All language subtitles for Raging.Planet.S01E06.1080p.DSCP.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-WiLF

...**

NARRATOR: Tornado Alley,

and a powerful vortex is crossing
the Great Plains.

The small mining town of Picher,
Oklahoma, is directly in its path.

MAN: Oh, my God!

Within minutes, the tornado tears
the community apart.

(TYRES SQUEAL)

MAN: Mayday!

MAN: Oh, my God!

But this is only a single chapter
in the violent story of the tornado.

The Great Plains.

Vast flatlands spanning
the central United States

from Minnesota in the north
to Texas in the south.

But life isn't always this peaceful

for the countless small towns
that populate the American heartland.

Every year,
this quiet, open landscape

undergoes an ominous transformation.

Warmed by the growing power
of the sun,

the simmering fields of the Midwest
begin to heat the air above,

creating a dangerous change
in the weather.

Gigantic clouds begin to build.

Rising as high as 14km,

these forces of nature
begin to intensify,

growing into violent storms.

The gigantic thunderstorms
that form here

are among the most awe-inspiring
on our planet.

Vast swirling clouds up to 32km wide
roll across the landscape,

unleashing lightning, hail and rain
upon the fields below.

(THUNDER CRACKS)

But sometimes these weather systems
create a force of far greater power.

A power that gives this region
its name.

Tornado Alley.

Tornadoes are formed of the most
powerful winds on our planet...

...rotating at speeds
up to 480km per hour.

These whirlpools of wind
are so powerful

that they are one of the most deadly
forces on Earth.

(SIREN WAILS)

MAN: Oh, my gosh!
There is a tornado right there.

Right there. You look at that
and you get in that bathroom.

It is right there on the ground.
Oh, my God!

On May 10, 2008,

a powerful tornado hit the small
mining town of Picher, Oklahoma.

It was the deadliest twister
to strike the state this decade.

In a few seconds, residents saw
their town reduced to rubble.

MAN: My first thought was the size
of that thing.

It was huge, coming at us,

and it turned out to be, I think,
in places up to a mile wide.

The whole system was rotating.

It was just a scary, eerie thing,

and then you'd see smaller vortexes
coming off of this thing,

and then you'd get to a point

where you could see the main vortex
that went up and funnelled out.

It was... It was huge.

WOMAN: I said, 'We'll be OK.'

I said, 'I've seen so many through
the years, and they always go up.'

But this time it didn't go up.

Didn't I yell at you that...

Said, 'It's coming through...'

I think at this time, I'm screaming,

and I said, 'Tommy, it didn't go up!
It didn't go up!'

And he's screaming back at me
to get in the house.

The citizens of Picher
prepared to sit out the tornado

by barricading themselves
in their homes.

WOMAN: And you can see
it had already started,

and it's right here -
it's just a block from me.

And you can just feel
the air is changing.

Everything is getting colder,

and he's locking the deadbolt
on the door and I'm looking at him,

and I'm going, 'What are you
thinking? That won't stop it.'

I started to feel a lot of terror,
and I'm screaming,

'What are we going to do?
What are we going to do?'

With the tornado directly overhead,

all the residents could do
was hold on

as the monster wind
tore the town apart.

By the time the tornado moved on,
all that remained was destruction.

As you can see, it took the concrete
floor clear off the path.

Half of the house,
the concrete was even taken off.

The concrete that's laying over
there upside down

is the concrete floor
that was in this bedroom.

The devastation was just complete.

My first feeling was this
is my neighbourhood I grew up in,

and it was gone.

The town was in ruins, but the real
cost was in human lives.

Eight people died,

and one in ten of Picher's residents
was seriously injured.

*

*

NARRATOR: Tim Marshall is an engineer
who assesses tornado damage.

Today he is off to examine
the aftermath

of the tornado that hit
the town of Picher, Oklahoma,

to piece together
exactly what happened.

From the air, the destruction shows
the track of the tornado clearly.

It cut directly
through the heart of Picher,

destroying everything in its path.

What I'm looking at right now
is a devastation

that goes right from one end of town
to the other

through the southern end
of Picher, Oklahoma.

