Home page for Douglas Kiesling

From the old site…

So, its been a while since I have updated this page.  Been busy and the architect of this page is so out dated from what the vision was to be that I’m working on a major overhaul and archive of this site before I launch the new site that will focus more on the photography and video work, not the story and blogs so much. 

So what is up?  I love it when people say I don’t chase anymore…  I just don’t chase garbage storms.  Here is a still image from the video of me after I drove through the eastern right front quadrant of Category Five Hurricane Michael from Mexico Beach, FL as the storm surge was coming in and the winds were raging.

Here is the image that I’m calling Stadium Of The Gods. 

Like I said the setup of this page sucks, I can’t even embed Youtube videos so I will be burning it down and starting over. 

Here is a quick video recap of what I saw during the storm.

https://youtu.be/Aa-kYEIi0E0

Here is a quick recap of the damage I saw while the storm was still raging but the storm surge had gone down enough to get back into Mexico Beach.

The most dangerous winter weather on the road is always the one that does not seem like that much, until it turns to ice. B-Roll footage of the snow storm that impacted central Minnesota this evening causing slick roads and dozens of accidents around Stearns County, Minnesota.
Shot Description

Clip 1 Road turned from dry pavement to glare ice without warning and we ended up going for a ride. Note camera time on screen is east coast time. Luckily the truck is built for off roading.

Clip 2 – 4 Snow plow on Interstate 94.

Clip 5 – 6 Vehicle in the ditch on Interstate 94.

Clip 7 Blinding snow on Interstate 94 in traffic.

Clip 8 – 12 Police and State Patrol responding to a crash off of highway 15.

Clip 13 Van that crashed on Interstate 94.

Clip 14 – 15 Snow plow on Highway 23.

Clip 16 Traffic in heavy snow.

Clip 17 Snow Plow Passing Shot.

Clip 18 – 19 Driving in the falling snow.

Clip 20 Passing wreck and snow plow blocking the wrecker on interstate 94.

A quick moving winter system dropped a couple inches of snow that made Interstate 35 and the surrounding roads around Lakeville, MN in Dakota County extremely slippery that led to numerous accidents.
Shot Description

Clip 1 Driving in slippery conditions with falling snow.

Clip 2 – 4 Crash on a bridge over Interstate 35.

Clip 5 Car way off in the road in a ditch.

Clip 6 – 7 Car in the ditch with a sheriff deputy on the scene.

Clip 8 – 10 Car way off the road and impacted into the side of a ditch.

Clip 11 Passing a snow plow shot reverse POV.

Clip 12 Snow plow POV.

Clip 13 Snow plow POV.

Clip 14 Driving in snow covered roads.

Clip 15 Snow plow POV.

Clip 16 Tight shot of the snow plow blade.

Clip 17 Snow plow POV.

Crews battled a wild fire that burned several hundred acres on the east side of Saint Cloud, MN. Crews from Saint Cloud, Saint Augusta, Waite Park, Sauk Rapids and Sartell Minnesota along with the MN DNR helped battle the blaze as winds in the area gusted to over 30mph as the large fire approached the area just south of the Saint Cloud State Prison. 

Although several hundred acres have burned up, only one structure was destroyed due to the fire and no injuries reported. 

Weather Conditions at the time of the fire were 67F with a Relative Humidity of only 22% which is extremely rare for Minnesota.

Shot Description
Clip 1 Saint Cloud Fire Truck on the scene

Clip 2 Tight shot of the fire burning out of control

Clip 3 Medium shot of the fire burning out of control

Clip 4 Wide shot of the fire burning out of control

Clip 5 Medium shot of the fire burning out of control

Clip 6 – 7 Crews pull up to the scene to battle the fire in the field

Clip 8 Fire Fighter putting out an area that flared back up

Clip 9 Tight shot of the flamed in the field burning out of control 

Clip 10 – 11 Medium shot of the fire burning out of control

Clip 12 Crews working the field to put out the4 back end hot spots 

Clip 13 Crews working the fire line

Clip 14 Fire moving in the distance

Clip 15 Tracked ATV and fire crews moving through the field to get to a hot spot

Clip 16 – 17 Saint Cloud fire crews watching the area burning and repositioning

Clip 18 Wide shot of the fire with crews in the field fighting the fire

Clip 19 Medium shot of crews fighting the fire in the field

Clip 20 Fire burning uncontrolled in another part of the field

Clip 21 Sauk Rapids crews helping to battle the wild fire

Clip 22 Crews working on hot spots

Clip 23 Police blocking MN 301 on the north side of the fire near Saint Cloud State Prison

