The Rest of the Story

My Adventures in Emergency Management herald back to the early 50’s with "The Wizard of Oz" and legendary local TV weatherman, Harold Taft. Dorothy's tornado absolutely terrified me, and the rest of my childhood and teen years I cowered in the bathroom everytime the clouds turned dark and menacing. My parents watched Harold every night for his hand-drawn weather maps (and me the Sunday night Ready Kilowatt cartoon). But despite Ready, Harold's first-in-the-Southwest television weathercasts sank in. I've had an active interest in weather ever since, even from the bathroom. In 1978 I had just entered grad school at Baylor. It was a particularly a wild and wicked spring in Waco. Coincidentally on May 9th, the 25th anniversary of Waco's 1953 F5, I was standing on our mutual student housing balcony chatting with a neighbor from Cairo (Egypt), who asked "What's the big deal?" After my overly long but instructive exposition on tornado watches v warnings, during which green clouds begin to sink and swirl and the wind started whipping around, he sensibly asked "What does a tornado look like?" With my other ear I'd been listening to the radio weather report, glanced up as hail began to fall, noticed the hard to miss the funnel-shaped something rotating from the bottom of clouds passing not nearly far enough away (only 3 blocks), pointed at it and, instantly absorbing the irony, said "Ah ... actually, like that. Inside - NOW!" The funnel had formed over Robinson 4 or 5 minutes earlier and passed directly across the Baylor campus, briefly touching at the corner of Speight & 5th BEFORE it entered the campus proper, breaking a window at the PO and bending a couple of signs. Thankfully, it pulled right back up missing the business building and law school just across the street (at the time). A few weeks earlier I had introduced my 6-year-old daughter to “The Wizard of Oz” via TV. Watching the tornado scene, perhaps for the first time since I was 5, and I KNEW EXACTLY the source of all my fears. The realization and effect was instantaneous. No more cowering for me! I wanted to meet my nemesis head on! Just not right at my front door. Fast forward 15 years. I met a guy who was part of the Amarillo ABC affiliate storm chasing team. I flew up to go on an official station storm chase with him, using their new van and new somesort of direct uplink - through cell phone, I think. Unfortunately, it was a weekend with a strong cap and not a cloud anywhere within 150 miles. Instead we unloaded the van and watched the weatherman prepare his evening forecast, complete with TWX NWS reports, and barely out of diapers mid-90's computer weather programs. I still found that facinating. Fast forward another 4 or 5. I heard about SKYWARN, went to see what it was about, and learned about RACES. Ham radio?? Uhhh … a couple more 8 hour SKYWARN classes, an all-day TESSA conference, and I finally decided to visit the local radio club. As I walked in the door a man was seeking volunteers for our local EOC. I ended up the only person working in the radio room unable to talk on the radio, but still playing a pivotal role. After an iffy start several months before finally gaining my license, which involved a bruised ribs, I finally took Technician class training last May and at last earned my Tech license in May, 2007 - KE5OOY (just something about that ooooo-eee wasn't gonna work for me, and the fact I kept saying KEY005), consequently a week or so later I applied to have it changed to W5LMC. I figured I could keep up with my initials. Gene loaned me a handheld, subsequently the OEM created the EMST about the same time, and organized the second CERT training class late last summer. I just completed FEMA's IS-100 (Incident Command) and IS-700 (NIMMS), and can now join RACES. I already monitor most severe weather events, even when not reporting to the EOC, and I still want to go storm chasing. But at least now I can report when the RACES Net is activated. Blame it on The Wizard - and a highly refined sense of procrastination.