Our Stories and Yours from the Tornadoes Last Friday

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
I see that the Columbia students aresupposed to be evacuating their encampment now,
and they're starting to get a littleharder. These schools are on trying to
break these protests up, and that'sit's happening right now, and police are
arresting people at the University of Texasin Austin, and the NYPD is nearby.

(00:24):
Colombian case, the school says,okay, like they're officially trespassing at
this point, they're not moving,they're not budging. Twenty one Democrats from
the House of Representatives sent a letterins telling the leadership at Columbia disperse this
or resign. When twenty one Democratsare doing that, you know it's getting
out of hand. And that rightthere, unless something absolutely insane happens over

(00:47):
the next three and a half hours, I don't anticipate talking about this one
more time today. We'll talk aboutit when the dust settles and all that
stuff. But that's the last ofthe protests that we're going to talk about.
I'm not ways my time on it. What I want to start with
is, this is the first timeI have a chance to talk to you

(01:07):
after after what was is that thecraziest Matt Case my producer alongside, is
that the craziest you know, fourhours of weather that you've seen in this
area, absolutely specifically impacting this area. There was I believe it was around
this time last year. There werea lot of tornado warnings and and and

(01:32):
and some tornadoes that touched the ground, but that was all to the west
of here. So just having itimpact our community here and yeah, it's
that's definitely nothing that I've seen before. Yeah, And there's just too much
for me on a lot of differentlevels to unpack because we do live and

(01:59):
we are reminded every year by mothernature itself. Man, it's something else
when you see literal Los Angeles movielike Hollywood movie set type tornadoes with their
size and the way they're moving.I mean, people from miles away from

(02:19):
these things filming and the tornado delistlike gigantic tall cloud thing and it's moving
like the twister in the Wisdom ofOz And it's real, right, And
that happened like four, five,six, ten, twelve, fifteen times.

(02:44):
We're still waiting on some of theofficial numbers of like exact numbers of
tornadoes, and both Nebraska and intoIowa, and how like, how many
we're stronger than those EF zeros andE f ones that generally are the tornadoes

(03:04):
that you're going to see. We'rehearing a lot EF two. There's got
to be some EF three's. Andthere were like certain some of these storm
chasers and meteorologists have this technology thatthey can measure the wind speeds at various
points, and they were saying someof that stuff is EF five strengths.

(03:31):
Now, whether or not the NationalWeather Service comes back and says that's an
EF five, we don't know.And I talked to a National Weather Service
meteorologist today and they basically told mewe're still kind of crunching some of the
numbers on some of that stuff.But to see that with your own eyes

(03:52):
and to see videos and to seepictures and know, oh yeah, I
know where that is. Oh yeah, I drive that street all the time.
Oh yeah, I know these peoplethat live over there. And to
know that these giant twisters just camethrough and flattened parts of these small towns
or these suburbs or knocking down buildings. I remember when the first building went

(04:15):
down, it was like just aftertwo thirty or so on Friday, and
I was like dang Man, LincolnWaverley, that hurts. I must have
been a big one. Little didwe know that was only the beginning,
right, So if anybody, ifwe were able to help anybody by listening

(04:36):
you were listening to our coverage onFriday, I'm really glad that we were
able to do that for you.But I'd love to hear from you today.
Have some emails rolling in with somephotos and video and social media posts
and a lot of people sharing thatI'd love to hear your stories though,
Where were you, what was goingon? What happened on Friday as the

(04:58):
storms were go going on. We'vehad a few days to digest it,
and what are some of the thingsthat we're going to remember about that day,
you know, April twenty sixth,twenty twenty four, a day that
we're going to remember in this areaas one that I mean, we all
had to rally and unite together becauseof how serious and dangerous this stuff was.

(05:25):
You can call us to tell usyour story, your perspective, the
things that you've done over the lastforty eight hours as you try to either
repair or rebuild or help others whoneed that help. You can call us
at four oh two five five eighteleven ten. Four oh two five five
eight eleven ten. It's news Radioeleven ten KFAB and Marie Song on news
Radio eleven ten KFAB. A lotof people emailing with photos and their stories.

