Dedicated storm chasers Tim Samaras, his son Paul Samaras and Carl Young are among the 13 people killed by the tornado that hit El Reno, Oklahoma last Friday, according to officials.
Authorities say clean up crews from the storm's wreckage found a mangled white truck Sunday that "had been crushed like a tin can." According to CNN, "the metal frame of their storm-chasing vehicle was twisted almost beyond recognition. The windows had been smashed to bits."
El Reno Mayor Matt White stressed to reporters the importance of staying indoors during powerful storms.
"We had to deal with not only strong winds, but we had extreme hail, extreme softball-size hail. El Reno had a lot of damage to the roads," he told reporters on Sunday. "In these situations, we can't stress enough to people to stay inside and do what the weather men and women tell us to do."
Reportedly, in order to get directly in the tornado's path, the group of men had to be close to the storm. CNN meteorologist Chad Myers explained that the tornado was an unusually large one, making it difficult for chasers to predict its movements.
"A vehicle is not a place to be in any tornado, especially a big one like that, and those men doing their job, those field scientists out there doing their jobs, were killed in the process," Myers told CNN. Myers added this particular group had a cautious leader.
"There's just no one safer than Tim. Tim, he would never put himself in danger," Myers said. "He certainly wouldn't put his son in danger."
Tim Samaras founded TWISTEX, the Tactical Weather Instrumented Sampling in Tornadoes Experiment, to help learn more about tornadoes and increase lead-time for warnings. He had received 18 grants from the National Geographic Society for his research.
