Do you ever get over being terrified...

[straw hat]

Have lived in NE KS for 61 yrs. I was taught to respect a storm. Keep your wits about you. I also keep a battery powered radio and a flashlight handy. Yes I have seen some tornadoes, never been in one.

[drjones96]

Originally Posted by ShyDaisi

every time it rains? I just relocated from Tennessee 3 months ago. I was fine and even rolled my eyes at people from home that would ask, "What about the tornadoes?"....until the first time I heard the tornado siren go off last month.

Ever since then I have been terrified. I am always thinking about loosing everything...jump anytime the wind blows hard or at unexpected noises (and considering I live near the airport under the flight landing pattern, this does not help)...I wonder what I would do, think about my son and I hiding in the bathtub with a mattress over us, etc., etc., etc.,....

It has been lightning pretty bad tonight, there is a 'high wind warning', and there was a tornado sighting near Leon, KS, can you tell?

Does it get better? Do you get used to it?

LMAO!!!

OK we have a neighbor who hides in her basement every time there is the slightest bit of rain. They are from Oregon....not so many tornados there. She keeps a 'survival' pack down there consisting of some of the oddest things. One of those things is applesauce. Now that's not really odd...but one day some of the kids were playing around down there and stumbled on to the pack, dug out the applesauce and ate it all! LOL

I realize tornados are serious business (just ask the residents of Greensburg) but having grown up in the middle of the country I just don't get that freaked out about it. I've seen more than my share of tornado producing storms. I've even seen a handful of funnel clouds form before my very eyes. So when I see a little rain, wind, and lighting I just blow it off and fire up the Wii.

[itsMeFred]

Originally Posted by straw hat

Have lived in NE KS for 61 yrs. I was taught to respect a storm. Keep your wits about you. I also keep a battery powered radio and a flashlight handy. Yes I have seen some tornadoes, never been in one.

I've developed the theory that folks who've lived in Tornado Alley for many years, but have never seen tornadoes must all live in town...
I don't know too many farmers and ranchers who say they've never seen a funnel.

To the original question, if you ever lose fear of tornadoes, you're just not paying attention! They can do a world of damage in the span of a few minutes.
But you will develop a feel for what a dangerous storm sounds/feels like, and what your run-of-the-mill-hail-dings-on-my-car storm sounds/feels like. And experience and time will show that the likelihood of being in a tornado is somewhere between slim and none.

Until then, hang in there. Have your emergency plan perfected so that you know exactly what to do when the sirens go off. (BTW, even when the sirens do blow, it's usually not some monster, killer storm bearing down on you. It's just public safety has to err on the side of caution!)

[TinaMcG]

Originally Posted by drjones96

LMAO!!!

OK we have a neighbor who hides in her basement every time there is the slightest bit of rain. They are from Oregon....not so many tornados there. She keeps a 'survival' pack down there consisting of some of the oddest things. One of those things is applesauce. Now that's not really odd...but one day some of the kids were playing around down there and stumbled on to the pack, dug out the applesauce and ate it all! LOL

I realize tornados are serious business (just ask the residents of Greensburg) but having grown up in the middle of the country I just don't get that freaked out about it. I've seen more than my share of tornado producing storms. I've even seen a handful of funnel clouds form before my very eyes. So when I see a little rain, wind, and lighting I just blow it off and fire up the Wii.

I don't think it's very nice to laugh at someone who is genuinely fearful of something just because you're not. I am trying to get over a fear of storms that I acquired after we moved to Kansas two years ago. I loved a good storm more than anything when we lived in Chicago, but something about the intense interest in weather here, the constant talk of severe weather -- maybe that played a part in setting me off. All I know is, being laughed at because of the way I feel is an awful feeling in itself. If your neighbor (or me for that matter) wants to retreat into the basement when it begins to rain, don't laugh. To each his own. Different people fear different things. I am not afraid of flying, but I would never laugh at someone who was.

[gussie]

I was in a tornado in Mattoon, Illinois in 1977. Talk about scary!! All the windows blew out of the house people were killed. The people living next door, left their trailor right in the nick of time. When it was over our car was under their trailor.. we were very lucky we survived..It comes on so quickly and does so much damage!!

[TinaMcG]

I guess I was never afraid of tornadoes when we lived in Chicago because they were always aiming at areas south, like Mattoon, Kankakee and Joliet. There were VERY few of them, by the way. Look at this logically. There have been 34 recorded tornadoes in Johnson County from 1950 to 2007, and far fewer in Miami County just to the south of us. They're not hurricanes, which wipe out whole counties, not unless we would get an EXTREMELY rare occurrence where a huge thing stayed on the ground for a half hour. I'm about as worried about that as I am about swine flu wiping out half of earth's population -- not much.