Clip 24 After the fire was out, MN DNR crews were inspecting the scene for any hot spots

Clip 25 – 27 B-Roll of the building the caught on fire from the wild fire. The brick walls were fine the but roof on the south side was destroyed in the fire

Clip 28 – 29 B-Roll of Saint Cloud Fire Trucks on the scene

Back on line.  Not much to really say, lots of stuff going on behind the scenes with work and family but trying to post more on my page instead of Facebook.

Just got done with covering the winter storm here in Saint Cloud.  Most of the day the temps were right at freezing so we were dealing with freezing rain more then snow until just about at sunset.   Around six at night the snow started to fall and within a few hours, it was over but the damage was done with the underlying freezing rain under the snow.

In the next month or so, I will be redoing the whole website to make it easier for me to update on the fly along with the day job.

Winter is back, remember the ditches are for snowmobiles, not your SUV.  Be careful out there driving and always make sure you have good tires on your vehicle. Yes I am still around, I have been just extremely busy with behind the scenes work for StormChasingVideo.com so I don’t get much time to update this site.  

Once the SCV site is fully updated, I’m going to direct my attention to this site.

Hey folks, been a while since I have updated the blog.  Lot’s of cool new business stuff to talk about with the storm chasing and my take on ChaserCon this year along with surviving my first year as Daddy.

So let’s dive in the deep end first, ChaserCon.  I’ll say it since most won’t.  It was not the ChaserCon of the past when Tim was alive.  ChaserCon started as a party to hang out and get to know other chasers and watch each others videos and trade idea’s.

This was the party where afterwards, Kathy told Tim he needed to move the party out of the house as we kind of trashed the carpets and bathrooms and kept the kids up all night.  Along with someone (me) leaving a bunch of used C41 photo chemical in Tim’s dark room in the basement as I showed this really young kid (Tony Laubach) how to develop Color Negative Film (C-41) by hand to save money on photo processing.

Back in the prime of the Chaser Party which is now ChaseCon or Chaser Convention, the video night, which was Tim’s favorite part of the party, lasted well into the early mornings as everyone was eager to show off their latest and greatest catches.  In 2005, I even put up a large cash prize for video night in order to get people to really put in some major production effort into their videos to entertain everyone and had the crowd vote on the best videos.  This year, the video night lasted barely an hour if that and nobody really cared from what I could tell since they were finally able to meet with the vendors.

There was some positive from ChaserCon this year.  Finally there was a decent meal for everyone as it was a buffet style meal that was edible and not the rubber chicken as in so many years in the past.  The key note speaker, Jon Davies, was very interesting to hear the back story of his broadcasting career.

Now this year really did feel a lot more disorganized then in the years past.  Even the schedule for the convention was full of typos and timing issues.  Worst of all I felt bad for all the vendors and the total cluster fuck of the schedule for the vendors.   From the time ChaserCon or The Colorado Chaser Party started getting bigger to where they past the point of several hundred people attending, the vendors were located in a separate area.  This was bad for the vendors that wanted to hear some of the talks but at the same time it was great as it gave everyone a place to get out of the main room where people were speaking and go talk to the vendors or talk to other people without disturbing everyone.

The vendor area was also a place where on the Friday Night or opening of the Chaser Party, people would check out all the vendors and mingle and spend money with the vendors.  This was the time when the vendors did about half of their sales for the weekend.  The other half of the prime time for the vendors was before the banquet dinner before the key note speaker.  Everyone would get cleared out of the main area while the hotel would prep it for dinner. So everyone would go to the bar and or go to the vendor area and check out the latest stuff if they did not get a chance to the night before.  This year, with the vendors being in the same room as the banquet, it said right on the schedule, time to meet with vendors before dinner.  Well how the hell are you going to meet with the vendors if everyone including the vendors are asked to leave the main room?  

