So you get this ridiculous scene where, as you gaze upon the terrible spectacle of Mother Nature's fury, you're surrounded by cars beeping, chasers swearing at each other, new chasers panicking and blocking the road, etc. And, as you can imagine, when you double a town's population with nutjobs hunting the murderwinds, odds go up that something bad will happen. Recklessness feeds off recklessness as people compete for the best shots. One time, a new chaser rolled his vehicle in the middle of the road, blocking everyone in the path of the oncoming tornado, until someone got the kid out of the way just before he kicked off his own gritty Wizard of Oz reboot.

During another storm in Kansas, almost 250 cars pulled into a chase (I counted), and since it was rain wrapped, the only people who could go in close for good footage was Reed Timmer's TV show crew, as they had their special armored vehicles that can punch through a tornado and usually have a good chance of survival. But keep in mind that even with their fancy, specialized gear, if their vehicles had rolled and hit a power line, they'd still be screwed.

Mobility is the only thing keeping you alive, so you always need to know A) your escape route at any given moment and B) that your vehicle absolutely is going to work. You need backups of everything -- wheels, equipment, even vehicles. Remember, the worst case scenario isn't just "you die" -- it's "You die and your car becomes a two-ton cannonball hurtled toward some innocent person or house." So, yeah, you remember to check your oil.

First, half a mile away is seen as the general safe distance -- the distance where, upon seeing it coming right for you, you can hop into your car and drive screaming in the other direction. But you do have to get that close in my line of work -- the best shots are the ones unobscured by rain and mist, so the less that's between you and the funnel cloud, the better. At a quarter mile out, however, you need to be really insane and/or you really need to know what you're doing. Any closer than that, and you're depending on blind luck -- remember, a tornado can change direction at any moment. You're just wrapping your head in bacon and sticking it into the lion's mouth at that point.

Second, you follow the tornado. Meaning, you make sure you're on the ass end of it as it's heading away from you, and that you damned well know how to tell the difference. If it's heading toward us and we are within that half-mile radius, we turn the other way.

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"I think that's about half a mile. Go get the surveyor's wheel."

Third, make sure there is someone nearby to rescue your ass if you get bogged down. The more experienced people have "buddies" who will always help them out in a jam. I have a few out there, and we have saved each other a few times. (Note: It doesn't matter how careful you are, there are lots of ways to get in trouble when you're stalking a force of nature that can shred a brick building.) Sure, there is an unspoken rule among us storm chasers that if anyone is in trouble, we do our best to get them out -- but in a life-or-death situation, don't let the kindness of strangers be your backup plan.

Because if there's one thing we've found out ...

If I'm making this all sound like harmless, thrill-seeking fun, keep in mind that just last year famed chaser Tim Samaras and his crew were trapped in a tornado they didn't realize had turned their way. Then, in the same storm, an amateur chaser had video of himself saying, "Look where I'm at!" like he was taking a selfie, only for him to die later on in the storm. But tragic deaths from the tornadoes themselves are actually quite rare for storm chasers.

So what are we scared of? Hail, for one thing.

Go figure.

In a storm like this, baseball-size hail will start raining down for, like, no reason. We're talking half-pound rock-hard balls soaring at unprotected heads and windshields at terminal velocity. Try driving with baseballs hitting you in the face, glass everywhere and water streaming in through your exposed cabin. It can go from rice size to marble size to baseball size in a matter of minutes and take out everything in sight. In 2006, 27 people died during a few days of hailstorms in the Midwest. And in places like Bangladesh, over 100 people have been killed during a single storm.

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Things can get out of hand fast.

But it's not just hail that is dangerous: Lightning is a huge danger as well. Chasers have been struck by lighting and permanently disabled as a result. It just comes out of nowhere. For you the odds of being struck are 1 in 700,000, but if you're going to dozens of storms a year, with hundreds of people? The odds start to look better for sweet lady lightning.

Another big danger? Dirt roads, especially those in Kansas and Nebraska. Dirt plus water equals muddy and greasy conditions. Roads even wash out. One time while chasing a tornado in Plainview, Texas, the road quite suddenly became a half-foot-high river and damn near swept my car away. You might not think of drowning as a major tornado risk, but it absolutely is. Tornadoes are Mother Nature's whirling Swiss army knife. They're just full of ways to kill you.