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Old 03-29-2019, 05:12 PM
 
Location: Wonderland
67,666 posts, read 60,218,081 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by greatblueheron View Post
When you KNOW you live in tornado-prone areas plans should of course be in place for these emergencies. NOAA radio. Keep up to date with weather reports. What's hard about that?

If you can't manage that them move to a lesser prone area.
What's hard about it is that sometimes these things are just too big and too destructive to hide from.

I have never known anyone personally who was hurt, or lost a home, or was killed in a tornado but my mom's best friend from high school lost her husband and her son in law in a tornado. Everyone was in a small windowless interior room (the bathroom) and the women were in the tub and the men were laying over them, with pillows over their heads hanging on for dear life. The tub stayed put, but the men were sucked out of the house and killed. My mom's friend said she will never get over the sound of their screams as the tornado just ripped them away.

Most of the time though, tornadoes are more exciting than scary.

I have a brick house and a small windowless interior room (a powder room) in the middle of the house. That's where I've gone, with my dogs, a couple of times when the sirens went off around here (not every time there's a tornado warning or I'd spend hours every year in that room). I figure if a tornado rips apart my house that severely it just must be my time. So far so good!
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Old 03-29-2019, 05:35 PM
BMI
 
Location: Ontario
7,456 posts, read 7,212,060 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bartonizer View Post
I'm kind of the opposite and can't handle the heat, especially heat with really high humidity.

Quick question, though: One of your three options is not like the others. Gainesville and most of AZ are hot for a good part of the year and mild in the winter. Have you ever been to Santa Fe in the offseason, though? I agree that it's beautiful, but at 7,200' in elevation, it has a large daily fluctuation in temps which means it's pretty cool at night in the summer, and can be downright frigid from, say, November to April.
Agree. Though, from my perspective, Santa Fe climate is sunny and mild (though with nippy nites).

Better New Mexico option might be Las Cruces...much warmer and has the spectactular Organ Mtns.
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Old 03-29-2019, 09:48 PM
 
Location: Northern Virginia
6,623 posts, read 4,069,570 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by KathrynAragon View Post
Well actually in EF5 tornadoes (and may EF4s), there's not much you can even do. When a tornado sucks everything off the foundation, you're going too. A tornado that huge can even suck people out of a basement!

Sometimes it's just your time.

To put things in perspective, you have a much higher chance of slipping and dying in the bath or shower than you have of dying in a tornado.

For one, the vast majority of tornadoes aren't EF-4 or EF-5. It'd be a bit of a terrible irony to die in an EF-2 or 3 because you thought taking any kind of measures is pointless anyway. And consider here that even in an EF-5 there will be a wide range of damage intensity. It may just be an EF-2 at the time it hits you, or your house just gets EF-2 damage because it is only touched by the edge of it.



Secondly, very few people die in basements or dedicated tornado shelters. Most people die when caught outdoors, in vehicles, in mobile homes or above ground in buildings that are flattened. There's no absolute safety anywhere at any time in life, but it's all about playing the odds. You're considerably safer in the most interior room on the lowest floor of a house with a foundation than you'd be in a trailer or outside or staring at a window on the 2nd floor of your house, and you'd be safer in your basement than any spot above ground, and even safer in a dedicated subterranean shelter.


Of course, there has to be a risk-benefit analysis..but if you live in an area that's very prone to tornadoes like say the OKC metro or central MS and AL..then you should consider it pretty likely that a significant tornado will get pretty close to where you live over a 30 year time period. Perhaps multiple times as people in Moore or the Western burbs of Birmingham experienced. Ironically, it is often people in those areas facing the highest risk that get very complacent and nonchalant about them. It's human nature, I get it. But it's still bad news.
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Old 03-30-2019, 08:41 AM
 
Location: Wonderland
67,666 posts, read 60,218,081 times
Reputation: 100999
Quote:
Originally Posted by Veritas Vincit View Post
For one, the vast majority of tornadoes aren't EF-4 or EF-5. It'd be a bit of a terrible irony to die in an EF-2 or 3 because you thought taking any kind of measures is pointless anyway. And consider here that even in an EF-5 there will be a wide range of damage intensity. It may just be an EF-2 at the time it hits you, or your house just gets EF-2 damage because it is only touched by the edge of it.



Secondly, very few people die in basements or dedicated tornado shelters. Most people die when caught outdoors, in vehicles, in mobile homes or above ground in buildings that are flattened. There's no absolute safety anywhere at any time in life, but it's all about playing the odds. You're considerably safer in the most interior room on the lowest floor of a house with a foundation than you'd be in a trailer or outside or staring at a window on the 2nd floor of your house, and you'd be safer in your basement than any spot above ground, and even safer in a dedicated subterranean shelter.


