman when it hit. So she wasn't at home. And thank God she's 73 years old and she's doing chemo and all that, you know. And it blew her roof off and everything.
I worked at that mill for years. And a buddy of mine who's got the farm there, he just passed away. His son and his wife was there. They rode out the storm and one of those little shelters, their house, was totaled. I mean, you know, the barn's gone, house is gone.
He just got starved all over.
He says somehow he just got lucky.
Nothing happened. The guys that filmed that, the storm chasers, he says it's like a razor's edge. Right, 100 yards down here, total destruction. Someone was smiling down on us. I'm not all that religious, but you know, there's something kind of watching.
I think he's probably right.
I've been blessed. I've been struck by lightning a few times.
Gerald strikes me as a half-glass-full kind of guy. He says, if anything, having two tornadoes helped him with the roof he's been fixing.
I retired and then I had some money coming in and everything. We got that money, we was going to put the roof on. Well, just about the time we're getting ready to do it. Lord decided he's going to help us take off some of the shingles. I had to do it anyway, so you know, that's kind of cool.
Looking up at his half-repaired roof, I look down to the ground and realize I've never been in a storm shelter before. Could I see your storm cellar? I've never been in a storm cellar.
It might be flooded too. This is an old one. Dug this cellar back in the 60s. It's about 65..
He walks me around the back of the house again, and there it is. I've seen it in a million movies, but never in real life. The storm shelter door. This is old.
I mean, this is old style. Yeah, the floor's a little wet.
The floor's a little wet, Gerald had said. And he wasn't lying. There's about a foot of water down here. One time I had a bed and stuff.
I played guitars down there, but it's been a little wet lately, so.
There's a table, and some bunk beds, and some electrical cables strung about. that I don't really want to think about. with all that water. I imagine riding the recent tornadoes out down here. And Gerald admits this recent one got pretty hairy.
I'm going, this is getting kind of... Because I was afraid I was going to yank him out. You see on the movie twister where they're hanging, I was hanging onto him, and he's hanging onto me, and the wife was hanging onto me.
Is this the closest you've been to a storm like this?
No, I've been through four or five of them.
Silly question. I wonder if he's ever tempted just to leave. To pack up and leave Cole. To leave Oklahoma. After weathering out multiple tornadoes, I just can't imagine staying somehow.
But he says, wherever you go in America, there's always something that's going to get you.
I told my wife, I'm metal detecting and everything, I just don't want to go to, like either Alaska or Goldmine or maybe the desert. You know, they don't have storms out in deserts. You go, yeah, but they got snakes. You know, wherever you go, there's going to be something. If you go to the coast, you're going to have hurricanes.
If you go to mountains, avalanches, freeze to death. And then if I went to Alaska, they got grizzly bears, leeches. So there's nothing really, no animals around here that I'm scared of.
So there's a lot of stuff in America that can kill you.
Yeah, there is.
I thank Gerald for his time and wish him well with the roof. Before I leave, he mentions his neighbor, who maybe had an even luckier escape.
My neighbor, he's in a little barn with his horse over. He rode out to storming that little barn. That barn's a hundred years old. He figured that, you know, it's been there that long.
And so I walked down the road and introduced myself. Larry, who rode the storm out with his horse in the barn, was a lot shorter than Gerald's. He's got a cheeky grin and has a medallion dangling around his neck. How long have you lived here for?
About 45 years. We lost two people.
I'm sorry, but?
I mean, it could have been a whole lot worse. I was in my horse barn when it come through.
How was that for a shelter spot? Yep, we lost our horse barn. We lost our horse barn. I looked down to where his horse barn was, and he's right. It's in bad shape.
Except for the stall where he rode the storm out with his horse, Red. Red. Little Red. Lucky Red.
It was something else. It's not like it is on TV. when you're out there seeing it. There's all kinds of stuff in there.
What was the noise like?
Sounded like jet airplanes. You know how everybody says it sounded like a train? Didn't sound like about five jet airplanes in our yard. It was loud.
Somehow, hunkered down in a stall with his horse while his barn disintegrated around him, Larry survived.
I don't want to go through it again. And I've just met you, but I pray to God you never go through something like that. It's rough.
