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The anthracite gray cloud wall drifted across the sky, the rain fell and the storm chasers fired it.
Kelley Williamson and Randy Yarnall were looking for a rotation, any sign of the birth of a tornado. Streaking down a two-lane highway at the bottom of the Texas Panhandle, they sat behind the dashboard of a hidden Chevrolet Suburban with radar, computers and cameras in the afternoon of March 28, 2017.
Thrill seekers were hired by Weather Channel, the stars of their own show, "Storm Wranglers". As they drove, fanatical viewers of the storm listened to their live broadcast on the Weather Channel Facebook page.
"The storm is not very far ahead right now," Williamson told the camera as they passed a rotating windmill in a rural area of northwestern Texas. "In fact, it's what black is you just see there."
Corbin Lee Jaeger, miles away, must have seen the same dark skies. Like Williamson and Yarnall, the storms magnetized Jaeger, a 25-year-old certified storm observer.
But this afternoon, the attraction would become fatal.
The live broadcast ended when Williamson, 57, and Yarnall, 55, crossed a stop sign, police announced, before hitting Jaeger while he was trying to cross a distant intersection. of Texas.
The three men died instantly.
Now, Jaeger's mother, Karen Di Piazza, has filed a federal lawsuit against the weather channel for her son's death, asking for $ 125 million from the network and the estates of Williamson and Yarnall, among others. In the lawsuit filed Tuesday in Lubbock, Texas, Di Piazza accuses the Weather Channel of using two amateur storm hunters and ignored other people's warnings about their alleged reckless conduct, which would ultimately result in the death of his son.
"Weather Channel has had the opportunity to remove these two people from the road or hire a competent and law-abiding driver," the lawsuit says. "Instead, The Weather Channel made TV stars Williamson and Yarnall, breaking the law, driving on private property, leaving the road, in ditches, crossing hailstorms, driving to the airport. upside down on highway bridges, on the wrong side of the lights and stop signs, all designed to increase the sense of danger to viewers, sell advertising and produce a successful show. result was the death of a young man, Corbin Lee Jaeger. "
The Weather Channel declined to comment on the ongoing dispute, but said in a statement to The Washington Post: "We are saddened by the loss of Corbin Jaeger, Kelley Williamson and Randy Yarnall, who were beloved members of the meteorological community. and our most sincere sympathies go out to the families and loved ones of all involved. "Lawyers are not yet listed for the successions of Williamson and Yarnall, whose representatives were not able to be reached.
The fatal collision raised concerns about the dangers of continuing the storm while devastating the storm hunter community, with the three men remembering their unparalleled passion for bad weather.
Jaeger, a Colorado national who moved to Arizona with his family, was a certified storm observer for the National Weather Service and also captured footage of the storm for a small team called MadWx Chasing. "He was passionate about the weather from an early age," said Di Piazza in Denver 7 after his death. "He decided that he wanted to get into more sun hunting and learn more about the weather because his goal was to save lives."
Meanwhile, Williamson and Yarnall have gathered fans across the country. They grew up together in Missouri and, by their own admission, had no formal training and had not studied meteorology. Both were farmers, raising chickens and cattle. Williamson, an eternal fanatic of adrenaline, was a former bullfighter. He started running after the storms after a tornado spilled his wife's van several years ago, a friend told CNN. In no time, he became an exhilarating personality in the storm hunter community; his YouTube channel had nearly 7,000 subscribers. When the weather channel called to offer him his own show, he hired Yarnall as his driver, he said.
But according to the lawsuit, both men had the reputation of being daredevils with lead feet.
The lawsuit quotes long text messages between a storm hunter and a producer of Weather Channel. The producer said she plans to tell her boss about the suitor's concerns over Williamson and Yarnall's risk-taking, claiming that she had shared them.
"I'm not sure that you caught one of Kelley's movements, but he put himself in a VERY bad place, live live, so, do not be afraid, we would have to see him in direct, "says the lawsuit. the producer wrote, adding: "NOT GOOD."
"Oh yes, I saw it," said the storm hunter, who was not related to the show. "I'll be honest with you – it will only get worse … doing 90 + mph to get to the position that it was it's just asking for bad stuff [to happen] . . . We just hope that he is not hurt or that someone else is hurt. "
The day after the fatal collision, the storm hunter again wrote to the producer – this time in shock.
He said that he could not stop thinking about "everything I told him about driving safely and not be so distracted (…), then he told you that I was worried that he was not going to be safe. he does not kill anybody or himself … And then that happens. I'm obviously in a dark place right now. I know that many of us are. I guess it's [what’s] kill me. I tried to tell him again and again. "
The day of his death, Jaeger had planned to let the radar guide his afternoon, with no destination in mind.
Parked in gravel just off a highway in Paducah, Texas, he posted a photo of his Jeep on MadWx Chasing's Facebook account in order to update his followers, claiming he "reevaluated hunting plans of today.
"A big hail in today's plans, hopefully a tornado too," he wrote.
An officer from the Texas Department of Public Safety told CNN at the time that a tornado had been sighted in Dickens County at about the same time as the collision and that he was thinking about that the three men were seeking the same goal. The lawsuit indicates that it seems that Jaeger was moving away from the storm, while Williamson and Yarnall were busy reaching it, allegedly at 70 mph.
In the last moments of the video, Williamson and Yarnall approach the intersection at high speed, exceeding a warning for a stop sign while the rain covers the windshield. They are getting closer to the intersection but do not slow down. Instead, the engine roars louder.
And just at that moment, before a black Jeep enters the frame, the live stream buffers, freezes and stops.
This article was written by Meagan Flynn, a Washington Post reporter.
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