(05:50):
Love to share those with you,the ones that we haven't heard or
seen, And if you want totell your own story, you can call
is four h two five five eighteleven ten. We did have John Collis
didn't want to go on the air, But what did he say? He
said he was pretty close to onethat was going on from Yeah, I
wish John would have stayed to goon the air. He said he was

(06:11):
two hundred feet from from the tornadoand has survived to tell the tale.
Obviously, you don't want to beoutside and be looking at it that close.
So thank goodness, John, you'reokay. It's this kind of thing.
Change your perspective on the storm chasingindustry or the storm watching industry?
Is that is that weird for meto even ask, because I know that's
what we do. Like, theMidwest is notorious for having those people.

(06:32):
It's just like, well, weget severe weather all the time, and
we're kind of fascinated by it.I'm you know, I'm kind of I'm
a little bit torn, and becausethere are people that do that with hurricanes,
I want to be I want tobe sensitive about this topic in part
because for one Husker football great KennyBell over the weekend caught a little bit

(06:54):
gotten a little bit of hot waterafter he tweeted out that he was going
to be sitting on a porch andwatching the tornadoes roll in. And of
course maybe that's not proper protocol forsafety, and we want to be,
you know, safety conscious, andthere's obviously there's no better reason for that
than what we just witnessed this weekend, not only just here in Omaha but

(07:15):
also in Oklahoma. But it isa little bit I mean, it was
crazy how many severe, heavy,large, dangerous, destructive tornadoes happened in
multiple states. It wasn't just anisolated thing. It was that whole system.
I think too, though, thereis I don't know, I'm torn
because there is a little bit ofkind of like riding a motorcycle without your

(07:40):
helmet sort of thing, like isthat objectively dumb? Yes? But also
can a person do that and havefun? Right? Yeah? Feeling it's
just them out there right, likethey're not risking anyone else's health but their
own. So in that vein,you know, you know. At the
same time, though, we stilltalk about the people that lose their lives,

(08:01):
like storm chasing or storm watching ornot taking our warnings. I don't
need to go to the basement.Then the house gets knocked down, and
then you know they didn't have achance. But there's no better like it.
Just it's humbling and it just shootswater into your eyes. Whenever you
think about, you know, allpeople listening to their radio and racing down
to their basement and then seeing whathappened, and then learning that out of

(08:22):
all those houses that were destroyed,everyone's okay almost well everyone no one lost,
no one lost their life, notin and not in Omaha. That's
what I mean. Yeah, I'mgonna be specific. I'm talking about the
Elkorn area. Seeing that right thereElkorn, how right, exactly, And
so it's kind of like, okay, yeah, that reinforces the get in
your basement because and listen to thewave your life, listen to the warnings.

(08:46):
And we have such great technology atour fingertips. The mobile phones were
going off with with big time warningsin your area. We also had us
on the air wall to wall foralmost four straight hours. You have,
you know, all sorts of differentpiece of technology at your fingertips, and
most of these new homes are builtwith real sturdy foundations, so it was

(09:09):
really nice to know that people heededthose warnings in our local area. Here,
Terry's on our phone line four twofive five eight eleven ten. Terry,
did you have a story about whathappened to you? Yeah, we
were. We're I'm about as farsouth in Waterloo as you can go,
and when I heard it was gettingclose, I told some of the neighbors

(09:31):
that were outside and not really payingattention. And then we saw it approaching
and it looked like it was comingright at us, and we ended up
running for cover, even though noneof us have basements right there. Oh
wow. And it turned and aboutthe time and I was filming the whole
thing, and I watched when ithit junk Stock. I was probably three

(09:54):
hundred yards from it. And mywife is a Twister the movie fanatic.
Every time it's one, she watchesit. And I have to say,
for a moment there I felt thepower of that tornado like they do in
that movie. I was just mesmerizedonce I knew it wasn't gonna hit me,

