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Bigtime Respect for “Big Game Bob”

December 30, 2021 by tornado Leave a Comment

Bob Stoops: so glad to see this great Hall of Fame coach’s career resurrect for one more night (and a month of preparation before) so he could go out with victory, honor and the utmost respect and love of players, fans and colleagues alike. So it was.

There was absolutely no guarantee OU would win the game, of course, but something seemed predestined and inevitable about this — especially with his son on the team (who, in a moment fit for a movie, scored a touchdown in the game), and also, the particulars of who was the opposing team. History was coming full circle.

The hotshot young assistant coach to whom Bob had handed the keys to the OU football Ferrari, and who won a lot of games here afterward, clearly had been distracted and performing uncharacteristically out of sorts all season after the USC job opened in September. Then we all found out why.

Behind everyone’s backs, hours after the last game of the season, he reached a lucrative deal with that historically storied yet recently far lesser program halfway across the country, taking several coaches and future 5-star recruits with him right away. Anyone who thinks that all came together only in a few hours one Sunday morning: I’ve got beautiful land 10 miles east of downtown Miami to sell you.

Joe Castiglione called Bob off a golf course out of the blue that afternoon, to tell him the hotshot coach is fleeing town, and would he please coach the bowl game? After several years of retirement, Bob dropped everything he was doing. With no hesitation, he went straight to work in under an hour. He first went on TV and online, and in one of the greatest motivational-leadership moments I’ve seen in sports, said all the right things and quickly cooled off what could have turned into a massive dumpster fire. Bob reassured players and fans alike that no one (not even himself nor any coach) was bigger than the program.

Then he set about preparing players he hadn’t coached before, and an assortment of leftover assistant coaches who hadn’t drawn up an offensive or defensive game plan on their own, to beat an opponent that was in one respect thoroughly unknown, and in another, hauntingly familiar. He even tried at first to turn down the pay they offered from the previous coach’s voided contract — he wanted to volunteer, out of sheer devotion to the program. Who else does that?

Flashback 2006: Likely the bitterest, most frustrating moment of Bob’s career was when OU got screwed horribly by both field and replay officials in Eugene, when the Sooners clearly recovered an Oregon onside kick and displayed the ball for the whole stadium and TV audience to see…except the refs, who shockingly didn’t see, thought the ball was still in the pile, and awarded it to Oregon, who went on to “win” a game everybody involved knew they didn’t deserve. In the annals of botched officiating, this was among the top few worst of all time, rivaled only by the Colorado “fifth down” against Missouri. Refs from that Oregon crew soon got fired and suspended for their egregious errors in that game, but officially it went down as an Oregon win for ever and ever.

What goes around, comes around…29 December 2021: OU 47, Oregon 32 (and it wasn’t that close). As one of my colleagues said, Oregon lost to a part-time tequila salesman. Yes, and one who still could coach, too. Bob got ’em back good, in an opportunity he shouldn’t have had, by all rights. Afterward, in the midfield stage celebration, he conducted a ceremonial “passing of the visor” to the new, full-time, head ball coach — his longtime defensive assistant here in the 2000s, Brent Venables. And now a new era of winning begins in Sooner football.

Bob Stoops represents what is too often sorely lacking in high-stakes sports (and I include college football in that category): integrity, dedication, loyalty, tremendous work ethic, and a drive to not only win, but win the right way. Bob will never have to pay for a drink in this state again, and you can bet his statue outside Memorial Stadium will be kept spotless and clean.

Already in the College Football Hall of Fame, he showed himself to be a hall of famer in the character department too. All due respect, Big Game Bob. This time, he went out on the right terms.

BOOMER

Filed Under: Not weather Tagged With: Bob Stoops, football, integrity, Lincoln Riley, OU, OU football, University of Oklahoma, work ethic

December 10th Tornado Devastation: Thoughts after Four Days

December 14, 2021 by tornado Leave a Comment

Thoughts I’ve accumulated from last Friday night’s tornado disaster in the Mid-South, Tennessee Valley and Kentucky…

Forecasts were very good. Outlooks, watches and warnings ramped up into the event. Sure, one can look back and do “coulda shoulda” style Monday-morning quarterbacking about peripheral details or one level this way or that. Such second-guessing happens after most events, soonest from people who don’t have what it takes to “sit in the hot seat”, and instead make a social-media presence as nuisance trolls. Holistically, the Integrated Warning System did its job and did it well in every step until public safety (in a few locales). Mayfield, KY, had been in a tornado watch for over 6 hours before it was hit, and that whole track of tornado(es) was very well-warned by local forecast offices.