Of course, there has to be a risk-benefit analysis..but if you live in an area that's very prone to tornadoes like say the OKC metro or central MS and AL..then you should consider it pretty likely that a significant tornado will get pretty close to where you live over a 30 year time period. Perhaps multiple times as people in Moore or the Western burbs of Birmingham experienced. Ironically, it is often people in those areas facing the highest risk that get very complacent and nonchalant about them. It's human nature, I get it. But it's still bad news.
I agree with much of what you're saying - I was just making the point that in very powerful storms you often can't do much of anything to avoid catastrophe.

Also, I want to point out that in some parts of "Tornado Alley," basements are nearly impossible to build, so many homes don't have them. I'm not saying people shouldn't have a contingency plan but most of the homes around here don't have basements and it has nothing to do with people simply not wanting them or (as some people actually believe) "not knowing they exist or how great they are." It has to do with frost lines and soil types.

I personally would never choose to live in a mobile home, or a home that didn't have a good space to get into in a severe storm - anywhere, but especially in "Tornado Alley." But take the tornado that hit Canton, TX last year - that killed several people and picked up vehicles on Interstate 20 and adjacent areas and tossed them like they were kernels of corn:

This was an EF 4. And nearly simultaneously, an EF 3 wedge tornado happened in nearly the same area. In fact, there was a total of 75 tornadoes associated in "Tornado Alley" with this particular storm system. Anyway, I'm telling you from the perspective of someone who has lived in this area for decades - every year we have MULTIPLE tornado watches and warnings. Multiple, multiple, multiple. It's not that we feel complacent - how could we, when every year there is extensive damage and usually a few deaths near us? But at some point you have to just say "I've done what I can, I'm watching the sky, I'm listening to the news, I've got alerts set on my phone, etc." and you have to go about your business. Otherwise you'd be sitting in a small windowless interior room for hours at a time every year.

I've been in several situations over the years when I was out and about and had to suddenly take shelter. Tornadoes are capricious, and often form suddenly and violently. OK, no lie - we are under "conditions conducive to severe weather" for so much of the year when nothing actually happens that in a sense we do "get complacent," meaning that we either sit at home doing nothing for hours, which most of us cannot afford to do, or we just go about our business keeping an eye on the weather. For goodness sake, as I type this we are under a "Hazardous Weather Watch." In fact, I need to get off the computer and go put away my outdoor cushions and lower my outdoor umbrellas! But I will also go to the grocery store at some point today - I am not going to stay home just in case. And big things could happen while I'm in the store - not likely but it COULD happen. Because these storms can and often do develop quickly.

In the Canton storms two years ago, 20 people were getting a venue set up for a wedding later that day. The venue was completely destroyed and frankly it is a miracle that no one was seriously injured or killed. But should a wedding be canceled? When the odds, even with a Severe Weather Watch, are that everything will be OK? Other people were driving to or from Dallas when it happened. Many of them were probably doing things that had been planned for weeks or months. I guess I'm saying that we just have to go about our business with an eye or ear on the weather reports, because if we hunkered down in a storm shelter every time we had a watch or even a warning, we'd be spending a heck of a lot of time hunkered down.

Heck, when the Canton tornadoes happened, I live 25 miles or so away. We were under a tornado warning at that time too. But we had zero "action." No hail. No tornadoes. Not even a lot of wind. Maybe I should have spent my Saturday afternoon hunkered down in that tiny powder room since the warning went on for HOURS, but instead I was doing my usual thing, keeping an eye on the sky and keeping my phone close by, and hoping that if the **** hit the fan, the city sirens would have time to be activated and give me some time to get into that powder room with my dogs!

So I guess what I'm saying is this - will I make sure I live in a house with a small windowless interior room? Yes. Will I live in any sort of mobile home? No. Will I keep abreast of the weather forecast? Yes. Will I take up half or more of my garage with an above ground storm shelter? No. Will I dig up my backyard and install one? No. Will I go over to the neighbor's house and get in theirs during a tornado warning? Errr, no. I could be sitting in there with them for hours and while I like them, let's be real, none of us likes each other THAT much. I'm not even sure, with two teenage boys, that they like each other that much!

