By Aaron Wright Gray
The Norman Transcript
NORMAN — Bison Witches Bar and Deli in Norman will make its television debut this fall.
The restaurant was selected to be used in promotional filming for a Discovery Channel series based on the adventures of three Norman storm chasers.
“We wanted an authentic setting and this was perfect,” Matt Katzive, producer of the promotional spots, said Wednesday, after eating lunch at Bison Witches. Katzive explained that the three Norman storm chasers often stopped at side-of-the-road diners while out on the job. They wanted to find a place that looked like the type of places the storm chasers frequented.
Filming began Wednesday and continues today in various places in the Norman area.
“Storm chasing is addictive,” Joel Taylor, one of the Norman storm chasers, said. Taylor and his two coworkers, Reed Timmer and Chris Chittick, sat in a booth at Bison Witches after a lunch of sandwiches and chips to answer questions about their career of choice.
“We’ll be 90 years old and still driving The Dominator around,” Timmer said, pointing to the scientific-looking brown vehicle parked outside the restaurant.
The Dominator is the vehicle the three use when out on a chase. The bullet-resistant vehicle is equipped with a hydraulic system designed to keep the car on the ground, despite the high winds of tornadoes. The Dominator also contains research equipment the men need to perform their jobs. It also serves as Timmer’s personal vehicle, the one he can be seen in buying groceries around Norman.
Chittick, Taylor and Timmer are about to launch their fourth season of the show this fall.
“We’ve chased storms for the past 12 years,” Timmer said. The three would post videos to their site tornadovideos.net. Discovery Channel discovered them and asked them to create a show.
Over their years together, Timmer said they have easily seen more than 200 tornadoes and have been inside seven or eight twisters. When out on the road, the storm chasers take every opportunities presented to them to talk to people about storm safety. They also assist those around by calling in warnings to 911, which disseminates the information to the proper channels.
When tornado season passes, the three storm chasers head across the world seeking other extreme weather conditions such as hurricanes.
The extreme weather conditions the three men work in sometimes lead to close calls, especially this year, said Timmer, who noted that this year’s tornadoes were very strong. Partially, the close calls are the fault of the enthusiastic storm chasers, Taylor admitted.
“Basically, what we try to do is push it to the limit, the line,” he said. Discovery Channel, however, oversees the safety of the three men, employing a medic to come along during shoots. Timmer said the medic also has assisted tornado victims in the past as well, one time saving the life of a man who was in the destructive path of the storm.
A little extreme for some, but this mutual love of adventure and storm chasing is what brought these friends together in the first place. Timmer and Chittick were friends in Michigan. Timmer said he and Chittick would often skip work together to chase storms. Timmer moved to Norman in 1998 to study meteorology at the University of Oklahoma, where he met Taylor, who was also studying weather. Chittick joined the two in Oklahoma at a later date.
“[Oklahoma] is the place to be for weather,” Timmer said.
Aaron Wright Gray 366-3533 pop@normantranscript.com
