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The Man Who Caught the Storm
The Life of Legendary Tornado Chaser Tim Samaras
1 of 1 copy available
At the turn of the twenty-first century, the tornado was one of the last true mysteries of the modern world. It was a monster that ravaged the American heartland a thousand times each year, yet science's every effort to divine its inner workings had ended in failure. Researchers all but gave up, until the arrival of an outsider.
In a field of PhDs, Tim Samaras didn't attend a day of college in his life. He chased storms with brilliant tools of his own invention and pushed closer to the tornado than anyone else ever dared. When he achieved what meteorologists had deemed impossible, it was as if he had snatched the fire of the gods. Yet even as he transformed the field, Samaras kept on pushing. As his ambitions grew, so did the risks. And when he finally met his match—in a faceoff against the largest tornado ever recorded—it upended everything he thought he knew.
Brantley Hargrove delivers a "cinematically thrilling and scientifically wonky" (Outside) tale, chronicling the life of Tim Samaras in all its triumph and tragedy. Hargrove takes readers inside the thrill of the chase, the captivating science of tornadoes, and the remarkable character of a man who walked the line between life and death in pursuit of knowledge. The Man Who Caught the Storm is an "adrenaline rush of a tornado chase...Readers from all across the spectrum will enjoy this" (Library Journal, starred review) unforgettable exploration of obsession and the extremes of the natural world.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
April 3, 2018 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9781508255352
- File size: 249426 KB
- Duration: 08:39:38
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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Given the drama at the center of this compelling story, Jacques Roy's languid narration is incongruous. Tim Samaris, a self-taught engineer and storm chaser, was never more comfortable than when he was in pursuit of a tornado. But even when being followed by Discovery Channel cameras, he was no daredevil, and he was even more cautious when traveling with his son, Paul, a talented videographer. That's why the weather community was shocked by the tragedy that took their lives (and one other) in a 2013 Oklahoma twister. While Roy's matter-of-fact delivery reduces the impact of the author's well-written accounts of the storm chasers' adventures, it works well in the technical and historical sections of this audiobook. D.B. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine -
January 22, 2018
In this insightful biography, journalist Hargrove charts the interests and achievements of tornado chaser Tim Samaras, who died in a tornado with his 24-year-old son in 2013. Readers familiar with Discovery Channel’s Storm Chasers will be familiar with Samaras, and with help from Samaras’s family, friends, and colleagues, Hargrove paints a complete picture of the engineer while providing lessons on the science behind tornadoes—“one of the most awesome expressions of force in the natural world.” As a boy in 1960s Colorado, Samaras was fascinated with The Wizard of Oz: “He couldn’t take his eyes off the tornado as it roped over the fields toward Dorothy and Toto.” Samaras would grow up to track tornados alongside older, more practiced scientists and meteorologists. Eventually, he chased tornadoes throughout the Midwest and Southwest. Hargrove describes the camaraderie that storm chasers can build over time, the “intimate proximity” that develops when “chasing across states with the same group in the same vehicle.” Hargrove not only skillfully presents Samaras’s life story but also the collective story of a storm-chasing subculture.
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