We have trees that are down -
torn, uprooted and mangled.

We have cars that appear to be
crumpled up.

Some of them appear to be thrown.

It's clear that this twister
was over five blocks wide

when it crossed through the town.

Tim Marshall documents
the extreme damage

so he can understand exactly
how these winds tear homes apart.

A tornado has, really,
three types of motions.

It has a rotating motion,

and then it has a lateral motion
that comes on in,

and then it has an upward motion.

So, you have all three of those
coming together in a tornado,

and that's what does a tremendous
amount of damage.

The destruction is complete.

This small town stood for 120 years.

It was wiped off the map
by the tornado in less than a minute.

Over 1,000 twisters
hit the US every year.

That's more tornadoes than occur in
the rest of the world put together.

No two are ever the same.

They vary in size, shape,
and most importantly, power.

The intensity of a tornado
is rated from zero to five

on a scale called the
Enhanced Fujita, or EF, scale.

The only way to calculate a tornado's
strength on this scale

is for scientists like Tim Marshall
to examine the aftermath.

TIM: The tornado track
leaves its fingerprint.

We can find a lot about
which way the wind came from,

how strong the winds were,

what objects blew,
what objects didn't go away.

By assessing the level of damage
left behind,

it's possible to accurately
gauge the power of a tornado.

The weakest are called EF0s.

They produce winds
between 105 and 137km per hour.

Relatively mild, they still have
the power to rip branches off trees

and hurl lightweight debris
through windows.

Next on the scale, the EF1s.

These create winds
between 138 and 178km per hour.

They can take the roofs
right off houses

and overturn cars and vans.

An EF2 tornado spins
at up to 218km per hour.

This one in Oklahoma threw hay bales
hundreds of metres

and uprooted trees.

An EF3.

Winds inside these twisters can gain
speeds of up to 266km per hour.

The inside, or vortex,
of a tornado this strong

is full of lethal flying wreckage.

This is what airborne objects
travelling at 260km per hour

will do to a car.

Jagged pieces of steel, wood and
glass propelled by violent tornadoes

are especially deadly.

But this is still
only halfway up the scale.

An EF4 generates winds
between 267 and 322km per hour.

Cars are thrown around like toys,

well-constructed houses
completely levelled.

The most powerful tornadoes
in the world are EF5s.

With winds known to exceed
480km per hour.

The damage EF5 tornadoes wreak
is devastating.

TIM: The most extreme devastation
that I have seen -

people who were unfortunately
victims of the tornado

were literally shredded,

and there were body parts scattered
across the landscape.

Frankly, I don't see how
it could get any worse than that.

Thankfully, powerful EF5s
are extremely rare.

They account for just
1 in 1,000 twisters.

All tornadoes, whatever size,

appear to drop down from the clouds
as if by magic,

but how do these devastating
whirlwinds form?

And what part of the US
is most at risk?

Scientists from the National Weather
Center, like Robin Tanamachi,

are trying to answer these questions.

We know the general conditions that
are necessary to form a tornado.

You need a rotating thunderstorm
in most cases.

You need some source of what we call
vorticity in the environment,

which is just a measure
of the spin of the air.

In order to study
these elusive twisters,

Robin patrols the part of the country
which gets the most -

an enormous swathe of America
known as Tornado Alley.

This vast, flat landscape,
over 1,600km wide,

stretches from the Gulf of Mexico
all the way to the Canadian border.

It's in this peaceful heartland
of the US

that tornadoes so often touch down
with devastating effect.

This stretch of land
gets so many twisters

because two radically different
weather systems collide here.

In summer months, warm, moist air
from the Gulf of Mexico

moved north towards Tornado Alley.

Meanwhile, 3,200km away,

cold, dry air tumbles south
from Canada.

As the two collide
over the Great Plains,

warm, humid air at the surface rises
into the heavier, colder air above.

As it climbs, it condenses
into popcornlike clouds

that ascend 11km
into the icy stratosphere.

If this rising air
soars upwards fast enough,

it begins to rotate
and become cyclonic.

This chain of events forms
an immense, rotating mass of clouds

called a supercell.

