Martha Stewart doesnt know you get into a closet when a tornado comes?

[MosMom]

I was just watching Martha (because Today just ended and I haven't changed the channel yet) and she was interviewing someone who had their home destroyed by a tornado. The homeowner wrote her because everything was destroyed except her Martha Stewart skillet.

Anyway, she said to the woman how lucky she was to happen to be in a closet when the tornado hit and asked her if she was just in there getting linens.

Maybe since I'm from a tornado prone area, I just know that if you don't have a basement you get into a closet. Does Martha really not know that?

 

[LMC]

I don't think they have tornadoes in the NE very often so she probably has never been schooled in what to do. Just like I would not know what to do in an earthquake other than stand in a doorway. Then I guess I'd just get crushed by the falling building!

 

[YourMajesty]

I was just watching Martha (because Today just ended and I haven't changed the channel yet) and she was interviewing someone who had their home destroyed by a tornado. The homeowner wrote her because everything was destroyed except her Martha Stewart skillet.

Anyway, she said to the woman how lucky she was to happen to be in a closet when the tornado hit and asked her if she was just in there getting linens.

Maybe since I'm from a tornado prone area, I just know that if you don't have a basement you get into a closet. Does Martha really not know that?

This really made me laugh. Surely she didn't think she was changing sheets or something during a tornado?

 

[Becky2005]

Hmmm...you know I live in a tornado prone area and I honestly can't remember being told specifically to get in a closet when a tornado is coming without a basement. We have always lived in houses with basements.

I know it's to be an innermost room on the lowest level possible away from windows/doors (for some odd reason I want to say we were told the bathroom was your next choice if you didn't have a basement - I don't have a clue where I'm pulling that out of).

Hmm...maybe I need to brush up - we just always go to the basement with DH telling me "SEE..houses are built upside down - the bedrooms should be in the basement" since for us the warnings always seem to go off at midnight!

I do know exactly what to do if I was at a school though - unless they have changed the procedure from when I was a kid (I know for a while it was the teacher was to open a window as the last thing before leaving the classroom but I thought they changed that as it was proven it wouldn't make a difference so no sense in spending the extra couple minutes doing it).

However, I wouldn't have a clue what to do in a major earthquake (or flash flood) or anything that isn't something that would usually occur here so we haven't ever drilled for them - I was probably told once or twice growing up to do X but it's not ingrained in my brain to do X.

 

[Nancy]

I don't live in a tornado prone area but even I knew that. Not exactly a closet but in inner room with no windows.

Oh well, "Martha...I had a big storm coming my way, but my sheets needed changing so I was in the closet picking out some linens!"

 

[luvmesometigger]

I was just watching Martha (because Today just ended and I haven't changed the channel yet) and she was interviewing someone who had their home destroyed by a tornado. The homeowner wrote her because everything was destroyed except her Martha Stewart skillet.

Anyway, she said to the woman how lucky she was to happen to be in a closet when the tornado hit and asked her if she was just in there getting linens.

Maybe since I'm from a tornado prone area, I just know that if you don't have a basement you get into a closet. Does Martha really not know that?

I lived in Philadelphia PA my whole life until we moved to Ohio 6 years ago. I never knew about tornadoes and what to do in one until I lived in Ohio. If MS has lived in the NE United States her whole life, she may not know. Hiding from a tornado just doesn't happen there!!

 

[rayelias]

Why a closet?!?

I always thought that first option was a basement, but if that wasn't available a bathroom (in the tub). The "logic" behind that was the plumbing structure would be harder to destroy than the carpentry structure. A closet doesn't really provide that much safety, except it not (usually) having windows.

 

[MosMom]

It is an interior room with no windows. In our home, it would be a bathroom but in our old home it would have been our interior closet, in our home before that it was a laundry room. We've always had a basement though so never used it but the room changes.

What I think is funny is that she assumes during this severe storm the woman was in the closet to get linens?

 

[inaminute]

What I think is funny is that she assumes during this severe storm the woman was in the closet to get linens?

The only reason I know what to do in a tornado is because we lived in the midwest.

It's obvoius that Martha has never experienced a storm like this. We have thunderstorms here in the Northeast, but nothing like those in the midwest. I never got used to them in the three years I lived in Illinois.