ChaserCon or Chaser Party is still a decent way to meet people within the chasing community.  There just needs more attention to detail for the vendors that pay a lot of money to come to try and make a profit or at least break even.  Is the Chaser Party over?  Doubt it for now since it still has a purpose.  I personally made a lot of connections over the years just from this event.  This year was no different as I met a lot of new talented people that we will be working with this spring in new areas of the country who have a lot of great ideas and information from their backgrounds.  

Chasercon is not CES or Consumer Electronics Show, not even close.  For the 20th Aniversery of the Colorado Chaser Party at Tim’s House, ChaserCon need’s to get back to its roots if it is to make it several more years.  More on the latest and greatest forecasting and WTF was that talks during the event on certain subjects, leave Friday Night the party opening meet and hang out night with everyone at the bar or in the vendor area and move the Skywarn & forecasting classes to Sunday afternoon after ChaserCon for those who are interested in them.  They would make money just sponsoring it with one of the local broadcasters that could hype the whole thing up during the weekend to come on down after ChaserCon for a free forecasting and skywarn training.

Don’t take this as a complete downer on ChaserCon, it is a great way to see old friends and meet new friends which was one of the main reasons Tim started this whole thing in the first place almost 20 years ago.  I met a lot of great people this year so the face time meeting people you have only heard about on Facebook or on TV was always one of the reasons that is a positive to ChaserCon.  Roger just needs to get back to the root of the Colorado Chaser Party.  After all, if it was not for the Colorado Chaser Party, I would have never met Tony, Rocky, Mike H, Phillip, Eric, Brad, Roger and everyone else that fateful day.

What else is happening, as always with my company, family comes first before chasing for myself and for my stringers.  If any of them tell me that they are going to be out due to work or family and not chasing, totally understandable as there will always be more storms.  So this year I had to cut short the trip to Colorado to be home for my daughters first birthday.  It was great getting a lot of both sides of the family together for a fun time. 

While we did a Cake Smash for Laura on her birthday for friends and family, Neva wanted to do it with a back drop for a photo shot.  She researched the scene look, got all the props for it ready and a second cake for Laura to smash for the photo shoot.  The only part that made me nervous was the fact that Larua did not know what to do about the flame on the candle and tried to touch it at first where mom had to blow it out before she could touch it.

An hour of prep, 15 minutes of photos turned into an evening of clean up but the photos turned out amazing.  Yes I still can’t believe I’m someones Daddy.

Ok people, I’m kind of getting sick of this and would like to get cleaned up now as I have frosting on my hands and feet and up the nose and in my hair.  I’m done now until next year.

So stay tuned to our Youtube Channel, www.youtube.com/bnvn1 We have a lot of new stuff coming out in the next few weeks and month that is going to be just amazing as chase season gets underway for 2017.

On September 2nd, 2008 I wrapped up with filming for the show project called Tornado Road that was produced by Original Productions.  The same Original Productions out of Los Angeles that produces Ice Road Truckers and Deadliest Catch. 

I just heard from Neva’s brother tonight that it is STILL on The Weather Channel. 

This show we filmed in 2008, that was reported by some in the chaser community to be so bad before it ever aired, that they heard it was never going to be broadcasted.  One chaser even went so far as to post on his blog in March of 2009,  “On an amusing note, the much heralded show on NBC called “Tornado Road” has been officially cancelled…..not surprsingly.”  I left the miss spelling of “surprsingly” in since that is how it is on his website.

Too funny when I think back about it because in March of 2009, a full “SIX MONTH” before the first scheduled air date in October of 2009, the rumors were flying and nobody within the show would say anything about it.  Well Beau did tell a few people some things and violated his non disclosure and had other local chasers asking me about it and I could not confirm or deny anything, even to Neva or my own parents.