(10:16):
you know, watching it and hearingit, and then I called my
wife right away, and I wason the phone with her as it left
our area when it crossed the river, and I was just sick knowing what
it was doing over the hill tothe you know, homeowners that were in
the path of it. Yeah,but it was an amazing experience. I

(10:37):
was actually traumatized Friday night when Itried to go to sleep by the power
of what I'd seen. Terry,that's really powerful experience to even share with
us. Is that Does that changethe way that you view these kind of
storms, having such a close encounterwith one, I'd actually I mean,

(11:00):
you know, you never want anythingbad to happen, and I feel sorry
for the people who have lost things. Yeah, I now feel like,
man, I'd like to do sometornado chasing and see it again. And
that power. It was almost addicting, even though at the same time you
know it's no but but Terry,that's kind of the thing, right,
Like, that's why we explore thiskind of topic of conversation. And why

(11:24):
I brought up the whole storm chasingthing because a lot of people saw their
first tornado on Friday and how destructiveand how powerful they are. But this
is something that isn't man made.This isn't something that anybody has any control
over. This is really something thatyou just like you have to be in
the right place at the right timeto experience what kind of power that it
has. So, I mean,it's interesting to hear somebody who actually had

(11:48):
that type of close encounter and gotto see it with your own eyes and
feel what it looked like as itwas happening. And I really appreciate you
calling in and sharing that with ustoday. You bet, And I hope
everybody gets along well with their homes. No, for sure, there's a
lot of people out there helping aswell. Let's go to James real quick.
James, thanks for calling in.What's your story on this? You're
welcome talking about attaitives and stuff.I saw my first tornado when I was

(12:13):
seven years old, and I rememberthere were trees on the north side of
the fence in our front yard.They were there, and then they weren't
there anymore. They just were gone. And I thought that was the coolest
thing. And so after that Istarted watching storms. I was interested in
the weather, and I don't know, they seem to follow me sometimes.

(12:37):
The Scout Ranch tornado, for example, as you probably heard of that.
One yea. We were right andBill Ramby was on the weather giving bulletins
and he said, the area ofrotation is headed straight for weather watcher James's
farm, and I got my attentionand we watched the whole thing and it

(13:00):
created you know, we didn't knowwhat was going on because we had no
power, but we were in itthat we were part of the inflow boundary
and so it was. And thenthe storm outbreak yesterday, well, I
was we had a lot of rainand hailed, but we had no tornadoes
here. We were north of Blair. And my only concern was that our

(13:24):
we've got relied family members, especiallyto live around Maple Street, and we
were, you know, wondering whatwas going on with them. And another
thing that the kind of a roleof fear. You you said, this
was really a nasty storm and mostpeople have never seen anything like that,
but if you go back to nineteenseventy five, it was something like that

(13:45):
too, and when the storm wasout near Xarbon and it cut right through
Omaha, and it was it wasnasty. I think some people died in
that one. Yeah, But aweek later we were in Omaha, my
wife and I, and there wasanother tornado crossing Omaha. At the time,
it was not like that. Itwas just right. You're a veteran

(14:07):
of this is what you're saying,James. You've seen alive. I've seen
them, and in this particular one, it showed the role of fear.
I was talking to some woman asshe was worrying about where's that tornado?
She asked me, and I said, well, you don't have to worry
about it. It's past us.And I started talking about tornadoes, and
before I knew it, I wasconducting a seminar right there in the crossroads.

(14:28):
There must have been fifteen people standingby listening to my talking. And
how would they know if I knewwhat I was talking about or not?
Well, but they were trying tolatch onto something, right because they were
still afraid from what had just happened. No, James, this is good
stuff. And you know what,I'm always interested to talk to people who
have a passion for things that Idon't know as much about I appreciate you
sharing that with us today. Havea good rest of your day. You're

(14:50):
welcoming you too. Yeah, yeah, I mean, And that's he makes
an interesting point. People are justlooking for more information as things are happening.
They're not going to go to atornado seminar just out of nowhere for
no reason, but once one ishere, one's happening, They're looking for
all the information they can give.It's good that there are people like James
out there with such a passion forit, that are willing to educate people.

