(Transcript) Chasing a Legacy with Colt from Oklahoma Tornado Database

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[00:00:00] Kay: Hello everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the Chaser Chat Podcast. I am not Gabriel Harber, but my name is Kay, and I am joined with Colt from Oklahoma Tornado Database off of Twitter. And I have to start out with saying, and admitting my sins to all of you, I have already spoken to Colt prior to this episode, and we had a lovely discussion about everything from the El Reno tornado to the Moore tornado from ’99 and so many other cool things and I was really excited to share it with you and then I went to upload it and edit it and everything caught fire and I realized that my recording software didn’t actually capture any of Colt’s audio. This is take two and Colt has been very gracious enough to meet with me again. How’s it going?

[00:00:45] Colt: It’s going. It’s a lot cooler than the last time we talked here in Oklahoma, so yeah, it’s not as hot. So thank God I don’t have to complain about the heat like I did last time.

[00:00:54] Kay: Neither do I. It is a balmy 69 degrees in Washington currently, which is a whole lot better than it was on Saturday when I worked when it was 95. I work outside and the folks who listened to my interview with Gabe know this already, but I work at a zoo. So I have to be outside in the middle of summer and it was miserable-

[00:01:16] Colt: Like a legit zoo? Like a legit zoo, right? Not like a Joe Exotic thing like we got here in oklahoma?

[00:01:22] Kay: – Accredited zoo. i’m a naturalist interpreter. So Yeah, I have no choice but to be outside in the heat and it was It’s absolutely miserable. I’m from Colorado originally, and I can do 90 degrees plus in the dry Colorado desert heat. Any humidity makes it turn into a sauna, and I am miserable to be around when it’s that hot.

[00:01:43] Colt: I get that.

[00:01:44] Kay: So I’m going to go ahead and just let you start from the beginning. Tell us a little bit more about your Twitter account, how it got started, and what all you do over there.

[00:01:52] Colt: Okay, so we started in 2018 on Twitter, but it actually truly started before that. Let me go ahead and touch on what we do. What we do is we try to educate people with prior tornado events, pull the history, the data, the lessons learned, all that neat stuff out of it and put it all together in one little, not too hard to understand post, I guess you would call it. We were doing articles and then now we’re back to a post. So I’ll just say post. But if you go too long, you’re going to lose the reader. Obviously got away from that for a while and decided here recently, we had shifted our content back to trying to make it engaging, but not overdo it, because I believe that’s been the key to this growing has been the fact that one, we put out factual information with sources and then two, we don’t steal stuff. We credit the photographers and the videographers and ask them if we can find where to ask them can we use that? Can we use this? If you don’t want us to use that, if there’s something else, you might be willing to let us use that kind of stuff. We do all that because we want people to trust what we’re saying and pretty much engage with it but not feel like they’re being led on an unintelligible path to nowhere because I’ve actually been in the middle of some threads here recently. They weren’t about tornadoes but I think what really kicked it into gear for me to getting back to that was trying to go through a thread that is probably, I think one of them was like 30 tweets. No, it was 20, 20 something tweets. And it absolutely said nothing about what they said it would say. So I’m like, yeah, we’ve got to make sure we’re not doing that. But pretty much the outside of that, like I said, facts, important information, lessons learned. But also we like to teach and cover in the moment stuff, like if there’s a tornado outbreak going on and we’re probably going to be there where you, I’m sure you’ve noticed we retweet warnings from NWS tornado, whenever something’s going on in Oklahoma and I’ve had people reach out to me and say, Hey, that’s awesome because I live here, and I have family out there and they don’t have the greatest coverage, like if it’s in the panhandle or something, then I was able to call them and tell them they had no clue because they don’t use the Internet and cell phones are spotty out there. So we do that for that exact reason. And then we engage and go around and try to help after, I’m not going to say things like Barnsdall because it’s happened before we’ve been involved, but when bad things actually come on these storms that I’m talking about from a personal perspective, people for property for animals. We want to be there and help with that because we can. And that was really probably the second main reason for founding this because my grandpa who I just lost in May, he responded to the Drumright F4 as a Cushing police officer. Getting to follow in his footsteps, not as a cop, but still getting to follow in his footsteps as a responder to these type of events, something I think he’d be proud of me for. But it’s actually been that way since we started this. I think our first touch of damage that we got to embrace trying to deal with was Carney. Yeah, that’s about it. As far as the mission, educate, assist inform, and perhaps the biggest one is the last one archiving the history, making sure it’s there, preserving it and not letting it get lost to the dustbin of the Internet. I don’t know that many of the people on Weather Twitter will remember, but I’m old enough to remember that, the internet stuff does get lost on the internet. There’s a very good reason for this lost media archive, so we want to make sure that doesn’t get lost. And with it, the history. So that’s probably the third biggest part of it.