Today's calm, so it's hard to imagine what happened here was less than a month ago. And no one I've met plans to move, by the way. They all love it here. And everyone I've spoken to today talks about how the whole community came together to help rebuild, to feed each other, and just be there for each other. FEMA's just down the road, coordinating a lot of aid.
But you also get the feeling this community doesn't really need much beyond each other. And that's kind of great.
I mean, it could be a hell of a lot worse. But that's about it. I mean, it's just a little small town and everybody gets along. We don't have no law. Don't need no law.
I really liked Cole.
I love those people so much. I get very nostalgic when I hear a Southern accent like that.
What is it about it? I'm not from here and I still feel this pull. It's so relaxed and enticing.
There's a warmth about it. I mean, I've complicated feelings around the South and Southerners. But I also feel very at home hearing those tones. You know, he's just fine with you being there.
It still blows my mind. If I was making the show in New Zealand, New Zealanders are very shy. They want to know why they have to talk about something. They're deeply suspicious about what it's for and where it's going. In America, that doesn't really happen.
But no more so than in Cole. It's the first time where I felt scared knocking on a door. Because these were like small trailers and super low key and there was no one around. And I just thought they might not want me knocking on their door and picking up guns. Never before has someone been so...
It still freaks me out. There was no question about why I was even recording them.
I was going to ask, did you tell them?
No, they just were like, come and sit down and talk. They didn't know what it was for. They were just so happy to have a chat.
I know, that's that Southern hospitality right there. I mean, that really is what it is.
And they'd also just been, you know, three weeks ago, been through something harrowing. Devastating. They just wanted to chat and fill me in and be warm and great. And it was marvellous.
You should send them something.
Yeah, I should. I've got their addresses. Yeah, I was kind of stuck with this episode because I'm not going storm chasing. I sort of failed in that. I can talk to some storm chasers, but we're not chasing.
I drive to this town, FEMA won't talk because they're a government agency and just won't. I've got to go through the PR people and it's useless, useless to me. I need audio. And then these two lovely people just tell these really cool stories and also make the really good point that, yeah, wherever you are, something will probably kill you. Bear attack, avalanche, hurricane, earthquake.
You can't change your life due to the fears, because there will always be something.
Yeah.
This reminded me, because, you know, I was feeling so warm towards these people. Another reason that storm chasers put me off a little bit is these things kill people. Not like they kill the chasers. They kill innocent people. There are people in underground shelters.
Hiding. There's someone hiding with their horse. This is what you're excited about and it feels rude or something. It's like. these are the things that kill people.
You shouldn't enjoy them.
Completely. There's this idea of tourism around something. It's like a dark tourist. It's full dark tourism. And, to be fair, I did bring this up with a couple of them and they acknowledge that, that they're going to places where people are desperately trying to avoid this thing, that they're going to find.
Something. that did make me feel better about it. Everyone talked about how, when they're in these towns, they often stop a few of them. They're there before the risk responders and they'll essentially help out. They'll be there and they'll help, which is cool.
But there is that idea of, yeah, leering in at this thing when it's something that other people want to run away from. And I think that's a really interesting ethical thing. And I felt that as well. How would these people feel as they hide in the barn with the horse? They look down the road and there's a bunch of people just photographing it for fun.
But all the storm chasers acknowledged it. They got it, which was good. It's like they're aware of it. But it is that weird thing clashing up against each other.
Very interesting psychology.
Yeah.
This was great. I enjoyed this.
I felt, I think you probably should be cautious when you're knocking on some doors in the United States. But it also made me remember that as scary as my image of certain parts of America are, I can also get very wrong. And these people were just like chill as fuck and the loveliest people around and some of my favorite people to talk to. So it was cool.
I'm glad you didn't get sucked into a tornado and die.
Thank you. Yeah, I'm really glad too. I don't really want to be in one. Like Larry told me, he hopes I never have to hear that jet engine noise that he heard. Yes.
So I'm with him.
And I hope, with your new lease on life, you work on your avoidant tendencies.
More American or less American? More.
For sure. Yes. For sure. Coal is very American.
I love coal. Loved coal. And it was only 30 minutes out of Oklahoma City. You're in Oklahoma City, 30 minutes, you're in this tiny, cute, little, beautiful town that's rebuilding after not one but two tornadoes come through.
Sending my love to coal. All right.
Thanks, Mon.
Bye. Bye.
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