(15:11):
Two thirty. If you got thoughtsexperiences that you would like to share
about the storms over the weekend,you can hit us up at four oh
two five five eight eleven ten fourh two five five eight eleven ten,
News Radio eleven ten KFAB and Lee'ssonger on news Radio eleven ten KFAB.
We were in a flash flood warningfor a few hours there when the rain

(15:31):
really hit. And then there wasa time. I don't know what you
were doing on Saturday, but Iwas out running Saturday with my dog and
I knew it was about to rain, but I was like, I can
get a forty five minute run inreal quick. I was I forgot what
time it was. I was listeningto uh. I was listening to like
an NBA Playoffs podcast, which Iwas greatly enjoying, and I was just

(15:54):
like, I'll just stick around.I was like, oh crap, I'm
still two and a half miles awayfrom home and the rain is starting.
So I had to call my wifeand have her come rescue me. It
was raining so hard for like tenminutes. It's like, geez, man,
if I was still out there,we would have been drenched in like
a second. Well, that thatgrass seed that I planted in the yard

(16:17):
last week a half two weeks ago, that should be getting the necessary water
at this point, I think tostart germinating. That'd be my guess.
AnyWho, We're kind of just beingan outlet for your thoughts and your experiences
about what happened with the storms overthe weekend, and you can call us
at four, two, five,five, eight eleven ten. Bud is

(16:37):
on the line. Bud, Thanksfor the call. What's on your mind?
Hello, yep, Bud, you'reon the line. What's up?
Oh? I thought you gopped out. I was with my wife yesterday she
brought up the idea, goodness thoseon nedos kit this last week, next

(17:00):
week's to Berkshire Antholey. Oh yeah, thing, yeah, and with all
those private planes parked in those hangars, and oh yeah, that could have
been catastrophic, especially with Berkshire Athowayprobably ensuring most of them. Well,
and that's an interesting topic there,Bud, because that reminds me we haven't

(17:23):
even mentioned the tornado that hit downover there and how close that was to
the terminal and all the people thatwere probably in the airport at that time.
I mean that that tornado just I'mlike, you're you're saying the timing
and that's one hundred percent true,but man, that thing was probably one
hundred feet in either direction of reallybeing a hundred times worse in terms of

(17:47):
how much it affected the people thatwere in there or flights and flight delays.
So we're not even talking we're talkingabout obviously residential areas, but that
one obviously could have been a lotworse too. I mean, that's a
really good point. Well, andit's interesting in athlete excuse me, because
I recall the windows that you lookout of the terminal are all looking towards

(18:12):
the east, so they wouldn't haveseen those tornadoes coming at them from the
west. Right. That's a goodpoint. That's a good point. But
that's a that's an angle that Ididn't even think about. Thanks so much
for calling and reminding us about thattoday. All right, take care of
keep doing a good job. Thankyou, man, appreciate that. If
you want to call in you can'tfour h two five five, eight eleven
ten. It's pretty wild stuff.Man. Had a couple of photos here

(18:37):
of people sending me and it's hard. I can't can't really describe the photos.
Certainly don't do it justice, youknow what I mean, Like they
just they don't and did get this. Beginning today, City of Omaha public
Works employees are assisting residents in theRamblewood neighborhood in Elkhorn with disposal of constructuction

(19:00):
debris. Ten large orange dump trucksand loaders marked with the city seal on
the doors are available for disposal ofwood, bricks, shingles, broken furniture,
drywall, and other household debris.It's a free service provided by the
City of Omaha. It will continuedaily from seven thirty am to five pm
until further noticed. Items that cannotbe discarded in the trucks include tires,

(19:23):
hazardous waste, waste, oil,paint. Now, if it's dried paint,
that's fine, but regular paints,paint cans, no lead acid batteries,
appliances, or air conditioners, sodo not do not plan to put
those in there. But got thisnote. Mayor Gene stouthers going to make
this an announcement formal. It's ontheir website. She's going to be doing