Last edited by KathrynAragon; 03-30-2019 at 08:51 AM..
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Old 04-03-2019, 10:16 AM
Status: "Save the people of Gaza" (set 1 day ago)
 
Location: St. Louis Park, MN
7,725 posts, read 6,361,184 times
Reputation: 10387
No flowers yet, but definitely sprouts and stuff. Irises, tulips, even daffodils. With this warm weekend I expect it won't be long til its just gorgeous outside!
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Old 04-03-2019, 12:42 PM
 
Location: Wonderland
67,666 posts, read 60,218,081 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BadgerFilms View Post
No flowers yet, but definitely sprouts and stuff. Irises, tulips, even daffodils. With this warm weekend I expect it won't be long til its just gorgeous outside!
I think squirrels ate most of my tulip bulbs this year. They are suspiciously fat. (The squirrels, not the non existent tulips.)
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Old 04-04-2019, 09:37 AM
Status: "Save the people of Gaza" (set 1 day ago)
 
Location: St. Louis Park, MN
7,725 posts, read 6,361,184 times
Reputation: 10387
Quote:
Originally Posted by KathrynAragon View Post
I think squirrels ate most of my tulip bulbs this year. They are suspiciously fat. (The squirrels, not the non existent tulips.)

I had rabbits (maybe squirrels, but I see more rabbits here) eat some of my dang tulip flowers last May. So I went and bought this scented stuff you put at the base of your flowers and the rest survived the spring. The person who moved to my old house is just ghetto white trash. Before I moved there, there was no garden or even grass. Just weeds, dirt and ferns. Tried my best summer 2017, but really gave it all in the spring. I planted tulip bulbs the previous fall, and seeded the lawn in late April. By mid May it was super green and in the summer the grass was wild!!! Had veggies in the backyard. I had a pumpkin vine growing but never fruited due to a shady mulberry. But I had neighbours say that prior to me moving there, it was a pit. A psychedelic rock band used to live in my old house. Good music but they didn't care to garden or even plant grass lol. Now its some lady and her baby and her "baby daddy" problems... ugh. I passed by the other day and the place is a mess. They haven't even taken out the trash... trash can is as full as the day my lease ended. Its been over a month.



Oh well... Now I'm moving to a studio in downtown Minneapolis so good bye garden
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Old 04-04-2019, 07:46 PM
 
Location: Wonderland
67,666 posts, read 60,218,081 times
Reputation: 100999
Quote:
Originally Posted by BadgerFilms View Post
I had rabbits (maybe squirrels, but I see more rabbits here) eat some of my dang tulip flowers last May. So I went and bought this scented stuff you put at the base of your flowers and the rest survived the spring. The person who moved to my old house is just ghetto white trash. Before I moved there, there was no garden or even grass. Just weeds, dirt and ferns. Tried my best summer 2017, but really gave it all in the spring. I planted tulip bulbs the previous fall, and seeded the lawn in late April. By mid May it was super green and in the summer the grass was wild!!! Had veggies in the backyard. I had a pumpkin vine growing but never fruited due to a shady mulberry. But I had neighbours say that prior to me moving there, it was a pit. A psychedelic rock band used to live in my old house. Good music but they didn't care to garden or even plant grass lol. Now its some lady and her baby and her "baby daddy" problems... ugh. I passed by the other day and the place is a mess. They haven't even taken out the trash... trash can is as full as the day my lease ended. Its been over a month.



Oh well... Now I'm moving to a studio in downtown Minneapolis so good bye garden
Well, I really like Minneapolis - what a friendly city it is and I think it's also very attractive. I bet you love it!

When we bought this house, the yard was a mess. It is only a half acre yard but we took down 17 trees and very big bushes, and we still have PLENTY of trees! We couldn't even see the sky in the backyard and there was no grass, because it was so shady. We've been here five years and we are still working on the landscaping but it looks so much better. I just planted some peppers and my herb garden always does great, but I have terrible luck with tomatoes - going to try them again this year in a different location. Dang it!
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Old 04-04-2019, 11:35 PM
Status: "Save the people of Gaza" (set 1 day ago)
 
Location: St. Louis Park, MN
7,725 posts, read 6,361,184 times
Reputation: 10387
Quote:
Originally Posted by KathrynAragon View Post
Well, I really like Minneapolis - what a friendly city it is and I think it's also very attractive. I bet you love it!

When we bought this house, the yard was a mess. It is only a half acre yard but we took down 17 trees and very big bushes, and we still have PLENTY of trees! We couldn't even see the sky in the backyard and there was no grass, because it was so shady. We've been here five years and we are still working on the landscaping but it looks so much better. I just planted some peppers and my herb garden always does great, but I have terrible luck with tomatoes - going to try them again this year in a different location. Dang it!



I love Minneapolis (and have fallen in love with Saint Paul, too) but I'll miss living in a leafy neighbourhood. Oh well, when I buy a house in a few years I'll make sure its somewhere very green. I'll be living at the edge of downtown in an apartment. This will be the most urban living situation I've ever been in. I hope I don't find it too claustrophobic, haha.



I grew peppers and tomatoes last summer. Nothing tastier than home grown veggies!
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Old 04-23-2019, 11:33 AM
 
340 posts, read 260,859 times
Reputation: 427
Besides the south, what are the states that don't have four distinct seasons?
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