Tornado?

[Luv2Roam]

We are talking about snow now, but a storm season of a different kind will soon be here.
Have you seen a tornado?

 

[Kirby]

Yes, from a distance, and it was already retreating back into the clouds.

 

[Luv2Roam]

Kirby -- Same with me.
I have lived in the midwest all my life and am in my 40's. It wasn't until just last year I FINALLY saw one -- and I have been looking and looking and looking for one. (People often think anyone who lives in the midwest has experienced or seen a tornado.)
Like you, off in the distance I saw a funnel cloud and it just dangled for awhile and was gone.

 

[Marla Hellwig]

One we watched from my parents second story - we could see the top part of the one that ripped through Xenia here several years ago that did so much damage

 

[CindyKansas]

I live in Kansas and I have never actually seen a tornado, but last May we had one hit our town. Damage was just a block away from our home. I had made my DH drive us out of town as soon as they weatherman said that there was a tornado on the ground just west of us. It was raining so hard you really couldn't see anything. When we got back to town you could tell something terrible had happened. I really don't ever want to see a tornado even from a distance.

 

[Kermit]

Lots. I grew up in the country about 40 miles east of Dallas. We once had a funnel cloud on top of our house. That was much worse than an actual tornado because we just had to sit in the closet and hope it blew away before it touched down again. Fortunately, it did.

 

[cgcw]

When I was about 5, we had a tornado clip the tip of our chimney and it fell into one of my DB's bedroom -- fortunately he had just gotten out of the bed as that's where the debris landed. We ran to the front windows downstairs. I have no idea where my mom was and why she wasn't getting us to safety. Maybe she was as shocked as all of us as to what was happening. Anyway, we got to the front just in time to see it continue downward into an open field and destroy a home being built across the way. It's a scene I remember all of these years later and hope to never repeat.

It really spooked me and it seemed as a childs, we were always in the path. Fortunately, my folks moved a couple of years later and things settled down. It must have been the house, because years later, it was struck by lightening during a storm. I'm glad we moved.

 

[Diane]

I've only heard of 1 or 2 in this area during my lifetime. I've never seen one.

 

[daughter_of_amid_chaos]

I just spent 4 months researching tornadoes as part of my major effort for physics...anything you need to know about forecasting these babies i know it...and when i lived in IN we had one or two warnings and we've had one or two warning here as well.

 

[Princess_Aurora]

I experienced my first tornado when I was about five. It was very tramatic for me and for the longest time whenever storm clouds were around I would get physically ill and if it was really stormy I would get so sick I would throw up. I remember my mom not being there for the first tornado and my dad just sat in his chair (he was one of those people that thinks nothing bad will ever happen) and my sister, our neighboros and I took shelter in our storm cellar. Luckily for my dad the tornado was just a block up the road and never came in our directions.

I experienced a few more after that. I never see them though because as soon as the civil defence sirens go off I'm already taking cover. If there's so much as a tornado watch, I'm cleaning out the closet (don't have the luxury of a storm cellar anymore) to make sure we have everything ready "just in case".

The closest I ever came to actually seeing one was my Sr. year in HS. My dad was driving me to school one morning and it suddenly started pouring down rain and then the hail came shortly after. My dad had to pull off to the side of the road because the rain was so hard we couldn't see anything. Then the wind came. Our car started shaking and then you could feel it lift off of the road and glide over a few feet and then it hit the road again. I couldn't see the tornado because all I could see were rain drops on the window. I was so scared though because I thought we would die. When it all passed over and we started driving again, we passed a truck that we saw pass us when we first pulled off to the side of the road...it was upside down in the ditch. The guy was okay luckily but I just kept thinking...that could've been us too. I never want to have to go through that again.

 

[Kallison]

When we drove cross country I saw small twisters in the dessert. Saw a small tornado in Bucks County skip down a drainage ditch and take the roof off a house. That scared me enough, even though I knew it couldn't do any major damage. I remember I couldn't get the door to our office open, I kept pulling and it kept slamming shut, when I got in I yelled TWISTER, and everyone looked at me like I was nuts.

 

[PRINCESS Ariel34]

MY sil lives in Smyrna Georgia with her dh, and 2 dd's 10 and 6. I believe it was 4 years ago when my nieces were outside playing when all of sudden they were being pelted with hail.
Sil and Bil were able to get them inside just as the tornado touched down out of no where. That experiece really affected my oldest niece to the point where she actually goes into convulsions during storms. A simple rain storm literally freaks her out.

My father and grandmother were also traumatized by tornado's when they were young. They said once your in one it's something you'll never ever forget. I pray to GOD I never experience this.