[00:05:39] Kay: Yeah. And I have to give a huge shout out to how well you do all of these things. We spoke about it last time that we talked, but I don’t think that I have found a more historically accurate representation of a lot of the tornadoes that have gone through Oklahoma. I personally enjoy seeing your “On This Day” tweets about some of the smaller tornadoes that people don’t really even think about. And then on the days that more well known outbreaks or tornadoes have occurred, for example, the El Reno tornado, or you had a whole massive thread on the Moore ’99 tornado, you do go through and you make sure everything is super historically accurate. And it’s become a treat every time I see you post something for me to go and do a little bit more depth research in. So definitely go, and after this interview go check out some of the stuff that Colt’s been doing. Cause it’s been pretty amazing to sit and watch what he’s been doing. You mentioned that your grandpa responded to the Drumright EF4 did you, can you tell me a little bit more about that?

[00:06:35] Colt: Yeah, tell me what, just in general pretty much?

[00:06:38] Kay: Yeah, just whatever you feel like talking about, cause it’s gotta be something that’s pretty impactful to you.

[00:06:43] Colt; Yeah, he was a police officer here in Cushing and he was at my grandparents house sorry. My grandparents raised me, so I’m sorry sometimes that happens. He was at my great grandparents house and he got the call out and the storm came through Cushing and did damage, mainly wind damage, and his office at his brand new house actually ended up with a tree in it, causing a flood that night, but that was the least of his problems. He was one of the first Cushing guys to get into the impact zone over there. And he said he saw things the nursing homes that he didn’t think were humanly possible. And to me, I always thought, Oh, that might just be hype, which he wasn’t a hype guy. So I probably should have had my clue right there. But going to Barnsdall and seeing what that EF4 did brought it back into perspective for me of what he was seeing. And he pretty much went from working search and rescue to security over the course of 24 hours. He told my grandma, he kept having to come home. One time he had to change his uniform because of blood and body fluid. I won’t go beyond that because I’ve never really asked him. One time it was for that, one time it was because of being soaked and not wanting to get pneumonia. And the next time it was from mud, just climbing through debris. And on that last one, he changed and he and his partner Howard went to the intersection and set up a security check. That way, if people, because believe it or not, even back in the 70s, you had people out there that would try to profit off tragedy and steal things. Once they knew everybody that was injured or affected was out of the area and they knew they were going to be able to start working on shutting off gas and all that, he took up that security position. But it’s really the stories that he’s told me at the nursing home that kind of pushed me forward.

[00:08:35] And then when he took me on the airplane survey and then a ground survey when I was eight after Bridge Creek- Moore and Mulhall, Andover, and Stroud, that really I think, cemented it in me as far as impact and both of those things are due to him. I would say that Oklahoma Tornado Database technically started June 8th, 1974 when Grandpa stepped foot out of that patrol car, I guess is the best way to put it.

[00:09:01] Kay: It definitely makes sense and I would say that your grandpa is probably very proud of all of the stuff that you have been doing to aid, especially recently after the outbreak that occurred this year with Marietta and Barnsdell and everything else.

[00:09:14] Colt: Yeah, I lost him on May 5th and Barnsdell was May 6th. I’m religious, I know some people aren’t, but I definitely felt him with me while I was there.

