As a child, Trent Okerson feared storms. To face the fear, he became interested in meteorology, which ended up becoming his profession. Last week, he had to deal with the biggest tornado to hit his state, Kentucky, in decades.
The ability to accurately track storms—he guessed the exact minute it would touch cities along the way—helped many people save themselves. Several residents reported, in the following days, having sought safe haven after seeing Okerson’s warnings on local TV WPSD, an affiliate of the NBC network, which has been showing the weather forecast for 14 years.
Thus, many were unharmed from the passage of the tornado that destroyed hundreds of homes.
Okerson, 41, lives in Paducah, a city of 25,000 and one of those hit by the tornado on December 10th. The storm, which swept several states over more than 300 km, left at least 88 dead. Still moved by what he experienced in recent days, he spoke with the leaf by phone.
I’ve always been fascinated by the weather. When I was very young, I was afraid of storms. And part of that fear led me to get interested and learn more about them, and that interest never went away.
As I’ve grown up, I’ve seen hurricanes and tornadoes that really affect people’s lives. And I realized that I could use my fascination with time to help. Most days, our weather forecast job involves helping people plan their day, bringing an umbrella.
But there are rare occasions, like on the night of December 10th, when our work becomes something that can save lives. And that brings a lot of weight, a lot of responsibility, but also great value.
I had a very unusual path to TV. For five years, I was a high school science teacher, until I realized it wasn’t what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I was never able to really put my interest in the weather behind me, so I decided to go back to studying and taking classes at Mississippi State University.
I ended up staying in the same room as a TV reporter. He introduced me to some meteorologists who worked here at the WPSD station at the time. They let me do an internship, which ended up becoming a steady job after three months, and that’s where I’ve been since then, for 14 years.
The peak of the storm season usually occurs in the American spring. It usually happens from March to May, not December. As the past week progressed, we saw that the atmosphere was in a position to generate severe weather. On the 8th and 9th of December, we began to notice that the data and mathematical models were reporting higher numbers than we normally see in spring thunderstorms. This caught our attention and worried us.
There are many prediction models that we look at. And, on the morning of December 10th, they all showed that the ingredients [para um grande temporal] they were coming—all together. We’ve never seen indicators come together like this. This increases your predictive ability.
We then started to post the alerts hours before. The storm would come on a Friday night, when we know people stay away from the TV. We wanted to make sure they would be on and would have ways to receive alerts if necessary and we shared the information throughout the day, making it clear that it was something out of the ordinary.
I usually work on the TV news in the morning, but that day I was also on the air at night. We had seen how this storm had passed through Arkansas. We noticed how strong it really was and that it wasn’t weakening. So we started warning people that a tornado could be in this area in two, two and a half hours, something we’ve never done before. This storm was so unique, strong and consistent that we decided to sound the warning that way.
As I was in the air, I knew that, from the force of the storm, people would probably die, would lose everything. We are a small town TV station and very close to the community. And people care. They saw concern on our faces, it helped them to understand that it was serious and to get them to act. And these people come to us now to say that we helped them save themselves had a big impact on us. As much as there is devastation, it helps to feel a little better: knowing that some people are okay because of what you’ve done.
The last few days have been overwhelming. It’s remarkable to know that we’re able to really have a direct impact on people in this way. This reinforces the responsibility we have. But it’s really heartbreaking to see this storm go to communities and not be able to do anything but warn.
The federal and state governments are being incredibly helpful and quick to respond. The next day, the governor was here. The president declared disaster and sent aid. And, more than that, the people in our community have been amazing to help. There are many rural residents here.
People are resilient, they help each other. At a time when we are so divided, no one cares about your political views. We are being one people now.
These days, I’ve been remembering a lot of something that happened four and a half years ago. A new managing editor took over. His name is Perry Boxx, and he’s my boss today. When we were introduced, he asked what I did. I said “I’m a meteorologist. I forecast the weather”. He looked at me and said, “No. You save lives. You track storms.” And that became reality.
Due to our ability to map storms, we knew exactly how fast it was moving and where it was going. With the technology we have today, we can draw a line on the radar and tell the people of Mayfield, for example, an hour in advance that the storm would hit them at 9:27. It saved lives that night. The idea that meteorologists save lives has come true.
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