 

[kylara]

When I was working at a college in GA, we had one skip across our campus. The college residence halls usually emptied out during the weekend, so there weren't to many students around, but our softball team came back just as the tornado siren went off. They all ran to the hall as I tried to hold the side door open. Then two little kids came out of nowhere...seems their mom was a professor and they were down at the stables, so they ran to the hall for shelter too. All the students came down to the first floor and went into the hallway. I stayed in the lobby office and stayed near the phone. All seemed quiet so I decide to look out the window and just as I did, I saw the funnel to the left of the hall...it literally skipped across...just tapping the ground and then heading back up. Did this the entire way across the campus. Finally did touch town about two blocks from the campus and destroyed a couple of houses.

Only minor damage at the college. The concession stand at the rodeo arena was destroyed, the stable was damaged (most of the roof fell in, but there was no horses in it at the time), and a few windows blown out in one of the barns. No one hurt, but it was sure memorable. This was just a little tornado and it didn't even fully touch down, but I can sure say, I don't want to see another one.

 

[goofygirl]

Didnt SEE one, but HEARD one- as it roared by my house in June 1, 1998 around 1am.

I'll NEVER forget it! It was the SCARIEST darn thing I ever experienced!

 

[LuvN~Travel]

I haven't seen one, but one wrecked my sister's neighborhood back on '96. Got to clean up after it though. We had to pack up her and her family that day. What a mess! Their house had to be demolished though and rebuilt. At least this time she got to pick out the features in the house.
Kim

 

[elgerber]

I have seen one, way too close for my comfort level. We were driving up to a friend cabin for the 4th of July. We saw a guy standing in his yard looking at the sky, so we turned off our cassette deck, and turned on the radio. They said there was a tornado warning, and we opened the windows and heard the sirens. We were in a strange town, and had no clue what to do. We could see it in front of us, and we turned left (it was to the right). As we were driving to try to get by it, it decided to head back our way a little bit. We ended up pulling the car over (there were cops flying up and down the roads yelling at people to pull over) and waiting. We could see the sky rotating over our heads, but the main part of the twister missed us. When it was over, we drove half a mile to the gas station we were meeting our friends at, and it was torn up. It was terrifying, and I don't ever want to see another one again!

Erika

 

[Kirby]

I wonder is there any where in the US that doesn't have tornados?

 

[daughter_of_amid_chaos]

Originally posted by Kirby
I wonder is there any where in the US that doesn't have tornados?

Every place in the US is susceptible to tornadoes, it just depends on the weather patterns.
Many people think that tornadoes only occur in the southeast, midwest, and tornado alley but they are very very very wrong. One of the deadliest tornadoes before modern technology was in Worcester, MA.

 

[phamton]

We had been under a tornado warning in Amarillo. Watches and warnings are not too unusual there but when we got the warning my husband and I grabbed the kids and took them to our private business that had a basement. We waited in the basement there until the warning was called off. My husband drove the van with the kids and I followed in my smaller car to go home. About 5 blocks from home, I hit some flooding on the road that I couldn't see until I was in it. My little car started floating. I jumped out and waded to the van. We drove home and put the kids to bed. We have 5 kids, whose ages at the time were 6 months, 2 years, twins age 7, and oldest daughter age 13 years. We got all the younger kids to bed and asked our oldest to babysit while we went down the road to push my car out of the road. We figured we'd be back in about 15 minutes.

We got to my car and pushed it out of the road and heard tornado sirens going off. We rushed into the 7-11 store near my car and they said a tornado just hit our subdivision. (They had heard it on the police scanner.) Then the rain started pouring down. We could not drive the 5 blocks to our house because the road was now completely flooded and other cars were floating. We tried to go a different way which took us over 45 minutes to get home. We drove in from the backside of our subdivision. There were already police blockades and they weren't letting anyone in. We frantically explained that our 5 kids were alone so they gave us a pass to go in.

The house behind us was flattened and the whole area was a mess. We ran in and found all of our kids hiding in the laundry room. My daughter had heard the tornado and grabbed the baby, told the twins to get the toddler, and they ran into the laundry room. Everyone was fine but scared. The kids were afraid that the tornado had gotten us.

Later we heard from the neighbors that they watched the tornado come right down almost on top of our house and then dipped down and got the house across the alley from us. (No one was home there.) Many homes were destroyed but no one was killed or even seriously injured. I gained a healthy respect for tornadoes that day. I had seen numerous tornadoes while growing up in West Texas and later in the panhandle of Texas. I even watched twin tornadoes from my front yard as a teenager. I never really feared them until that day.

Bev Hamilton

 

[Micca]

Lived in tornado alley most of my life. Haven't seen one(it's hard to see in the basement) but have seen the aftermath of many.