[00:09:22] Kay: Yeah, I am as well. So I understand that quite well. My grandpa, and this was long. I, this is long after he had retired was when I came into the picture with my parents, but he actually worked a massive flooding event in Colorado and that impacted him as well. He’s also ex Navy, and he passed away it was around 2007. Both of us having grandparents that worked major disaster events like that. Something that I didn’t think about until we spoke today, but it leaves some impacts on people.

[00:09:52] Colt: It definitely does, and you can either, gravitate towards making an impact because of that impact, or you can try to stay away from it because it impacted you in a not so healthy way, which I know you and I talked about that before. Mental health is a big part of it, but I’ve come to find out that I actually feel like I’m doing the right thing just like he did. So I know I’m honoring it well.

[00:10:14] Kay: That’s awesome. So you said that he took you on an aerial survey of the Bridge Creek event after the fact and Mulhall at age eight. That had to have had quite the impact on you seeing the kind of devastation that an EF5 tornado can leave.

[00:10:30] Colt: It did. I had some family that had been at the Lubbock F5. My great grandpa had been at the Lubbock F5 in the 70s. And so I’ve seen pictures of what I thought was high end F5 damage. And I’ve seen the building down there that you can still see where there’s a little twist to it. All of that. So I was mainly expecting to see a lot of debris, but what really caught my eye about Bridge Creek Moore and more so than Mulhall, Dover or Stroud was that there really was nothing left. I think towards the end of the school year, we had a day where you could draw pictures and I drew one of something I’d seen out the plane window and my teacher actually asked me what I was trying to draw, and I told her it’s a house and a road in Bridge Creek. And she didn’t get on to me or anything, but she definitely wondered where that came from, so we ended up telling her about it, but it affected me because it’s really being it into history all my life, and later pursuing being a historian, being an archivist, I was used to seeing graphic stuff from like World War II, World War I Vietnam, because the History Channel wasn’t so popular. It definitely was not what it is today, and Bridge Creek somehow managed to scare me a little bit. I don’t know… see, I don’t think I was ever really had any fear of what a tornado could do until then. And seeing pieces of foundations that have been ripped out of the ground, which is really people need to understand, that’s not even one of the biggest things you’ll find. EF4s and EF3s can do that. It’s just cement inside of mud and the ground. It’s not super reinforced. It’s not as uncommon as people think during these higher end events. I think you and I touched on that the last time about a couple of EF4s doing it just this year. But to see a steel reinforced foundation with anchor bolts and all that ripped out at the church that was, uh, because they were pointing stuff out to me because they both, had connections in emergency management, seeing stuff like that seeing body outlines on the- and this was the body outlines was on the vehicle trip down there- I call it because we ended up using a car and then it wasn’t quite a side by side, but it wasn’t quite a golf cart. So I don’t even know what we call that. But we drove around the areas there. And I remember seeing the splattered, I think it was red clay probably mixed with a little bit of shredded up debris that you could see where people were sheltering against the overpass wall. And then they told me, one of the workers told me the story about finding Trambui, which I won’t get too much into that because I don’t want people Googling her name and then going on Facebook trying to find her ask her family members questions about it. But yeah, pretty much it was just, Bridge Creek stood out above even Mulhall and Dover. And I remember there was a spot in Dover where there was a a farm that was just annihilated every the building the house everything in that area was just gone. Carved up, granulated but Bridge Creek took it a step further than that and some of the, especially in that little zone within the bridge in and around Bridge Creek that was… it looked like a nuclear bomb had went off is the best thing I could compare it to.

