Tornadoes

[MGMmjl]

The last few months have been really busy for tornadoes in my area. I live in central Alabama, and there have been 3 tornadoes since late November that have passed within 20 miles or so of our house. One in late November only missed our house by 2 miles. We're ready for a break in the severe weather here! Last Thursday, there was a deadly EF-3 tornado that passed northwest of us. My wife knows a family that had 4 family members killed (a former school friend lost her dad, stepmom, and 2 other family members). There is another risk of severe weather this Thursday, but thankfully the risk looks a lot less than some of the recent events.

It got me to thinking: Has anyone here ever seen a tornado? There have been a couple of instances (like back in November) where a tornado passed within 2-3 miles of my location, but I've never actually seen a tornado.

 

[DLgal]

I hate tornadoes. I think they are the scariest weather phenomenon by far. Yes, I have seen one. In Oklahoma. It was probably a half mile away and it was terrifying because I was alone and there was nowhere to take shelter (I was in a second floor apartment type place (military barracks) and my husband was in the hospital, so I was in his room alone, and had no idea what the protocol was for when the sirens started blaring. I hid in the bathroom and hoped for the best. Obviously I was fine, but that traumatized me and I will NEVER step foot in tornado alley again.

 

[xipotec]

I used to chase, way back in the 90’s befoee is became fashionable and profitable for Vloggers….
I have seen a few….

One famous one I called in as a spotter in Miami….I consider that “my tornado” its a famous oic of it next to the city.

 

[kymom99]

I’ve not seen one but there have been a number that hit near us. They are very scary because you don’t get the warning that you might with other storms. Sometimes it’s minutes if at all. At one time we seemed to keep getting severe storms at school dismissal time. There was one near us where a schoolbus driver took all his passengers off the bus and ran them into a church for shelter. I can’t imagine.

 

[DLgal]

I’ve not seen one but there have been a number that hit near us. They are very scary because you don’t get the warning that you might with other storms. Sometimes it’s minutes if at all. At one time we seemed to keep getting severe storms at school dismissal time. There was one near us where a schoolbus driver took all his passengers off the bus and ran them into a church for shelter. I can’t imagine.

That is always the worst. When we lived in VA for a few years, we would often have severe thunderstorms in the spring, RIGHT at school dismissal time. On several occasions, they had to keep the kids in the school beyond dismissal time, sheltering in the hallways, because of tornado watches/warnings in the area. I hated it.

 

[Her Dotness]

Oh, yeah, I've seen them. Not any on the ground but several trying to get there.

My first name's Dorothy, and I grew up in Kansas. That likely explains a lot.

Actually, the scariest weather I've ever seen was in Northern Louisiana. We'd been to Mardi Gras and were heading home to Wichita. The radio was blaring warnings for areas we knew not at all but had to be close to our route because the entire sky became pitch black suddenly in mid-morning. Our headlights hardly had any effect. It was terrifying. I knew that could easily mean a tornado was close by.

We sped along as well as we could, soon drove out of it, and never heard that any destruction occurred there.

 

[MGMmjl]

I used to chase, way back in the 90’s befoee is became fashionable and profitable for Vloggers….
I have seen a few….

One famous one I called in as a spotter in Miami….I consider that “my tornado” its a famous oic of it next to the city.

I think I have seen a picture of that Miami tornado. Yeah, it seems that storm chasing really took off after the movie Twister, and especially when technology started allowing live-streams and HD videos. You are right about chasing becoming fashionable and profitable. And now we have the Twister sequel to look forward to next year!

I’ve not seen one but there have been a number that hit near us. They are very scary because you don’t get the warning that you might with other storms. Sometimes it’s minutes if at all. At one time we seemed to keep getting severe storms at school dismissal time. There was one near us where a schoolbus driver took all his passengers off the bus and ran them into a church for shelter. I can’t imagine.

That is the scary thing about tornadoes. A good warning is 20 minutes or so, but it can be a lot less, especially for quick and brief tornado touchdowns. There was an unwarned tornado in early January just south of us that touched down for less than 5 minutes, but did a lot of damage to a few houses as it touched down in a heavily populated area. At least with hurricanes you can follow them for days or weeks at a time, so you have an idea of if and when it may affect your area. Not that way with tornadoes.

 

[momz]

I have seen a few in Indiana. I was on my back porch where I watching one stirrup in the sky behind our house several years ago. The first one I ever remember, I was a child. I was riding in the bed of a truck (you could do that then). My grandma's house was at the bottom of a hill. We saw the tornado, it was "chasing us". My grandpa stepped on the gas and we were flying down the hill. I was scarred so I scooted back farther and in the process I sat on a pie. lol I laugh, but that was scary! We were fine, as we made it down the hill and the tornado bounced up from the top of the hill and went over the top of us. Anyway, tornados can stir up fast! also...why would you put a kid in the back of a truck during the threat of tornados forming? It was a different time.