At the trailing edge
of the supercells,

the clouds begin to descend.

If the spinning motion
gains intensity,

the clouds drop all the way
to the ground in a funnel shape.

MAN: Oh, my God! Look at the funnel!

WOMAN: He's going to be
right in the middle of that.

Once a twister drops
from the rotating storm system

and touches down,

it can and will destroy anything
in its path.

MAN: Oh, my God!
The whole house came apart.

*

*

NARRATOR: The supercell hovers
over the landscape.

From the depths of these ominous
clouds, tornadoes are born.

But a tornado
only becomes destructive

when its swirling funnel cloud

drops from the supercell
and reaches the ground.

When this giant twister landed
near a highway in central Kansas,

it created chaos for motorists.

Caught in the path of the 320km/h EF4
was Randy Applegate.

MAN: I was headed east on I-70,
and all of a sudden, I looked up,

and over on the right-hand side
of the road,

probably about
the two o'clock position,

there's this big cloud.

With the twister bearing down on him,
Randy thought he could outrun it

before it reached
the freeway in front of him.

I was almost past it,
I was on the back edge,

and the back edge caught me,
and as soon as it hit me,

the car just started to fishtail,

and it just got pushed right off
the side of the highway.

(TYRES SQUEAL)

It was like being
in a clothes dryer.

My head was just being, you know,
banged around back and forth.

At that point,
there's nothing I can do.

I have no control over the car.

I don't know if I'm going to be
alive when it's over,

and that was the last thing
I remember.

The tornado had effortlessly thrown
the 2-tonne car off the freeway,

and 100m out into a field.

Randy was lucky he survived.

Approximately one in ten
of all tornado fatalities

are motorists in their cars.

A car offers little protection.

But that doesn't stop one group
from using them

to hunt down violent weather.

Tornado chasers.

MAN: OK, we got to go!

Go back, go back, go back!

MAN: Hey, we're OK. We're still OK.
We're still OK.

Tornado chasers risk everything
to document extreme weather.

Back up! Back up!
It's coming back towards us!

WOMAN: It's getting closer
and it's growing.

MAN: Tell me where it is
in relation to the car.

It's to the right
and it's coming toward us.

OK, I see the road. I see the road.
Keep shooting.

MAN: Those houses!
Oh, man, look at them!

Oh, man, look at that!

Sometimes the supercell thunderstorms
that produce twisters

don't produce just one.

They can drop multiple vortices,

known in the chaser world
as a bundle.

This creates unpredictable
and dangerous situations,

because the chasers
can quickly become the chased.

We pulled up literally right here.
Yeah, it was right...

Right...
Right by that sign.

Yep, and that's where we got out.

Oh, my God.
This looks so different now.

Today veteran storm chasers
Scott McPartland and Dave Lewison

are returning to the exact spot

where they saw five tornadoes
drop from a single cloud,

touching down all around them.

MAN: It was just such
an intense experience.

I'm still amazed
when I look back my my video logs

at the entire sequence
of four or five tornadoes,

and the incredible video we shot.

That took place in a span
of about 45 to 60 minutes.

We pulled into Attica, Kansas,

and the thing just basically
dropped in a field

about a half mile to our south,

and proceeded to get stronger
and kind of move at us.

MAN: Come on. We're done.
Oh, my God.

With the first tornado racing
directly towards them,

Scott and Dave had no choice
but to run.

MAN: These tornadoes are the most
powerful force on the planet

and these things do turn people's
lives upside down.

Anybody that takes
these storms lightly

is really running a risk of,
you know,

being a casualty of one of them.

Look at the spinning motion in this!

But as they fled, they couldn't know
that the violently rotating supercell

was about to drop secondary, or
satellite, tornadoes all around them.

The last thing you want is to be
transfixed on one tornado

and having another one coming along
the side and getting you.

WOMAN, ON RADIO: We're going around.

They're going left.

What's that up ahead?

Whoa! Tornado crossing the road
right in front of us!

(RADIO CHATTER)

DAVE: It actually, yeah, it was over
the left side of the road,

crossed the road, and it started
ripping branches off!

Yeah, right here.

DAVE: That's not good!
SCOTT: No.