[00:13:51] And even then, I don’t think that’s doing it justice because Oklahoma red clay is extremely hard. And we’re talking about feet of this being gouged away in some places specifically. And to see that as an eight year old was shocking. But I think once I got over being Scared of it happening to me, that was it was, Oh my God, I don’t want this to happen to my town. But once I got over that fear, it definitely pushed me to continue. Especially after the internet became easier to access. I just went crazy on exploring tornado history, especially Oklahoma, because Bridge Creek. You’re always trying to find something to compare it to, like if you’re, if you have a car wreck and you have a friend that had a car wreck, you’ll, so this might just be my experience, but sometimes you’ll sit there and you’ll talk to each other about what was similar, just to kind of, vent to each other. And in the same way, I’ve seen people do that after storm chases this happened, blah, blah, blah, blah. I’ve seen a lot of people that were in Rolling Fork last year that have shared their experiences to try to be cathartic for each other. And I’ve always wanted to find something that I could compare that to, to tell myself that, okay maybe this wasn’t a special thing that happened less than two hours from my house, but even as of 2024, I haven’t found anything that I can exactly compare it to. It was just, it was that abnormal, the debris granulation, even shrubs and stuff were shredded or picked up. I guess the best way to get my point across on it is Bridge Creek looked so much worse than even the other regions of the A9 path, which was the Bridge Creek Moore Tornado. It was just off the chart from anything that I’d seen a book or on TV. And seeing it through the air more so than seeing it on the ground, the air really brought it into perspective because you could just follow this Oklahoma literally had a line carved into it and you could follow the path throughout the landscape. And to me, that was just… know that something was that ferocious for that long. It really brought into perspective to me what these storms can do. I had the Drumright stuff, but we reallydidn’t.start talking about that heavily until I was of age, because he doesn’t want to burden me with anything. But Bridge Creek kind of took that up a notch seeing just how total devastation was.

[00:16:14] Kay: I think it’s really interesting because first off, I think we talked about this a lot the last time that I spoke with you, but we were talking about the differences in F5 and EF5 tornadoes, modern day, and the discussions around whether or not something should be rated an EF5. But It’s also interesting because so many different strong to violent tornadoes like that can do such different damage to each other, like their respective areas, depending on where they are, that sometimes there’s just no comparison. Jarell comes to mind when you’re talking to me about Bridge Creek, and it did so much damage to that neighborhood because it, didn’t move. Meanwhile, you also have tornadoes like Smithville or Hackleburg that did have that kind of intense ground scouring like what you were talking about, but in a lesser dense clay in Alabama. So I just, I find it really interesting that we have tornadoes that on paper look like they are, of the same strength. But they’re doing such different damage.

[00:17:13] Colt: Yeah, because he really and that’s the thing is, I know, two years ago we had so many youngins come on around 2021 2022 wanted to argue about everything. And a lot of them have matured and went on to be excellent in what they do pursuing their meteorology degrees or whatever. And I’ve always made it clear. I’m the history guy, not the science guy. When you take context, it’s pretty much… Any equation you could throw together to try to compare to, it’s, they would get mad because, oh, you’re saying Smithfield’s not an EF5, or you’re saying that El Reno didn’t have EF5 winds. They, something that happened in their lifetime, they would they wanted it to be the biggest and the meanest. It seemed like it was sports, which it should never be that way. It should never be a competition. And all we were trying to do was tell them, you’ve got to think of the context of red clay versus filled or the context of red clay versus a nice open, grassy area that’s near a forest where you’re going to have some damp topsoil. We tried to explain that to them and it always was met with this real hard hate and I never understood why they hated us trying to educate. That was all we were trying to do. And I’ll say it here, all those tornadoes that I’ve mentioned. And that you’ve mentioned were definitely EF5s, there’s no taking that away. It’s just what they, what you said, what they did to get there is different. But in El Reno, I’ve never said that it didn’t have EF5 winds. It was actually technically rated EF5 for what, two months?

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[00:19:36] Kay: Yeah, it was preliminarily rated EF5 and then it was actually downgraded to EF3 just because there wasn’t enough damage to be able to sustain it. But, on the flip side, El Reno is also one of the tornadoes that is being looked at alongside, I believe Mayfield now and actually Joplin as context clues as to why we need to redo some aspects of the damage indicators of the Enhanced Fujita Scale right now.

[00:20:01] Colt: Yeah, I’m guessing- I haven’t really gotten to read about that, but I’m guessing, Joplin, it’s probably because of people saying it’s not an EF5, because it didn’t do any EF5 home damage. If I’m assuming, that’s probably…

[00:20:13] Kay: If I recall correctly, I think it was, and I am totally willing to be corrected on this for anybody in the comments, I believe it was because there weren’t any buildings that were anchor bolted that were destroyed, and none of the buildings themselves, like business buildings, had the damage done to them that you would expect an EF5 tornado to do. But I am not confident enough to say that is actually what the reason being is. I just know that I have heard from people who have been following the revamp of the Fujita Scale say that Joplin’s one of those ones that they’re taking a look at context wise.

