At age 14, Floyd Craig watched a tornado rip through his parents’ farm west of Lawrence.

And since that day in April 1964, the Lawrence man knew he wanted to be a storm spotter.

“I wanted to help the community,” Craig said. “The main thing is to save lives and get the warning to the people so they can get to shelter to be safe.”

Craig was a founding member of the Douglas County Skywarn storm spotters. The group, which formed in September 1975, has 25 volunteer members who help alert Douglas County residents to severe weather.

Teri Guenther, assistant director for Douglas County Emergency Management, is training five new volunteers. Guenther said the training had two phases.

Volunteers must first fill out an application and provide a driver’s license, a driver’s record and proof of automobile insurance. A drug test is administered to the volunteers, which they must pass before they begin training.

From January to March each year, Douglas County Emergency Management provides a sky warning procedure and storm-spotting exercise. Then the volunteers must attend the National Weather Service session of Weather 101.

By April 1, they must pass a storm spotter test with a score of 70 percent or better. The veteran storm spotters also must pass the test and are required to participate annually in at least five hours of Emergency Management-approved training.

Once a spotter, the volunteers must participate in at least 25 percent of the severe weather situations during the year.

Douglas County storm spotter Floyd Craig always keeps a copy of the Douglas County Skywarn spotter location guide in his Ford Explorer that will direct him to the closest recommended spotting location during storms. Craig was a founding member of Skywarn in 1975.

Craig said he had been through the training enough to be confident he and the rest of the spotters come out of it prepared and aware of ways to be safe on the job.

“We are always taught to have an escape route,” Craig said. “Sometimes that might even be a ditch.”

When severe weather threatens the area, Emergency Management officials notify the storm spotters by sending a page to the pager provided by the county to each of the spotters. All available spotters are required to radio Emergency Management immediately to report for duty.

The spotters are assigned randomly to 19 spots around Douglas County to evaluate the weather. Lawrence’s only location is on the Kansas University campus.

“The locations we have are always located in places that they will have a good view in any direction,” Guenther said.

All of the training and hard work by the spotters was put to the test last May with the tornado that blew through Douglas County.

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Craig was one of the storm spotters on duty that day. He said the spotters did their job under tough conditions. Ross Janssen, 6News chief meteorologist, said the work of the spotters was appreciated.

“We were listening to them talk on their radios as we relayed that information on television,” Janssen said. “Without them, we wouldn’t have been able to get as accurate of an idea of the tornado’s path.”

Even situations such as a severe thunderstorm can prove the spotters valuable to the county and meteorologists. Janssen said he did not think storm spotters could be replaced because new technology made mistakes and could not be as accurate as the spotters.

“They’re our human eyes,” Janssen said. “The radar can’t do everything for us. It can’t really tell what the storm is doing, and that is where the spotters come in.”

Craig has seen his share of severe weather in 29 years as a spotter. But nothing brings a smile to his face like spring approaching.

Though Craig said he wished for calm, unthreatening weather, he admitted he was disappointed when the weather provided him few opportunities to witness and report on severe conditions.

“I was going to quit a few years back,” Craig said. “But I just can’t. I guess you could say that watching the weather is kind of in my blood.”