Don't worry about that now, man.
Focus on what's at hand, man.

Don't get panicked.

I remember thinking, 'Should we turn
around or keep going?'

They were now racing for their lives,
surrounded by EF3 tornadoes.

When they did finally manage to stop,

they had the rare chance
to witness close-up

just how destructive
these storms can be.

I remember getting the tripod set up
really quick,

hitting 'record', and zooming in.

DAVE: Tornado crossing the road
a quarter-mi...

There goes... Look at the house!
The house is coming apart.

It was within seconds
that the roof came off,

and when that happened,
it rapidly went to horror.

Oh, my God!

Did you see that?
The whole house came apart.

I hope, God... We got to go back
after this goes by to see if...

The house is gone.

We should go...
We should go back to that house.

SCOTT: When you see damage
like that,

it's a very sobering experience.

You know, it really
drives the point home

that people's lives can be turned...
turned around by these events,

can be ended by events like this.

These storms mean business and
they should never be taken lightly.

A powerful tornado can level a house
in under ten seconds.

So, when a violent twister
strikes a metropolitan area,

the destruction can be catastrophic.

No city knows that
better than Oklahoma.

MAN: This is a long-track,
potentially deadly tornado.

Take your immediate
tornado precautions.

It is best if you are
below ground level.

The more slowly
a tornado tracks across land,

the darker it becomes,
as it churns up the Earth's surface

and pulls dirt and debris
into its vortex.

But when a twister
hits a built-up area,

the debris cloud
radically changes form.

(WIND RUSHES)
MAN: Wow!

As a powerful tornado
moves over a city,

it rips apart buildings and cars,

sweeping them into its churning cloud
of flying wreckage.

It's this high-speed
storm of urban rubble

that makes tornadoes
so destructive and deadly

when they hit
heavily populated areas.

MAN: This is a long-track,
potentially deadly tornado.

Take your immediate
tornado precautions.

It is best if you are below
ground level.

So, what can residents of Tornado
Alley do to protect themselves

against these airborne killers?

The answer comes down
to tornado forecasting.

MAN: Now, first weather with Gary.

MAN: OK, storms to our west
and south-west.

Some of these storms
have tornado warnings on them,

but I think the range is not going
to be in until quite a bit later.

Gary England has been broadcasting
to Oklahoma City

for over 35 years.

His job is to warn the half-million
residents of any imminent tornadoes.

Big low pressure
is still to our west.

Gonna cause a few problems tonight
as it comes up over us.

GARY: You know, when I started
a long time ago - 1972 -

I could only warn Henry because
it blew John's house away first.

That was about the size of it,

but through the years,
the technology has come along.

Today, mobile weather radar,
known as doppler,

and a sophisticated
communications network

allow weathermen like Gary to track
tornado-creating thunderstorms

anywhere on the plains.

Yeah, the warnings
are much, much better.

In some cases, you know, we're able
to give 15, 20, 25 minutes warning.

Gary faced the greatest challenge
of his life on May 3, 1999.

That day, his weather radar detected
the most powerful type of tornado -

a giant EF5.

It was bearing down on Oklahoma City.

The state capital
was in extreme danger.

It was a frightening,
frightening thing!

This thing grew,
and it became a mile wide.

At times, it was so large
and unusual,

you couldn't tell it was a tornado,

and it was moving directly toward
a populated area.

As the tornado began tearing apart
the outskirts of the city,

Gary broadcast critical warnings
to residents in its path.

I knew people had to be dying cos
you could see the powerline flashes.

Pow, pow, pow, pow!
It was not a good feeling

There was a strong awareness

that this was something
that we have never seen before.

Wind speeds inside the vortex reached
more than 513km per hour.

It was the most powerful wind
ever recorded on Earth.

In just 15 minutes,
the tornado killed 44 people,

and left 10,000 residents homeless.

But without Gary's live broadcasts,

the death toll would probably
have been much higher.

MAN: A severe thunderstorm warning
has been issued

until 4:15pm Central Daylight Time
for Thursday evening.

Hourly weather updates
have become a lifeline

for people living in harm's way.