Were there glitches? Of course. The St. Louis-area office had to shelter temporarily when a tornadic mesocyclone nearly hit them — the same one that hit the Amazon warehouse in Pontoon Beach, IL, soon thereafter. The Paducah KY office lost power and the ability to send radar data for a few hours; their warning service was backed up quickly and adroitly by Springfield, MO (who has some experience with these things).

Footage from the most intense tornado damage areas presents awful scenes — reminiscent to me of historic events like Waco-53, Wichita Falls-79, Spencer SD-98, Tuscaloosa-11, Joplin-11, Moore, OK (thrice: 1999, 2003, 2013!), etc. The collapsed buildings and slabbed houses in particular will tell a terrible story. Despite good warnings, long-tracked tornado(es) from AR into MO/TN/KY were deadly in multiple places, not just Mayfield, and separately in that Amazon warehouse across the Mississippi River from St. Louis.

The morning after through today, it’s very important not go “instapundit” and rush to spouting exact figures yet for casualties, track length, or damage rating. Was the southern Kentucky event the longest-tracked ever? We don’t know yet; there’s some evidence both ways at this juncture. [Take some time to read the definitive, formally published science on the 1925 Tri-State tornado path.] How long-tracked & intense were all the tornadoes? We don’t know. All else is speculation. Until NWS damage surveys w/boots on ground are finished, we won’t know. The rest is variably educated guesswork. In such mass destruction, surveys and debris cleanup are still way incomplete. Casualty totals remain in flux for days, and some people perish later from injuries sustained (unfortunately, one was that beautiful Kentucky baby who initially survived in her car seat). Don’t treat any tornado info as final until survey results are released in days to come. Let’s back off, be patient & let the process fill in those facts with time.

Journalism on this event has run the gamut in quality from excellent to wretched, and that’s just in one newspaper (Washington Post). What else is new?

The worst of the journalism: take this steaming heap of dung, for example, sprinkling in some legit facts with factual errors, sloppiness and conjecture. Let’s look into this story a little closer. It was written by a political correspondent, not a scientist nor science reporter. So adjust your bias detectors & credibility expectations accordingly. More importantly…It also states, “The tornado that struck over the weekend that traveled from Kentucky into Arkansas…”. 1) Factually wrong. Backward. 2) Premature at story time on claiming that it was 1 (“the”) tornado. Surveys are not done yet. We don’t know. There goes the story’s credibility. If one can’t get basics like that right, what else do they screw up in any sort of stories? Don’t write “news” like this, kids.

Want an example of a well-done, well-researched, smartly organized, on-point story on the tornado event, authored by someone with solid credentials and impeccable subject-matter experience? Look no further than this excellent article by Bob Henson, which you really ought to read. Both this masterpiece and the junk story above appeared in the same newspaper.

The sad stories are worth reading too. Every tornado disaster has a human side, perhaps none more compelling in a tragic way than this story of the Kentucky baby who survived, bruised and conscious, only to perish later of a stroke probably induced by her injuries. I post that not to glorify tragedy, but to remind all that every single digit of every tornado death count involves the loss of someone and their future, someone who had friends and loved ones now grieving. In this case, the future was an entire lifespan. As a parent, how can this not hit hard? Sometimes we need these reminders, and we need to get uncomfortable. Detachment breeds complacency.

Let’s get brutally honest about something here. When a violent wedge tornado engulfs a densely populated area, devastation is assured. Even the very best warnings only minimize, not eliminate, casualties. Think Greensburg KS (4 May 2007), which had a similarly intense radar presentation as Mayfield, and excellent warning. We do what we can to minimize that from the meteorological end, of course. Many more vulnerabilities, after warnings are issued, still exist in the South, at night, with local preparedness, warning receipt, access to sturdy shelter, construction quality, etc. It’s complicated. As Bob Henson wrote in the above-linked good story: “…the timing of the tornadoes, coming in the dark of night, their exceptional intensity and the population density of the region hit were all key factors in the catastrophe — which advanced warning could not overcome.” That’s the bottom line.