 

[notatallmagic]

I am so sorry for the losses in your community, and the stress you must be feeling.

Yes - I've lived in the midwest my entire life; one grandma lived in Iowa. I've witnessed many tornadoes - five up close - probaby another dozen within a few miles.

A few tips from my parents (who had big tornado experience numbers - living in rural areas also seems to up that count) - pay attention to the animals - their radar is better than ours; have a plan and be prepared (basement supplies, weather radio, etc); and don't take chances. One of the saddest (it was either an EF4/5) stories was of a car full of folks trying to outrace the storm with a 0% survival rate. That one hit about 2 miles from our church only 45 minutes after we left.

My worst experience was a line of tornadoes that hit our area about ten years ago. I had just started a new job in a rural community (no basement in our office) - we could see the funnels close up across the fields from my office window. It knocked out power and cell service (it was out for almost a week in some areas) and also flooded roads/ditches. I didn't know the roads at all, was 35 miles from home, no GPS/cell, every way home I knew was flooded. It took me four hours to make that 35 mile drive, with lots of ugly devastation on the way - not knowing how my elderly mom and two preschoolers had fared. I prayed and cried most of the way home; my kids' daycare had a basement where they rode out the storm. My mom was entertaining six older ladies who were miraculously able to make it up/down her very scary basement steps safely. She did have three trees fall on her garage, a car was flattened completely on her block, and lost several other big trees, but nothing more serious. It helps me to know that our 120 year old house has ridden out lots of these storms over the years, but it is still difficult when the sirens sound.

Do you best to be prepared, and make sure you have a weather radio that can wake you from a deep sleep. Hugs to you.

 

[MGMmjl]

That is always the worst. When we lived in VA for a few years, we would often have severe thunderstorms in the spring, RIGHT at school dismissal time. On several occasions, they had to keep the kids in the school beyond dismissal time, sheltering in the hallways, because of tornado watches/warnings in the area. I hated it.

There is always a big discussion in our area about schools and tornadoes. There was an EF-4 tornado in Enterprise, AL back in 2007 that killed 8 students at the high school when a hallway collapsed. They were taking shelter like they should have been, but were still killed. Since that time, many school systems in the area try to be proactive and either cancel classes if severe weather is expected during the whole day, or have early dismissals if severe weather is expected in the afternoon. Some people argue that a school building may afford better protection than a lot of students' houses (there are a lot of mobile homes in Alabama). I can see both sides of the argument, but when my son is old enough to go to school, I know I would feel better personally if he was with me if there is severe weather around (and we have a regular site-built house, so I would feel pretty safe here.)

 

[robinb]

I’m so sorry to hear about your wife’s friends and sorry for her loss. I find tornadoes to be particularly terrifying because they can destroy and kill in literally a blink of an eye.

I live in the Midwest and I once saw a tiny tornado about a block from me in the city of Madison. It’s a good thing it was a tiny one because there was no warning and no siren. While we were inside, we were at a small business where there was no where to adequately shelter for a bigger one. The tornado did cause some minor damage but no injuries.

 

[Gracedis1]

We live in North Texas and have experienced an F1 tornado. It was at 2 am and we did not hear the sirens. I woke up to what sounded like an airplane taking off over our house. We were on the top floor of our house and had to grab our kids and head to the downstairs closet. Every house in our neighborhood had damage but we were so thankful it wasn't worse. The next morning my daughter who was 4 at the time said our neighborhood was "broken."

 

[RangerPooh]

We live in TN and have had many sirens, but thankfully none within viewing distance. Our first experience with tornadoes was when we lived in Michigan, thankfully we had a basement. We grew up with earthquakes on the west coast, but tornadoes are worse! In Maryland our community did not have sirens, so it was a matter of "feeling" that something was off. These days we get alerts on our phones.

Our first month in TN was filled with multiple winter time tornadoes. There was one we had approach Memphis in August during the school day where the entire university building was in our basement where my office was located at the time. The news was being played on laptops.

There was also one that hit during Dec or January that was early in the morning, before 7am. I was driving my daughter to high school in the next town over and the sky was green. We thought that we heard something but nothing was on our phone or breaking in the news to indicate an alert. Rolled down the windows and we could hear the sirens along the highway. I told her that once we reached her campus I wanted to her to take off running for the building (all kids were). I hit the road and continued home where I took shelter with grandma and my younger kids. A small tornado came within a mile of our small city limits.