(19:45):
that here the next oh couple ofminutes or so. But this is the
one thing about storms and about naturaldisasters, and about things that happen that
are beyond the control of the peoplethey happen to. It rallies you.
It gets people to work together.It gets people to stop thinking about who
the Republicans and the Democrats are,what school you went to, what school

(20:07):
you cheer for, You forget aboutall that superficial stuff that really doesn't go
beyond just one conversation or one thought, and instead you realize that we are
all just human beings trying to liveon this planet and trying to do the
best that we can to get by. And to everyone out there who has
done everything that they can to tryto help out. Thank you, I

(20:30):
mean just thank you for being selfless. I'll tell you one person that was
out and about in the elk Cornarea trying to help out over the weekend.
And we'll also talk about Matt andI's kind of personal experience with that
as well. Coming up on newsRadio eleven ten Kfab. Emery's songer on
news Radio eleven ten kfab something veryinteresting about a very popular music artist who

(20:52):
happened to be going through the Midwestwhen this was happening, who happens to
have roots in Omaha, Zach Bryan. And he posted on his social media
and people said they saw him outthere. He was out there helping the
people in ol Corn over the weekend. Yeah, I heard about that.
That's amazing. And you know howmuch money it costs to go to Zach
Bryan show these days. A lotthose shows sell out in seconds and then

(21:18):
on the resale market. I meanit's hundreds of dollars that you're paying to
go see this guy. Yeah,there's a reason for it. I mean
to me, we talked about thisbefore with the Taylor Swift thing, like,
who would that have to be forme to be willing to do that.
I know a lot of people thatdo it, but you know,
he's kind of a hometown guy too. I saw him at Hinterland. Did

(21:41):
I tell you that? You did? I remember you tell me just that
the show you saw Hinterland was He'slike the show, Yeah, yeah it
was. It was a great time. But I mean he was a last
minute replacement I think for Tanya Tucker. Okay, you know the old eighties
nineties country raspy voice singer Kenya Tucker. She got sick or something couldn't come.

(22:03):
She was a little too raspy thatnight. Yeah, yah, yeah,
And then they called up Zach Bryant. He showed up and he was
like third or fourth to last orwhatever, and he only played like thirty
forty minutes or whatever. And Iwas like, dangs, and that guy
can play and he fits in here. Right fast forward like two years.
This guy's like the hottest acting countrymusic. I mean, he's white hot.

(22:25):
And for him to be in thesebuildings, I think he was in
des Moines on Friday, so Imean he played too. He played back
to back Thursday Friday, he wasin des Moines. Yeah, so he
would have been there and there werepeople that were at his show when the
tornadoes happened there, because the tornadoeshit Des Moines in Central Iowa like eight

(22:47):
or nine pm. Probably it wasa later thing. But man, how
crazy to see a guy who's thathot right now on the music scene say
I'm big. I'm not too bigto like not give a helping hand when
I'm in the areas. And Idon't know if he does the same thing
if he's not from there, ifit's any other city in the in the

(23:08):
world, does he go and helpout. He's from Omaha, so well
he grew up in Oklahoma as well. I don't know how long did he
live in Omaha, that's my think. I know, I don't know.
I didn't even know. Here's thething. I've been a Zach Bryan fan
for a couple of years now.I didn't even know that he lived here.
You didn't know he had Omaha roots. I had no idea. I
knew he had Oklahoma roots because hesings. He sings songs about Oklahoma.

(23:30):
Well, yeah, because Oklahoma's gotfour syllables, Oklahoma, you can do
so much with that. Talks aboutthe red dirt, Yeah, Oklahomah Yeah,
Oklahoma. Omaha is pretty good.You could put that in a song.
People put that in songs all yeah, yeah, yeah, the Grand
Funk Railroad. Yeah. Peyton Manningjust started yelling at randomly. You know.
Now he's got a he's got aproduction company called Omaha Productions Omaha.

(23:55):
Yeah. Okay. So where washe born? Here you go, yes,
I'm gonna guess. Uh, Guthrie, Oklahoma. Guthrie, Oklahoma.
Now that sounds like a country birthplace. No, Okaawa, Japan. Good
guess though. Okay, it wouldhave taken me a while to get there.
Family station overseas. With the Navy, he was also in the Navy.