[00:20:45] Colt: Yeah, I think the way they arrived at the EF5 thing was manhole covers and moved parking blocks and hospital being shifted on the foundation a little bit. I think if I recall correctly. Because El Reno, because I know it was a lot like Philadelphia, Mississippi, Philadelphia really didn’t do any damage other than when it tore apart the ground and some trees. It didn’t do any actual EF5 damage, but they still rated it EF5 based off of ground scouring and tree damage. And I know a lot of that doesn’t sit right with a lot of people. To me, it doesn’t bother me. I think the more that we see rated like that off of those little contextuals is probably a good thing for the scale being revamped because it gives us an idea.

[00:21:29] Kay: Yeah. And that’s one of the categories that they’re talking about adding is It’s basically natural damaged. What kind of soil has been scoured, because we hinted on this earlier, but it’s going to take a lot more power to scour feet into the Oklahoma or Alabama clay than it will soft topsoil, and it’s going to take a lot more power to debark a hardwood tree and skeletonize it than it will something that’s a softwood. So they’re looking at taking that kind of damage into account as well as looking at new building codes and what’s going on there, because a lot of the tornadoes that we have seen have the kind of controversy that they have right now have been entirely because they were leveled but didn’t have the anchor boltings to back it up. And we saw that a lot with Mayfield specifically recently.

[00:22:14] Colt: Yeah, to bring something else up on that, like going back to El Reno, there were trees that were hit that were heavily damaged, but to me, the whole thing with El Reno is that it just laid those crops over. To me, that would have been a pretty good indicator, and there was some damage that I saw near Canadian Valley Tech involving natural objects that I would say, definitely put it up there for consideration if they do that on the scale. My only hope for the new Fujita, Enhanced Fujita scale is that there’s those tornadoes Chickache, Goldsby, Mayfield, I would like to see them get the upgrade. That way we know just how, it’s not about wanting Oklahoma to break the an EF5 tie with Alabama or some of the accusations people have made about why I want that to be that, I want that to be that way because I want us to know just how potent those days like May 24th really were or how potent you know that December 2021 outbreak really was. I think Mayfield was actually a very special, perhaps once in a lifetime type of event because of peak intensity, the track length, all those things that it did. The radar presentation of that tornado, that night tracking it, those were some of the most horrible radar images that I know I’ve seen. So I would, I would like to see it get more analysis, too.

[00:23:36] Kay: Yeah, and I’m, on my end, I’m never gonna be somebody, I’m one of those people who will argue that El Reno was an EF5 but I’m only arguing about it from a scientific basis, never on a “I wish that this had gone through a populated area to do the amount of damage that it needed”, because at the end of the day, if you’re trying to calculate and record things like that, you need to have the data to back it up. And we talked about this last time, but the radar indications of the tornadoes like Mayfield, Rochelle, El Reno, all tornadoes who were at the level of being an EF5 on radar, but didn’t quite do the damage enough. Those are ones that I would like to see re evaluated in the context of a new Fujita scale to see if scientifically backing the claims that most people have is correct, so that we have the data to look at in the future.

[00:24:23] Colt: Yeah, like I said, especially Chickashe and Blanchard for me and Chickashe and Blanchard are the same, sorry, Chickashe, Blanchard, and Goldsby Cole from May 24th, 2011, because they threw plausible EF5 tags. I don’t know if you’ve ever read about those two, but they have plausible EF5 tags on the survey.

[00:24:42] Kay: I have not.

[00:24:42] Colt: Yeah they did the damage too, but. There were factors that they… in my opinion, maybe overanalyzed to some degree that factored in, didn’t allow the ratings. So they were put at 200 miles per hour EF4. I, but surely, they were, that year was horrible all across the country for tornadoes. And Piedmont was probably a big shock to have happen in your area of responsibility, I would have to say, seeing the drilling rig and stuff like that. So I can, I’m not on the NWS’s butt about anything, but I’ve been told by one of the surveyors that they wish they could go back and go ahead and make Chickache and Goldsby EF5s because they think that’s more accurate than the EF4. We’re actually probably going to have some threads out on those. If you want to check them out, you’ll probably be able to see what I’m talking about.