I think what drove people in the chasing community insane was the fact that nobody was talking about it and I knew a lot about what was happening behind the scenes, see my blog from October of 2008 https://www.weatherpaparazzi.com/content/back-home-and-time-get-back-work that talked about my follow up visit to the production company.

What nobody knew at the time outside of the production company and the cast and crew was that we, the cast, had a Million Dollar per incident STFU clause in our contracts to not say anything before the show aired since it was a reality show.  With fear of NBC Universal and The Weather Channel along with the production company slamming us with a million dollar fine if we said anything, a lot of us just kept our mouths shut which made some in the storm chasing community go insane because they just had to know.  When they did not know anything, they just made shit up. 

So now fast forward to December of 2016, the single season is still on the air.  Slightly edited since someone did not like how they were portrayed and cried about how they looked bad on TV.  Guess they did not realize the camera does not lie. 

So here is some behind the scenes info for you if you are new to my blog or you have known me in the chasing world for a long time but don’t really know me. 

For starters, I was not even in the running or considered for the show to start.  Tony Laubach was just signed on that spring for Storm Chasers with Tim Samaras and Twistex when he got an email asking him if he was interested in being part of the show.  Since it was produced by the same company that also was behind the show Twister Sisters with Mel and Peggy and Tony was also part of that show from the year before, his name was on their short list of those to call.

When I got the email from Tony, I was not sure about if I wanted to even do the show.  Since I’m more of a Run and Gun news shooter, I really did not want to be bogged down with a TV show.  As for people saying they were in the running to be on the show and were making plans to be on the show, um, okay, the show was brought into conception and production within 7 days.  Yes, Seven Days!!!  So I call BULL SHIT on others saying they were suppose to be part of the show.

So without even having contracts signed and learning that my chase partner who I wanted to be on the show with me could not since Chris Collura just got a day job.  Unfortunately without having someone I could trust with the forecasting and chasing since Chris just took a full time job,  the producers decided it would be fun if they were to partner me up with someone that I did not know.

Originally I was suppose to be partnered up with someone that just graduated college in Meteorology but never chased storms before.  I thought this could be interesting.  Neva did not like it since they said it was a female and she was not too happy with the idea of me hanging out with some unknown woman for a few weeks on the road.  Well, that plan did not work and whomever they were, I was told they got a job offer and could not do the show.  So the producers got an idea to get a friend of a friend of theirs to go chasing with me who had ZERO forecasting knowledge, could not tell a Wall Cloud from Altostratus Clouds.

So I flew to Denver on June 3rd, 2008 and had no idea what I was getting into but just knew I was going to make the best of the unknown. 

A little known fact that on the day that we were suppose to leave Denver on June 4th, I was like a caged animal freaking the funk out because there were storms firing up a couple hours to our east and the next day was a High Risk day, See Blog but the production did not have insurance and we were on hold.   Did I say they put this whole thing together in 7 days?   Yes so I was taking a crew out that has never chased before and was late out of the gate the night before entering into a high risk forecast and we were already running late.

Was everything on the show real?  Yeah for the most part but they moved few things around so the time line of events was not as it happened for some of the storm chases.

And the big question, what about Phil?  I had no clue about him before the show and have not heard from him since the show.   As you could guess from watching the show, we did not get along.  That was real and there are a lot of things that happened behind the scenes that just made me say WTF, why is he here, why am I even here.

The plan was for me to be out for no more then two weeks for this production as I had a scuba diving trip at in early July planned and their was no way in hell I was blowing it off. On top of that, I was also planning on moving to Saint Cloud to be closer to Neva.  I end up spending a month on the road with him and to be nice, if you plan on spending any time on the road with someone, make sure it is someone that you get along with. 

Did he really cost me some great storms?  Well, if you saw the show where I was waiting at 9am to roll out and we did not leave until noon because he was doing Yoga?  Yes that really happened but it was on the third day out and we were in Kansas City with a target of Mason City, Iowa.  So you could imagine how pissed off I was when the tornado reports started to come in as we were only near the Iowa and Missouri boarder.  Click here to see the SPC storm reports for the day. All of the red dots are tornado reports and we were 3 hour’s too late. 