 

[rayelias]

What I think is funny is that she assumes during this severe storm the woman was in the closet to get linens?

Maybe they were really nice (and expensive) linens?

 

[Luv2Roam]

Well, when one is really afraid during an approaching tornado, they can pull a mattress or comforters over themselves. Obviously this person was in the closet to change the bedding and blankets!

 

[Becky2005]

Why a closet?!?

I always thought that first option was a basement, but if that wasn't available a bathroom (in the tub). The "logic" behind that was the plumbing structure would be harder to destroy than the carpentry structure. A closet doesn't really provide that much safety, except it not (usually) having windows.

OH Thank you!!! I haven't lost it!! I had always been told/heard the same thing! Then I read this thread about the closet and thought - maybe I was confused and getting old - you know the memory is going.

I suppose if the only bathroom you have is up on the 2nd floor, then a closet on the 1st floor would definitely be better.

 

[Alice's Mom]

I never knew that, but I am also from an area not prone to tornadoes. I thought I had heard you go into a bath tub with a mattress over you. I never understood that though because matresses can be really heavy and in an emergency it would be tough to lug one into a small bathroom.

I live in earthquake land, you go into a doorway connected to a hallway if possible.

 

[RitaZ.]

What I think is funny is that she assumes during this severe storm the woman was in the closet to get linens?

Bridget, during one hurricane in 2004, DH decided it was a good time to organize the hallway closet. All the stuff in that closet belongs to him and he thought it was a good way to pass the time. I told him that it wasn't a smart thing to be doing in the middle of a hurricane, but he insisted on doing it. All was going well, until the electricity went out in the middle of the night and he couldn't see a thing. I tripped over the stuff, I wasn't happy about it. I told DH that there will be no more closet organizing sessions during a hurricane.

 

[Becky2005]

Well, when one is really afraid during an approaching tornado, they can pull a mattress or comforters over themselves. Obviously this person was in the closet to change the bedding and blankets!

OR she was like us - we were in the basement and had to pull out the sofa bed because the kids were freaking out since I had gone and woken them up at midnight and dragged them downstairs - they were definitely awake by the time we got all the way down there. I told them to lay down there and it calmed them down (with their blankets they had grabbed so yes, maybe she was more coherent then I am during a storm and was getting those nice expensive blankets to save from the storm - I'm the paniced gal freaking out inside and trying to convince the kids that it's fine usually while wanting to smack DH because he thinks I'm being overly paranoid - so what that the tornado siren was blowing and it wasn't 10:00 AM on the first Tuesday of the month (that's when they test it) - if it blows any other time - it's time to panic!)

Then again, he was a tornado watcher when he was younger because he was in the Emergency Services volunteer unit and part of his job was to go sit on a hill and watch for tornados when conditions were favorable for it way back when in the age of dinosaurs. I don't think you could have PAID me to do that much less volunteer to do it. Goofy guy.

 

[Disney Doll]

I just recently rewad that you are supposed to lie down next to a sturdy piece of furniture (ie-the couch) so that you will fall into the "Triangle of Life"...the triangle that is left when a piece of roofing or whatever falls, and is partially caught on the couch, making a small triangular underneath where you are safely lying.

 

[luvmesometigger]

What I think is funny is that she assumes during this severe storm the woman was in the closet to get linens?

She would probably fashion it into a tornado shelter in the time it took the tornado to hit!!

 

[Honu]

Yep smart and common sense don't always go hand in hand. Even if she had never heard the closet in a tornado, as I haven't, asking about linens is just hilarious. She's not very good at relating to viewers though. I heard her on the phone with young mother of 5-6 kids last week and she said something like - don't worry, you'll still be young enough to experience a good live once they leave home.

 

[Trish Bessette]

Being from the NE I didn't know about the closet either. I knew about the basement but that was about all since we don't have to worry about tornado's.

 

[MosMom]

When I was in Jr. High, I had a small obsession with Kiefer Sutherland and I had a lifesize cardboard cutout of him. The tornado sirens went off and my dad yelled for us to get to the basement but I had to save Kiefer first so I threw him in the bathtub and then headed for the basement. My dad about throttled me. LOL