[00:25:32] Kay: Yeah, those ones I’m not as familiar with. When you post those, I’ll definitely check those out. I’m going to circle back to something that you had mentioned earlier on. You said that you had family that were in Lubbock during the F5?

[00:25:43] Colt: Yeah, my great grandparents on my grandma’s side.

[00:25:47] Kay: That’s intense.

[00:25:49] Colt: Yeah, he, which, let me clear that , he was in there, my grandpa, great grandpa was in there responding to it, and his second wife, not my great grandmother, but his second wife, Nell her name was Nellie, but she worked in the building that was messed up, and he was in Motley County deputy, which is, Motley County, Matador, Roaring Springs, stuff like that. But he went up there to respond to it. What sucks, I don’t know what happened to any of these pictures in newspapers that he had. I think his kids from that second marriage probably kept them, but yeah, it was, he said it was definitely way more intense than anything he had dealt with down around Roaring Springs, when he got called up there, he said it did look like a war zone.

[00:26:37] Kay: Yeah I don’t know as much about the Lubbock Tornado as I probably should but I do know that was one that Fujita, when he went back and he surveyed it, he, it was on the level of him considering it an F6 for a while, which doesn’t actually exist, but that should say something about the power of that tornado.

[00:26:55] Colt: Yeah, it was extremely strong. If you go down there, even today, you could still see signs of it. They’re only there if you know what you’re looking for, though. It’s not like it’s out in the daylight, apparent glowing, stank air that’s the tornado damage. But if you know what you’re looking for, you can still see it.

[00:27:11] Kay: Yeah, it was also one of our first tornadoes that we saw positive indications of the multiple vorticities of an actual tornado. Because he had differences in the wind field than you would expect for just one solid, condensed tornado, which was, I thought was pretty interesting.

[00:27:27] Colt: The research that was done into the Lubbock tornado is actually fascinating. If people ever take the time to actually go sit down and give it their full attention, which I’m guilty of it too. I never have fully sat down, because obviously I’m always busy with Oklahoma stuff, but I’ve never fully sat down and had the whole Lubbock experience in front of me to analyze and look at maybe that’s something I need to do here in the future.

[00:27:50] Kay: You’ve got your hands full with the Oklahoma tornadoes, you’ve got plenty of history to look at there.

[00:27:54] Colt: Yeah, someone said two years ago, they were like, it must be boring only doing one state. And it’s not if the state is extreme. Not if the state is Kansas or Alabama. Yeah, there’s 20 there. Even Texas.

[00:28:10] Kay: Yeah, Texas per square mile has more tornadoes than anywhere else in the country from what I understood.

[00:28:14] Colt: Think it’s either Texas or Florida? I can’t remember because Florida, they get to count, waterspouts and stuff. But I have heard something similar to that, yeah.

[00:28:22] Kay: Yeah, I can’t remember where I heard that, but that… Yeah, you got a lot of stuff going on in Texas, but we’re talking Oklahoma tornadoes. And so on that note, I got to ask, and I asked you this last time and I do not recall what your answer was. If you could go back and chase any historical event, I want to know what it is and why.

[00:28:39] Colt: It would 100 percent be, I know the last time I debated between Bridge Creek and Drumright, but it would 100 percent be the Drumright EF4, or F4 as it was then. Not just because I want to see the funnel, we’ve got pictures of the funnel, thankfully, thanks to Larry Atkinson, but that’s when I know, after Mike Morgan and I did our show about it in Drumwright, with Mike Smith, the podcast that we did we were talking about it and it actually for a June tornado had some extremes to it that are up there with some of the bigger tornadoes in May and April. It was multi vortex. It probably made a run at EF5 intensity when it was near Skiatook. We have pictures of homes that were completely slabbed. Dismantle the nursing home. I’d really like to be able to follow it just to see exactly how it evolved. And if it all was one tornado, because some people are starting to think that it may have been part of the tornado family. I don’t think so because I know people that worked on documenting the path and they did an air patrol flight. But besides that, I would obviously like to do it because it’s the tornado. If there is no Drumright F4 and my grandpa never responds to it, then we’re probably not talking right now because without the Drumright F4, there is no Oklahoma Tornado Database.