 

[xipotec]

If anyone is concerned about safety, its a worth while investment to get a good weather station monitor, they are not expensive, and can be set ho just for your local area. It will sound a siren if a Warning has been issued (or a watch if you want).

We live in the deep south and its gone off a half dozen times in 20 years, Plenty of time to get to the basement….

of note, each time it DID go off…I was very glad to have gone down to the basement, its very accurate for bad storms.

 

[gotomu212]

Our house was hit a few years ago in the late afternoon. It got incredibly dark, incredibly fast. We saw the funnel about half a mile away and it didn’t look like it was moving at all (because it was coming right towards us).

We got into the basement closet under the stairs and all our ears popped hard- mine popped twice right in a row like a very sudden change in a plane’s altitude. It did sound like a train and then the house sort of “exhaled” and all the walls popped a little. Then we heard the breaking glass. It probably lasted 45 seconds. We had damage to our roof (but it was still there) and several windows broke. We also had cracks that came down the wall of a few rooms. Houses on the next block were gone.

The weirdest part is you could very clearly see where the tornado had gone. It had gone diagonally through the neighborhood which looked so odd when you stood in the yard and saw places blocks away that were normally blocked by other houses.

Shout out to the American Red Cross who seemed to magically apparated into the area right behind emergency personnel (and honestly were way more together, emphatic and interested in getting people off the streets- rescue personnel seemed excited and almost giddy about it talking about how awesome the storm was and comparing notes with one another about did they see x and y like young kids but whatever).

 

[Travel60]

My hometown was hit by two tornadoes in May almost exactly five years apart. The first one hit about 9 pm when I was driving home from my parents' restaurant. Twirled my car around but I straightened it out and drove home. Two hours later got a call that my mother's brother and whole family were killed.

Second hit five years later about 1-1:30 am. I was on the way home from a date (we left on a motorcycle but switched to car when weather got bad). Tornado hit when we were 2 blocks from my parents' house. Board came through roof and injured my date. Car started once but we got hit again and it wouldn't start. We walked home stopping at neighbor homes as storm got worse. When we finally saw parents' house, top floor was gone. Parents and brothers huddled in basement. Three of our four cars were undrivable.

I take tornado warnings very seriously!

 

[Moliphino]

We very rarely get tornadoes, but we did have an EF3 go right through the center of town back in 2011. It was on the ground for over 30 miles. I was at work at Macy's at the time and they had us all shelter in the hall near the bathrooms. I drove home a while after it passed and my sister was still in the basement with the dogs - I didn't realize there was still a tornado watch active and smaller ones (a couple EF0 and EF1s) popping up with the storm. They had given us the OK to come out of the shelter area at work, so I had no idea.

 

[xipotec]

Couple more safety notes:

As mentioned, if you cannot see the tornado moving, its coming at you.

They often move upward of 35mph.

You are often safer outside you vehicle than inside it…..lay prone in the lowest spots, well away from the car.

Opening windows in your home will have no effect on damage.

No basement? Goto the room with the most walls between it and the outside (closet or bathroom) if you have a tub, get in it an pull a small mattress or couch cushions on top of you.

Never run into a parking lot to escape a tornado, stay in the building.

Many dangers are AFTER the storm has passes, leaking gas, electrical lines down, boards, glass and nails everywhere. As tempting as it is, stay away from the damage path, let emergency crews work. You risk becoming another person they have to save….That goes for chasing also….better not to do it at all, especially untrained.

 

[Princesca]

One thing I read, idk if it's true, is if you ARE caught in your car and have no viable shelter outside it, leave the car running and put it in park, so the airbags remain engaged. That was some time ago, though. Also do not take refuge under an overpass. Debris just sails through there like a funnel.

Definitely get a weather radio and look for one with S.A.M.E. technology, which allows you to program the alerts you want to get and for what counties. I always program ours to cover the counties to the west and south, in addition to our own, because that's the direction things come from, for us, and that gives us a little more time. And SAME tech also allows you to screen out things like 'severe thunderstorm watches' which I like to know about but not at 3 AM.

Midland is a good brand.

And most people are killed by debris, not a direct hit from a tornado, so put as many walls and layers in between yourself and debris as you can.

 

[Princesca]

Another thing I do is if the weather looks a little dicey at bedtime, I'll check the radar in motion for my area before I go to bed to get a ballpark idea of when the worst might blow through. I also lay out quick slip on shoes, flashlight, meds, diaper bag, water and snacks, and whatever else I might want to grab on our way to the basement so that I'm not hunting around for it while sirens are going off.