So that night I was pretty much pissed off that I missed a great event in a great area with the plan to head up to North Dakota the following day but was told we were to start heading back to Des Moines, not north.  So I was pretty much out of control of where and what we could chase.  I did get to make my FU statement that night when we were again told we could not stay in Des Moines and had to go to Omaha.  OMAHA? WTF, I wanted to chase up in North Dakota and was thinking WTF was I doing here and then I remembered they were paying all the fuel, which at the time was $4.00 or more a gallon.  So on the way to Omaha, we actually got separated from our camera crew and producers on the drive over from Des Moines to Omaha, so guess what happened next?

Yes, no camera crews or producers to hold me back and we ended up getting on a tornado.

So yes there really was a tornado intercept on Tornado Road but Phil and I were the only ones to intercept the storm.

The executive field producer and the field producer with our crew were very pissed off.  I was told you wait for us and I just told them the weather waits for nobody so I wait for nobody.  That was the point I knew I really was not getting paid enough and wanted to go home because this was not fun anymore.

I did stick it out and after my expiration date of June 15 came when I was suppose to go home.  I was asked to stay on a few more days.  A few more days became a week and then almost two weeks with my sanity being stressed out to the max and the scuba dive trip rapidly approaching, what you saw on TV was pretty much how it went down except for the little known fact that we were near Douglas, WY and I wanted to drive about an hour and a half south on Interstate 25 and dump him off at the airport in Cheyenne, WY and then continue south to Denver and drop off the truck and fly home.  My plan could have had me home by 10pm that night.  Nope, not going to happen.  I was told that the production company booked his flight out of Rapid City, SD.  You could imagine how pissed off I was getting but kept my cool from wanting to strangle the producers when I was told I had to drive 200 miles on back roads to get Phil to the airport.  So my plan to drive 90 minutes south and say BYE, turned into a 5 hours drive through the back areas of Wyoming and most of the Black Hills National Forest.  Then being told his flight was that afternoon and the time to get there was coming rapidly and then told they rebooked it for later that night, I was saying WTF, why did you not rebook it to freaking Cheyenne like I wanted to in the first place?

It was not until we rolled up to the airport that I saw the camera crews waiting for us.  Well makes sense for a production but still I was like WTF, get me the hell out of here before I lose it.

Well, as you saw on TV, we dropped him off at the airport, the camera crews and producers got their shots for the show but what I was wondering is the airport was pretty much empty and told the crew as I was walking away, see you guys later, you can pick up the truck from my place and get the gear out later.  They told me to wait for them as they dropped Phil off to make sure he got on the flight so they can get an interview with me afterwards.

What happened next was not on TV.  Yes I rolled out and quoted MLK saying FREE AT LAST as I drove off to the sunset but was told to park on the far side of the lot and wait.  I waited and waited and then some of the camera crew got back in the truck and said were booked for a hotel for the night and they wanted to de rig the truck in the morning and then I could take it home.  I was reluctant but said ok since we got rid of Phil. That was when they told me, “oh yeah there are no flights out tonight so he is riding back to the hotel with the other crew, you don’t mind do you?”  So I just drove 5 hours over a 90 minute drive to get rid of this guy that was driving me completely insane for the last month and now they tell me that he was not gone?  I did lose it and told the producers to keep him out of my sight or someone might get hurt and it would be their fault.

Well we got to the hotel and I never saw Phil or heard from him ever again.  One of the producers did come up to me and ask me if anyone told me to do this to make sure it was not staged.  I told him are you fucking insane?  I wanted to dump his ass in Oklahoma when my contract was up, I put up with his antics for an extra two weeks.

I did learn that night as we out for dinner with other crew members that the executive producer was suppose to drive Phil to the airport the next morning.  So I made sure I kept buying him drinks, strong drinks, so he was in no condition to drive him to the airport on time.  It did work and heard from my crew that they were insanely late and Phil missed his flight and had to sit at the airport all day. Bummer lol.

So yes, if you take out the time line of events on the show which were no where near what really happened in regards to what storms we were on during the show other then dumping Phil at the airport and then going on to chase Hurricane Gustav, what you saw on TV was not scripted and really did happen. 