[00:30:00] Kay: That’s a great answer.

[00:30:02] Colt: Those are the two, those are definitely the two reasons why I would want it to be that.

[00:30:06] Kay: Do you have any exciting projects for Oklahoma Tornado Database that you’re coming up with soon? I believe we talked about some, I am super hardcore blanking on a lot of the stuff that we talked about suddenly last time, but I remember you telling me about a new project that you had starting up soon.

[00:30:23] Colt: I know right now, believe it or not, we’ve actually came up with two more that we’re starting since then, but I know our podcast, I’m going to do once a week, I’m going to do an AMA and ask people, it’ll be hosted as a Twitter space. People can ask questions and then, we’ve got Project ENLIL that is. It’s been ongoing since 2021, I think? But, when there’s a terrorist attack, or when there is a major event that happens, like a shooting or something, we always build memorials for those people or we honor them and tell their stories. And it started out originally we wanted to do all of Oklahoma’s known F5/EF5 tornado victims. And we had that finished in 2021. And now what we’re doing is we’re about to expand Project ENLIL and try to either build an online or in person, I know the online would be easier, but we really have enough stuff exhibit wise, I think if we could get the building we’re looking at, we could have an Oklahoma tornado museum. Obviously the funding’s the biggest problem because I, it’s hundreds, no, I’d say tens of millions of dollars to really get it all going and get the foundation laid. We’ve talked to some people about trying to get grants. But nothing there yet, but it’s mainly we want to honor those people just like we would people that were taken in any other tragedy. I know we talked about a name wall with the tornado and then the names we talked about exhibits, if some of the family were willing to provide exhibits, just something to really bring the human impact of this and to question a little bit more. When people are taking on analyzing or blogging about or doing any of this stuff these storms because I don’t think it’s looked at enough. When we talk about the Oklahoma City Bombing or 9/11, we can automatically I’ll probably recall one or two specific victims whose stories stuck out, struck out to us. Sorry. And want to be able to do something like that, we do as a team wants to be able to do something like that for tornado victims in it. Eventually, yeah, we’d probably like to expand that one nationally.

[00:32:31] Kay: That’s a super awesome project, and I am hoping that is something that takes off, because I agree we should be doing something more to be able to honor the victims. Can you tell everyone where to find you on social media?

[00:32:43] Colt: Yeah, you can find us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook @OKtornadoDB, or if you want to join the Oklahoma Tornadoes or the Syndicate, which is a group we’re partnered with servers on Discord, they’re available as well. On the subject of podcasting and stuff most of it’s probably going to be ran through Twitter for now because we’re not going to get into doing multiple shows a day or anything like that. It’s just going to be a couple of weeks maybe. So even for that kind of stuff, I’d say Twitter because Twitter is mainly, And you know this, Twitter is mainly where we’re active.

[00:33:23] Colt: I definitely encourage everybody to go take a look at what Colt and his team is doing, because I have been very impressed with them, and he was one of the first people that I thought about getting on the show when Gabe brought me on, so definitely worthy of being checked out. I appreciate you joining me. We will get you back on the podcast eventually. And thank you for your patience as we figured out all of the audio issues from the last time we spoke to you.

[00:33:45] Colt: Hey, no problem.

[00:33:46] Gabriel: Thanks for listening. If you’re not already subscribed, hit that button right now and then make sure notifications are turned on so you never miss an episode again. There are lots of ways to show your support for Chaser Chat. You can pick up something from the merch store, leave a rating and a review on your favorite podcast app, leave a comment and a like on YouTube, or just share the link to this episode on your preferred social media platform.

[00:34:07] Thanks again for listening, and I’ll catch you on the next episode.