If any potential
tornado-producing systems

approach the metropolitan area,

the network sends out its team
of storm trackers.

Veteran tracker Val Castor
is on the road.

MAN: Gary, yes,

we are a quarter of a mile
away from the tornado.

It is moving north-north-east.

This thing is gonna pass, Gary,

probably a couple of miles
west of Arnett.

I've seen tornadoes
as close as 100 yards or less,

actually in the flying debris.

Now, keep in mind,
that's not by design, OK?

The most recent addition to the team
is pilot-reporter Mason Dunn.

Yeah, Gary, we're in the location.

We're right under the thunderstorm,
looking at the wall of cloud.

The trackers follow and report
on incoming weather.

They are the eyes and ears
of the city.

Val, can you hear me?
VAL, ON RADIO: Go ahead, Gary.

Tell me what you have.

We're just a few miles north
of Shawnee right now,

and we're sitting here watching
as three separate storms go up.

Yeah, I see that too.

Mason, what's your location?
What do you have there?

OK, Gary, right now we're
right next to the whirl cloud.

It is starting
to rotate quite a bit.

All right, stand by.
We'll go live momentarily.

In the wake
of the '99 killer tornado,

residents of Oklahoma City learned to
take weather warnings more seriously.

Proof of that new awareness
came in 2004.

Gary and his team found themselves
tracking another violent twister

in exactly the same part of town.

This time,
the tornado destroyed 4,000 homes.

At first it seemed like a horrifying
re-run of the 1999 tragedy.

But despite this monster's
incredible power,

there was one major difference.

This time, residents tuned in
to the live broadcasts

and listened to the warnings.

Incredibly, there wasn't
a single fatality.

It's a testament to the importance
of forecasting

for towns all across Tornado Alley.

(WOMAN CRIES OUT)

MAN: Get up under the girders!

If you know what to do when a twister
bears down on your home,

it could mean the difference
between life and death.

*

*

MAN: Get up under the girders!

MAN: Is that where we want to go?
Yes!

NARRATOR: It's a nightmare
situation -

caught out in the open with a tornado
heading directly towards you.

These people scrambled
under a bridge for shelter -

a potentially fatal mistake.

The bridge acted
like a giant wind tunnel.

Just hang on! You'll be fine.

Hang onto the girder.

WOMAN: Arggh!

It's fine. We're OK.
You're OK.

You're all right. You're OK.
You're OK. Talk to me.

You're OK! Talk to me.
What happened?

It sounded like a freight train.
It just passed right on top of us.

Survival inside the swirling
wind tunnel of a tornado

is a matter of luck.

But there are ways to improve
your odds if you know what to do.

Back in Picher, Oklahoma,

a week after the most deadly tornado
to strike the state this decade...

...wind engineer Tim Marshall
is picking through

the astonishing aftermath
of the twister.

The shiny stuff that we see here,

this is a roof
from a manufactured home.

All I'm finding
are bits and pieces of houses.

Down here, I've got a piece
of roof shingle.

Up here, I've got a carpet pad.

This actually goes underneath
the carpeting.

Over here, this is a piece
of wood fibreboard.

It goes behind the siding.

The tornado acted
like a huge blender,

churning up the town and throwing
pieces out in all directions!

In several locations,

the twister reached an EF4
on the Enhanced Fujita Scale,

with winds of more
than 290km per hour.

Well, if I was standing here
at the time the tornado occurred,

I would probably have been killed.

Probably couldn't see more

than a couple of feet visibility
in that tornado

because of all the debris
that's flying around,

and that's what it kind of
feeds on itself.

As it hits one house, and then
another and then another,

you get more and more debris.

So, it churns it up, like a blender,

and it ends up shredding
everything in its path.

There's an average of 62 tornado
fatalities in the US every year.

Nearly all are due
to flying debris like this.

Unless you live
in a concrete bunker...

...your home won't protect you.

Many of the buildings in Picher
were generations old.

When the tornado struck,

they provided no effective shelter
for their residents.

What I'm looking at today
is houses that are gone.

There's no safety in these houses,

and I see this time and time again,
where homes just simply blow away.