Mayfield candle and Amazon facilities: It’s still to early to know a lot of specifics beyond the obvious fact that large-span factory/warehouse structures collapsed onto people and killed some. So let’s be patient on that and not start foaming at the mouth based on anecdotal interview stories. As a severe-storms forecaster concerned for decades with large-venue vulnerability & safety (including occupied factories), this bothers me…a lot. We must learn why so many perished there, not to assign blame but to make a safer tornado future. I’m very glad Tim Marshall is on-site in Mayfield, so we will assuredly get the best possible assessment there. From what is obvious, and in a general sense: if you want to look to improve on tornado casualties in situations like those, look to (lack of) local sheltering options, improved receipt of and response to both watches and warnings, and of course construction.

We can say already that this is a story of failure: structural failure. When roofs fall on people, crushing injuries happen. We know that caused many fatalities in single locations like these warehouses. This already presents us with two areas on which to focus, specifics to be determined:
a) Sheltering (such as sufficient capacity safe rooms and procedures to get workers into them fast and orderly) for existing large-span facilities that may never be retrofitted for decades and decades into the future, and
b) Engineering for new structures of that sort, along with safe rooms. New ASCE engineering standards are fixing to go into effect, which will be good, but we’ll still be dealing with non-compliant legacy construction hit by tornadoes for 200+ years.

That brings us to onsite safety in general. Here’s the encouraging news: We have a major positive example to use! In July 2004, a violent tornado demolished the Parsons factory near Roanoke, IL. Nobody died. Why? Facility management had a well-organized, practiced tornado-safety plan, sturdy shelters to put people in, and storm spotters to give them notice added to what they could get from official warnings. Here’s the scientific conference paper on that shining example of how to do it right.

We learned and advanced from Waco, Palm Sunday(s), April ’74, Wichita Falls, Spencer, Moore, Tuscaloosa, Joplin, etc. Now this. Over time we’ll learn from last Friday night’s horrors, so we can educate & try to keep it from happening again, and so their tragic loss isn’t in vain.

Filed Under: Weather Tagged With: Arkansas tornadoes, damage surveys, disasters, Illinois tornadoes, Kentucky tornadoes, large-venue disasters, large-venue safety, Missouri tornadoes, severe storms, severe weather, severe weather preparedness, Tennessee tornadoes, tornado, tornado outbreak, tornado safety, tornado warnings, tornadoes, violent tornadoes

Active Repression of Journalism by U.S. Federal Officials

November 19, 2021 by tornado Leave a Comment

U.S. authorities under the last three presidents have wanted to extradite freelance reporter Julian Assange, currently held without cause in a British prison, to face U.S. prison for practicing journalism. The domestic-spying deep state hacked into the computer of longtime reporter Sharyl Attkisson during the Obama administration. More recently, using warrants signed by puppet judges, Federal thugs raided the homes of several Project Veritas investigative reporters, including its founder, James O’Keefe, over a supposedly “stolen” diary belonging to Joe Biden’s daughter that Veritas gave back without disclosure.

The common pretext between O’Keefe and Assange? The suits and ties in DC unilaterally have decided those being targeted with these tyrannical tactics are not journalists.

What? That’s not the government’s call to make. Journalism is not supposed to be subject to Federal gatekeeping in a supposedly free society. The Constitution not only provides no Federal authority over news reporting of any sort, by any means, but expressly forbids its interference therein!

When a government nominally bound by Constitutional law of press freedom simply can declare the people it is persecuting “aren’t journalists”, and get away with that, they can come after anyone for reporting anything. Then there is no freedom of the press; the Constitution is no longer an ideal, but just another meaningless piece of paper that some long-dead dudes scribbled stuff on, hundreds of years ago. Moreover, “journalism” becomes a governmentally prescribed caste system of dictated exclusivity, rendering all approved “journalists” as de facto stenographers for the regime.

Filed Under: Not weather Tagged With: Constitution, domestic spying, ethics, federal government, government, journalism, liberty, spying

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@SkyPixWeather

- August 17, 2022, 7:11 am

@Meteodan I’ve seen very similar video of multiple “steam devils” circa 2016 on Kilauea’s fresh/hot lava fields, in light rain and low clouds, shot by a tour guide there. Some of them were tall enough to connect with the low, scuddy cloud bases above, at least briefly.
h J R
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- August 17, 2022, 7:08 am

@SitkaBustClub @shawnahaynie Happy anniversary!
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- August 17, 2022, 6:58 am

One thing I noticed right off: the lava bombs landing on the outside of the cinder cone take much less time to lose their glow (cool down below incandescence) in these conditions. Not surprising amidst high winds and cold rain!
h J R

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