Across the country, many mourn the loss of three storm chasers that were killed in a car crash Tuesday evening in Dickens County, west of Spur. 

“It hit the community hard, it really did,” Cassville, MO Resident Janice Varner said. “It’s going to be a big loss.”

The Department of Public Safety reported that 57-year-old Kelley Williamson was driving his black suburban with 55-year-old Randall Yarnell north on FM 1081 at about 3:30 Tuesday afternoon. Both are confirmed storm trackers with the Weather Channel.

When approaching an intersection, officials said Williamson failed to stop at a stop sign and hit 25-year-old Corbin Jaeger driving a black jeep traveling west, also a storm chaser from Peoria, AZ.

DPS said Williamson was the only person not wearing a seatbelt at the time and was ejected from the vehicle.

They added that all men were pronounced dead on scene. 

“How tragic it was because they’re both very nice people, outstanding in the neighborhood communities and everything, and it is such a tragic, such a tragic,” Varner said. 

“When they started becoming storm wranglers worldwide, they tell stories of people and getting emails from Brazil and all over,” Cassville, MO Resident Stu Crowe said. “Being out on the road and people would chase them down if they knew there was a storm around.”
 
Now local forecasters described their deaths as a loss in the weather community.
 
“We were sad here at the weather office, we’re all a weather community,” National Weather Service’s Jodey James said. “We all work together with law enforcement and public safety service and weather service or spotters or chasers, we all have the same goal in mind during severe weather and keep the public safe.”
 
James added that storm spotters and storm chasers help keep the public safe by being the eyes and ears on the ground in the midst of a storm.
 
“We balance the technology we have here with satellite and radar which is good but it’s remote sensing,” James said. “It’s not right there beneath the storms, the wall cloud, the tornado. So we need those eyes on the ground to be the spotters or chasers to relay the information back so then we can then in turn get the information out to the media and the public.”