KANSAS CITY, Mo. — It's not too often someone has a "first" in a well-established career, but Jimmy Barham, now the Meteorologist in Charge at the Center Weather Service Unit in Houston, will never forget his very first tornado warning issued on May 28, 2019.
The tornado that hit Linwood, Kansas along with Smithville and Kearney, Missouri.
"My first warning was just barely into Leavenworth County because I grabbed it way south of Linwood," Barham remembers. "I wanted to give as much warning time as possible when it moved into our area."
Barham was the radar operator that day, but was also backed up by a team of meteorologists to help evaluate, communicate and spread the word of this dangerous storm.
"We were working as a team," Barham said. "I think there were 10 meteorologists in the office. That was the most people I've ever seen in our office for one event."
Pretty quickly, the Tornado Warning turned into a Tornado Emergency - the first ever issued for the Kansas City area. A Tornado Emergency was first created on May 3, 1999 when a powerful tornado flattened homes near Oklahoma city. While rare, it emphasizes the extreme danger heading straight for populated area.
"We wanted to be very aggressive with that messaging," Barham said. "Seeing what it was doing in Kansas as it was coming in, I pulled the trigger to issue the first Tornado Emergency, which was actually my first ever tornado warning."
Meteorologists can't expect their first ever tornado warning to be a historic tornado emergency, but considering the high-stakes moment, Barham never wavered.
"We train for these events with the Weather Service for this exact particular event," Barham said. "We've always trained for the worst-case scenario and this was the worst-case scenario. I went through and practiced the tornado emergency procedures on the equipment before the event even started. Just knowing I need to make sure I have that down in case I go that route."
The quick action to initiate that type of warning and extreme messaging paid off.
"Every single person got the warning," Barham said. "That's so rare. Everyone was in shelter that needed to be!"
Others joined Barham in helping navigate the storm.
As the warning coordination meteorologist of the National Weather Service's office in Pleasant Hill, Andy Bailey orchestrated everyone's roles that day.
While two radar operators analyzed each radar scan, the other meteorologists in the room helped with communication on social media and relaying information to the media and emergency managers.
"It gets pretty intense - organized chaos but there's a lot of disciplined communications going on just to help with the warning process," Barham said.
Jimmy's story is a good reminder of how preparation saves lives and Bailey wants everyone to remember that.
"People need to take the time to prepare now. It takes a very small amount of effort and time to make sure your shelter is ready to go, have you piled a bunch of boxes in there since last year. Does your family and coworkers know where to seek shelter? How you're going to get the warnings. How you're going to communicate if a disaster hits and afterwards to check on everybody's well-being," Barham said.
"Take the time to prepare now. You'll be so much better off when the warnings are issued."