I can't stand severe weather. I don't like hail or power outages or high winds or flooding rains. We don't have a flooding issue here, but I still feel awful for people with flooded basements and near rivers and streams. I also feel terrible for farmers whose fields are flooded.

Did I mention this before? Ninety percent of recorded tornadoes are F0, F1 or F2, and won't take down a well buiolt house. A barn, maybe, but barns are a lot more easily taken down than a house.

[j_k_k]

It would be interesting to compare the number of Kansas dwelling units destroyed per year (on average) by hurricane with the number of automobile fatalities per year, and the number of pedestrian deaths by vehicle per year, and the murder rate per year, etc. That would tell us whether we should be more afraid of Vern Unruh driving back from Cassoday after a little too much beer and not paying enough attention to the road, or twisters.

My experience of twisters as a kid was being sent to a basement, but my cousin in eastern Wichita had his house dozed by the big one there in, I think, the early 1990s (where, as usual, most of the fatalites came from the trailer park). I came to visit a couple of months later, and man. I would describe twister devastation as though some deity took a huge bird's nest, like a quarter mile wide sometimes, mounted it on the bottom of a floor buffer, soaked it real good in muuuud, and forced it across the landscape leaning heavily. Muuuud and grass and twigs crammed into every nook and cranny of ruined cars. Trees stripped, trashed, uprooted. Enough debris everywhere to make people think it was a Third World slum, even then. My people's house has since been rebuilt, but good lord.

[janelle144]

I am native to KS. We are use to tornado weather and most of the time don't really get excited until the sirens go off. Even then if the weather outside where we are is not rocking and rolling we just turn on the TV or radio to see where the activity is. We only go to the basement when it is in our area.

And some reporters make it sound worse than it is. We know what radio station to avoid---they will go into a tizzy over a little rain. They send out tornado spotters and report in the rain and wind. Makes it sound like the end of the world. We just roll our eyes and turn them off.

Know what to do in a tornado, be prepared, have a plan, then don't worry about it. Nothing you can do other than that anyway. I think lightening kills more people each year.

They have the latest radar and detection equipment so the weather people will be on top of it. I lived across the street from a train track for 5 years about 15 years ago and got so use to it I tuned it out after awhile. It will be the same with tornadoes. Just an ok, I'll wait until the sirens go off then will tune into the weather station to see what area it is and wait until it passes, which is pretty quick.

Most times it blows some trees over or out buildings down, maybe some roofs off some houses but not much else. Trailer parks are the most dangerous to be in but most have shelters.

[TinaMcG]

Janelle said: "And some reporters make it sound worse than it is. We know what radio station to avoid---they will go into a tizzy over a little rain. They send out tornado spotters and report in the rain and wind. Makes it sound like the end of the world. We just roll our eyes and turn them off."

I sometimes visit a weather blog where people like me (storm wusses) and storm chasers hang out. The chasers give me the willies. They get all worked up like starving sharks when they think severe weather is coming. Now, I know the spotter network is one of the most important factors in identifying exactly where funnel clouds are forming, but I wish these people wouldn't make it sound like they love it so much. They look at a tornado in the distance and think it's a beautiful thing to behold, but I've always wanted to ask them if it would be so beautiful if were damaging their home. It takes all kinds, I guess.

As for the forecasters, I've noticed they're backing off somewhat on their hysteria this year, at least not forecasting severe weather days in advance. But I still avoid one in particular...who will remain nameless, but you all probably know who I mean.

[TinaMcG]

[quote=j_k_k;8616779]It would be interesting to compare the number of Kansas dwelling units destroyed per year (on average) by hurricane with the number of automobile fatalities per year, and the number of pedestrian deaths by vehicle per year, and the murder rate per year, etc. That would tell us whether we should be more afraid of Vern Unruh driving back from Cassoday after a little too much beer and not paying enough attention to the road, or twisters.QUOTE]

Yeah, that would be interesting. In 2007, there were 1249 drunk driving fatalities In Illinois, where we lived. That number represenets 1/3 of all the drunk driving accidents. One of those deaths was almost my own. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time when the drunk driver pulled out in front of me and broadsided my Jeep without braking. How lucky we both were to only sustain minor bruises. (Note to everyone: the seatbelt saved my butt.)

In 2007, there were 416 fatalities caused by drunk drivers in Kansas, or about 1/4 of all alcohol related accidents. That means there were over 1200 drunk driving accidents in Kansas. And how many tornadoes each year? In 2007, there 141, and in 2008 there were about 180.

Geze, if I keep writing this, I'll talk myself into being afraid of driving!! It's probably easier to figure out how to disable a forming tornado than it is to get people to stop driving while drunk!