(24:18):
Did you know that in the Navy? I did not know that.
Yeah. He was in the Navyfrom twenty thirteen to twenty twenty one,
Old Zach Bryant thirteen to twenty one, twenty thirteen to twenty one. Yeah,
so he would have been seventeen ishwhen he enlisted, and then he
did his eight years and got outat age twenty five twenty six. That's

(24:41):
pretty impressive, right m h.Yeah, So there's that. And hey,
guess what they list his origin asUga La Ouliga, Oklahoma Uliga Uliga
sure. Renowned humorous Will Rod isborn just east of ooh Goolah. About

(25:03):
ooh Laga, ooh Laga, I'venever heard of it before anyway. Early
life, he's the son of twopeople. Nobody cares. Active member of
the Navy. He started writing songsat age fourteen. It doesn't really say
anything about his Omaha. It isOmaha. It says he's from Omah.
He doesn't have a people need togo to work on his Wikipedia page.

(25:25):
That's all I have to say.Yeah, let me get on that.
Help me out here anyway. Yeah, but he says he's from Omah.
He said he's got a lot ofOmaha in him. So what does that
have to do with anything? Right? Earlier today, some local news outlets
caught up with the story and decidedto do that. But they don't have
any sort of They don't have anysort of he said. His social media

(25:48):
post was as an American and someonewho lived in Omaha for some pretty formidable
years of my life. I wantto offer some honest prayers and hopes the
community is affected by the tornadoes thattour through them. The band and I
are standing with you guys as we'replaying some shows in Omaha. I am
sorry to anyone that's having to dealwith picking up the pieces of their homes
and their lives without taking credit fromthe thousands of people lending a hand who

(26:08):
have roots here. We love youso much and will do what we can
to help. And he helped out. So there you go. That's pretty
cool, though, isn't it verycool? It's good on you, Zach
Brian. I'm not gonna pay twohundred fifty bucks go watch you play music,
but I will give you an applauseon my radio station. One of

(26:30):
the best songwriters out there today ishe? In my opinion, best storyteller,
best songwriter out there? He ain'tbetter than Billy Strings. Yeah,
maybe they should have a duel.There's no way he'd win that, you
think, No, why don't webring some lyrics to the table, break
them down for their the tapestry thatthey tell, the story that they weave.

(26:52):
Do you really want to do this? Have you listened to Billy Strings?
I have, And he's a coolguy. He's a really cool guys,
an one of those cool guys.I saw Billy Strings at Hinterland as
well, and he blew my mind. He blew my mind to a level
that it was like, I didn'tknow a musician could. So here you

(27:14):
go. I ain't slept in sevendays, having eight and three metham bettaman's
got a darn good hold of me. Right, that's some country stuff.
He wrote this when he was likenineteen years old, before he was really
Billy Strings. Okay, my friendshave got me to the point of no
return. I just took to thelighter, to the bulb and watched it

(27:34):
burn. This is a guy withproblems, even though it wasn't really him.
He just knew how to create it. He knew at nineteen years old
what it would take. And haveyou seen him pluck that big old six
string of his That's not lyrics.He is a very good musician. I
mean he is so fast. That'swhy they call him Billy Strings. That's
not his real name. Nobody's lastname is Strings. Labrador hanging out the

(27:55):
passenger door of the sand from yourhair blowing in my eyes. Blame it
on the beach. Grown men,don't cry. Do you remember that beat
down basement couch. I'd sing youmy love songs and you tell me about
how your mama ran off and ponderingI remember I Remember everything. Is that
my Florida, Florida Georgia line,Don't you Dare? Don't You Dare?
Sounds like a Florida Georgia line song, how Dare You? All Right?

(28:17):
It's two fifty five, we'll comeback. Sean Callahan's gonna join us to
recap the UH A little overshadowed butstill happened Nebraska Cornhusker spring football game.
That's next, News Radio eleven toten KFAB