And now the other big question, the Severe Studio guys Ashley and Kelly.  Who?  Yes, Kenny’s real name is Ashley and there is nobody by the name of Kory Hartman, it is a stage name, if you see him out chasing, ask to see if his drivers license, I bet it says Kelly Martinson, because that is what was on his 1099 when he was a stringer for my company for several years.

So why did I get them on the show?  Honestly it was really simple, they sucked at getting footage up on the server and I knew if I did not pick it up from them, it would take all damn night and we would miss any real deadline.  Also since they were only a few miles away from us, I figured it would make for some decent story about what I do as a video broker. But really, if I could get the raw master footage in my hand, I knew I could have it on line hours before Kelly could since he was always slow and half the time the file formats were messed up. 

Plus I missed the tornado that day because again I was delayed by the production crew.  The two days before the Little Sioux Tornado, Phil flew home to Texas as the crew wanted to take a couple day break.  Yes I lost all control of where to go chase and this was the day after the Omaha tornado that we ended back in Minneapolis and I dropped Phil off to fly home and take care of some things and fly back ASAP.  Well I got a call the morning of the Little Sioux tornado that Phil did not make his early morning flight and might not make it back.  I told them after missing the tornadoes in northern Iowa, this train was leaving and I’m chasing with or without them.  So they had Adrian who was the main camera guy for our crew ride down to the target area with me just in case we had to chase solo.  Right as the storms started to fire and were in the middle of initiation, we had to stop chasing and go meet up with the rest of the crew.  Like I always say, seconds equal minutes and minutes equal hours and hours equal days in the news video business.  So the half hour detour to meet up with Phil cost me the storm intercept. 

So after getting the call from Kelly saying he has video and knowing how bad he was at uploading, I just drove over to pick it up from them and give Adrian and the crew something for the story of the chase vs just saying busted again because of delays I can’t deal with. 

The shitty party about helping Ashley and Kelly out was the thousands I made them for the video and getting them on the show, that was their seed money along with their bragging rights to use with Severe Studios to start to compete with my company that had been helping them out for years.  Gee thank’s guys! 

Will they ever do another run of Tornado Road?  Well, they kind of already did, it was called Storm Riders with Simon Brewer and Juston Drake and was on The Weather Channel for several years after Tornado Road was produced.  Tornado Road had another sucker punch to it which is why there are two different versions of the show.  One of the cast members went after NBC and the production company because they did not like how they looked so bad at failing at chasing.  Not to worry, I have a copy of the original broadcasts and they are pretty funny.

Would I ever do another TV show again?  Probably not unless the money was insane and I got production credit and input vs the shitty one time payment I got for the show which was nothing compared to the stock footage sales I made from the show for my Katrina footage.

Personally, I love doing what I’m doing and not having to really answer to anyone except the news producers.  The show was produced when I was 38.  I’m 46 now with a 9 month old baby girl at home. Most of our friends are sending their kids off to college or even having grandchildren. 

Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I would become a parent and I would rather be home to see my child every day instead of being on the road for months on end.  You can take the chaser out of the chase but you can take the chase out of the chaser. I’ll just do it closer to home and help my crew out and unlike others, not directly compete with them unless your in my back yard.  That is another chaser drama story all together that will come out in time but rest assured I don’t own any $300 Gucci Slippers while not paying my crew or even telling them what their owed.

What a insane end of summer.   Let’s see what fall brings.  First off, crack book (facebook) kind of took over again as the social media outlet and my personal page got kicked to the back burner.  So much has been happening here and I have been keeping busy with StormChasingVideo.com and with Laura. 

Hard to imagine that she is now seven months old and starting to talk and hold her self up. Seems like yesterday I cut the cord and held her hand for the first time.

Yes what a crazy whirlwind of a summer.  Last weekend was a new first for me.  I ended up covering the terrorist attack at the local mall.  Crazy since it happened less then a mile from home.  I have been keeping extremely busy with the weather but what else is new. 

Another reason that thing’s are just a little crazy here as I ended up moving the office this summer to a larger location with a dedicated studio room.  Just a stop until the new house is built next year.