Beyond these pages, I’d be remiss not to mention my own support system. My agent, David Patterson, saw from the beginning that Tim’s life and works cried out for a detailed account. My editor, Jonathan Cox, is the best I’ve ever partnered with. Before he came aboard, I was lost belowdecks; he helped me see the rest of the ship. I can’t begin to imagine what this book would look like without Jon.
As we wrestled with the telling of this story, I leaned on my wife, Renee, for support, both emotionally and financially; at the end of a tough day, when it seemed like things weren’t going so well, she was my shelter. My mom and dad, Laurie and Hal, and my sister, Holly, have always been there for me, and these past few years have been no different. Last, but certainly not least, I must thank my friends and fellow writers, Tara Nieuwesteeg, George Getschow, and Mike Mooney. Sometimes they were the best sounding boards I could ask for. Their feedback was spot-on when I needed it most. I look forward to returning the favor.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
© CATHERINE DOWNES
BRANTLEY HARGROVE is a journalist who has written for Wired, Popular Mechanics, and Texas Monthly. In his reporting, he has explored the world of South American jewel thieves who terrorize diamond dealers in South Florida. He’s gone inside the effort to reverse-engineer supertornadoes using supercomputers. And he has chased violent storms from the Great Plains down to the Texas coast, including a land-falling Category 4 hurricane and one of the rarest tornadic events in recent memory: twin EF4 tornadoes that chewed through a small Nebraskan farming village. He lives in Dallas, Texas, with his wife, Renee, and their two cats. The Man Who Caught the Storm is his first book.
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NOTES
PROLOGUE
The fire department’s siren sounded: Phan T. Long and Emil Simiu, “The Fujita Intensity Scale: A Critique Based on Observations of the Jarrell Tornado of May 27, 1997,” National Institute of Standards and Technology, July 1998, 4.
a shrill, oscillating note: Interview with a longtime member of the Jarrell Volunteer Fire Department.
The siren was only ever used to call up volunteers: “Tornado Disaster—Texas, May 1997,” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, November 14, 1997.
For a time it seemed to track neither north nor south: Scott Guest chaser video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfCXofp7Pgw.
The tornado was as wide as thirteen football fields: Brian E. Peters, “Aerial Damage Survey of the Central Texas Tornadoes of May 27, 1997,” C-2, https://www.weather.gov/media/publications/assessments/jarrell.pdf.
School had let out for summer: Allen R. Myerson, “Town Is Upended by Tornadoes Twice in Eight Years,” New York Times, May 29, 1997, http://www.nytimes.com/1997/05/29/us/town-is-upended-by-tornadoes-twice-in-eight-years.html.
Double Creek Estates: Long and Simiu, “Fujita Intensity Scale,” 12.
With no choice but to shelter aboveground: “Tornado Disaster,” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
All else was fatality: James H. Henderson, “Service Assessment: The Central Texas Tornadoes of May, 27, 1997,” National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, April 1998, 3.
The Hernandez family was the outlier: Jesse Katz, “A Neighborhood Blown to Nothingness,” Los Angeles Times, May 29, 1997, http://articles.latimes.com/1997-05-29/news/mn-63711_1_entire-neighborhood.
Their home and some thirty others: “Tornado Disaster,” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
the foundations had been scraped clean: Long and Simiu, “Fujita Intensity Scale,” 11–15.
The carcasses of hundreds of cattle: “The Jarrell/Cedar Park and Pedernales Valley Tornadoes, Summary of Weather Event of May 27, 1997,” National Weather Service.
More than five hundred feet of asphalt had been peeled: Peters, “Aerial Damage Survey,” C-3.
I learned later that the tornado had crawled: Long and Simiu. “Fujita Intensity Scale,” 6.
On average, tornadoes will claim eighty lives annually: “Tornadoes: A Rising Risk?,” Lloyd’s of London, February 2013, 19, 21.
the damage caused by tornadoes has outstripped that from: Rawle O. King, “Financing Natural Catastrophe Exposure: Issues and Options for Improving Risk Transfer Markets,” Congressional Research Service, August 2013, 8.
seventy percent of tornado fatalities are attributable to the deadliest breed: “Thunderstorms, Tornadoes, Lightning: Nature’s Most Violent Storms,” National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 4, .
An EF5 flattened a swath of Joplin, Missouri: “Joplin, Missouri, Tornado—May 22, 2011,” NWS Central Region Service Assessment, National Weather Service, July 2011, 1.
In Joplin, damage surveyors found a truck: Timothy P. Marshall, “Damage Survey of the Joplin Tornado: 22 May 2011” (conference paper, 26th Annual Conference on Severe Local Storms, American Meteorological Society, 2012), 15–16.
A Ford Explorer was lofted: Eugene W. McCaul et al., “Extreme Damage Incidents in the 27 April 2011 Tornado Superoutbreak” (conference paper, 26th Annual Conference on Severe Local Storms, American Meteorological Society, 2012), 2, 10.
It passed clean through the first: Interviews with Larry Tanner, National Wind Institute, Texas Tech University.
Its frail glass container