Of the residents in Picher
who survived,

almost all did so
by following one golden rule.

Well, if you live
in a standard house

that's bolted down
to the foundation,

you want to put as many walls
between you and outside as possible,

so get into an interior bathroom.

The bathroom is a better place to be

because you have more plumbing
in the walls to hold down -

more anchoring to the foundation,
and that's the best place to be.

Seeking shelter in their bath
was the only thing

that saved residents Tom and Gloria
Workman from certain death.

As the tornado struck,
they could only watch in terror

as their house,
made of wood and drywall,

disintegrated around them.

The tub used to sit right here.

TOM: Yeah, right there.
This is where the tub...

It was sitting there,
and when I came in,

you could hear the house
starting to go.

Glass was coming through the front.

Things started hitting, spinning,

and it got extremely dark
and my ears was popping,

and as I was laying there,
something hit me on the back

and it just felt like
it pushed me down.

This wall above my head
just went out,

and it was rock and grey,
and it was nasty,

and everything
was just flying around.

And I got down as low as I could
in the very bottom of the tub,

and then I felt Tom being lifted
and then I looked.

I opened my eyes again
because I'm screaming,

because I really didn't think
we were going to make it.

And then the wall just kind of
lifted off of me,

and I could stand up
and I looked round.

I said, 'Gosh, it's all gone.'

Tom and Gloria miraculously survived
because they did the right thing -

using their bathtub
as their bomb shelter.

But their hometown
was razed to the ground.

The recovery process following any
tornado is a slow and difficult one.

But when a town is hit by the most
destructive type of tornado, an EF5,

it changes the community forever.

MAN: Come on, man.
We need to go now.

MAN: The house, the house!
Oh, it's gone!

Oh, my God! I hope they're OK!

Please be OK!

The initial destruction
tornadoes leave behind

is both physically
and emotionally devastating.

The wounds tornadoes inflict
on people's lives

take a long time to heal.

Greensburg, Kansas.

On the night of May 4, 2007,

this rural town
suffered the full force

of the most violent type of tornado,
an EF5.

It's only the second time in history
that a twister this powerful

has hit an inhabited area.

Worse still,

this tornado was only moving across
the landscape at 30km per hour.

Once the vortex was over Greensburg,

it took a full 20 minutes
for it to move on.

(WIND ROARS)

95% of all buildings were destroyed.

11 people lost their lives,
and 400 families were left homeless.

A full year since the tornado struck,

the town that Sheriff Kevin Smith
patrols is still unrecognisable.

Most residents have not returned.

Greensburg is like a ghost town.

You can see, like, right here where
there's this hole in the ground,

there used to be a house
with a basement there.

That over there
used to be the city's shop,

but you can see where
it's been pretty much demolished.

All along here were people's houses.

Of course, the night of the tornado,
everything was out in the street.

You couldn't hardly
get down the streets.

Brand-new vehicles, homes -
everything was just everywhere.

The destruction residents witnessed
was the worst scene in a decade.

I've seen the power of a tornado
do things

that I didn't think were possible.

You know, things like a semi truck
wrapped around a telephone pole,

and you know, this house destroyed
but the one next to it's, you know,

just the windows
are broke out of it.

It's so chaotic that it's almost
like putting a town in a box

and shaking it up
and dumping it out.

Driving around Greensburg
a year later,

it's clear the town
will never be the same again.

Despite all the broken glass
and rubble,

the most significant damage

has been inflicted
on the residents themselves.

You know, some of these things, like
your home when you're living in it,

you feel pretty safe,

but when something
like this comes along

and it takes that from you,
it's hard to get it back.

You know, cos when you're at home,

there's where you feel
your most safe and secure.

The tragic chain of events that
unfolded the night of the tornado

changed Greensburg forever.

In moments, Mother Nature all but
wiped the town off the map.

When violent tornadoes hit,
people lose everything they have -

cars, houses, loved ones.

MAN: Oh, God! Look at the funnel!
WOMAN: He's gonna be in the middle!

MAN: Oh, my God! Mayday!

MAN: This is a huge tornado.
Take shelter now.

MAN: Shut the door!

itfc subtitles

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