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I plan on retiring in a state that does get tornadoes. It's not as prone as some states are but they do occur. I'm hoping someone can tell me what do you do during tornado episodes close to you? What if you don't have a basement or if tornadoes happen in the middle of the night? Do you stay awake all night listening to reports or do you leave and find more secure shelter?
I've never dealt with tornadoes and they scare the crap out of me.
If your buying a house they make those metal boxes you can get into hold 1 or 2 people. I probably would have a shelter installed. I saw one video where some kids got into one that was installed under the concrete slab in the garage held a few people they got a cell phone video from the slot where you slide the door closed.
The best move you can make? A house with a basement. Seriously. The rest is common sense, such as having flashlights, wearing shoes during the storm in case you have to walk outside, and a bicycle helmet.
But, truly, tornados really hit a very isolated area, so you shouldn't have live in fear.
Location: New Albany, Indiana (Greater Louisville)
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THE big problem is the vast majority of tornado warnings are false alarms - literally 80% of warnings are later confirmed not to have been actual touchdowns. You have to be a weather geek like me to judge when to take warnings seriously or not. I think it's the biggest govt failure that the media doesn't talk about. What happens is people go years getting false warnings and then you have a bad outbreak where people need to heed the warning and people don't understand the difference and do nothing and die. During most warnings the tornado is embedded within a line of storms and the winds would only be marginally worse than straight line winds anyway.
Even in tornado alley a small number of days produce long track, violent tornadoes that kill 90% of people. You really only need to focus on those days. Really bad outbreaks occur only every 40 years, with less widespread but still dangerous outbreaks every couple of years.
Another issue is weekly testing of weather radios, which causes people to not leave them on all the time. Again, we should be rioting in the streets.
For a non weather geek not used to tornadoes I'd give the following advice:
1. Don't depend on a siren for your warning. Given the problem with weekly weather radio alert testing I recommend signing up for text alerts on your phone.
2. Follow a reputable weather person on Twitter or Facebook, someone who will let you know when a real tornado outbreak is likely. They will tell you if the situation is critical or non critical. Several days before a life threatening tornado outbreak they will have a marked change of tone that lets you know to take these warnings serious.
3. IF the situation is grave in most cases you will survive by going to an interior room and rolling into fetal position on the floor, covering yourself in blankets and pillows. Helmets increase survival chance as well. In very rare cases people get hit by the inner core of an EF5 tornado and there is no way to survive without being in a nuclear quality bunker. That is so unlikely I don't worry about it and neither should you.
4. IF the situation is grave don't keep looking out the window until it's too late. James Spann is an outstanding meteorologist in Alabama. He says that of the 250 people killed in that state during the 2011 Super Outbreak 225 where found adjacent to a "safe room" where they would have survived. If you've watched YouTube tornado videos it's obvious that people continue looking at the tornado assuming it won't hit them, then they have no time to get to their safe place.
5. Always abandon mobile homes and cars. You will die if you get hit. You are safer lying on the ground
You are much more likely to die in a car wreck than a tornado even in the heart of tornado alley. Take defensive driving and save what you planned to spend on prep.
The odds are so low you are wasting your time stressing or worrying over this.
1. Don't depend on a siren for your warning. Given the problem with weekly weather radio alert testing I recommend signing up for text alerts on your phone.
I agree with the advice to not rely on sirens and to get text alerts to your phone (and if you have a smart phone, you might want to install a weather app that sends out alerts as well - I like Storm Shield), but I'd still get a weather radio for home use and put it in the bedroom. In my area at least, the weekly alert is done during the middle of the day on a Wednesday; how many non-retirees are home then? And a weather radio alert is loud enough to wake you up from a dead sleep at 2 AM, while I've slept through text messages.
But get a SAME NOAA model radio, and program it to only go off for warnings issued to the county you are actually living in (and maybe the one directly west of you if you're living near the western border of your county). And make sure it's only set to sound off for tornado warnings; disable all the other warning alerts, so you don't become complacent because of too many "false alarms."
I live in an area where tornadoes occur, not very often; but when they have occurred, they've sometimes been the biggest ones ever, anywhere. And we've been involved in both of the two biggest tornado outbreaks, too. F3's and F4's moving 60 mph across the landscape. So, tornado mania does exist here, but things have been pretty disappointing the last 30 yrs; we think we're long overdue for "the big one."
But false alarms, time after time, regardless of how convincing the "couplet" looks on radar, the sirens incite a mini traffic jam. Into the car we go to drive around and see if we'll see anything. The rest of the people pop open a Pepsi and get on the porch. Except for trailer parks we almost all have basements around here. We rarely if ever head into them when the sirens start wailing.
If the OP is moving to an area that has tornadoes, and there is no basement, I recommend a Virgin Mary statue. And urge your neighbors to acquire them as well. Those parts of this area with lots of those statues in the yards never get hit. My Dad told us that when we were kids, and it looks, 60 years later, like he was right.
Last edited by TwinbrookNine; 01-03-2016 at 06:33 PM..
THE big problem is the vast majority of tornado warnings are false alarms - literally 80% of warnings are later confirmed not to have been actual touchdowns. You have to be a weather geek like me to judge when to take warnings seriously or not. I think it's the biggest govt failure that the media doesn't talk about. What happens is people go years getting false warnings and then you have a bad outbreak where people need to heed the warning and people don't understand the difference and do nothing and die. During most warnings the tornado is embedded within a line of storms and the winds would only be marginally worse than straight line winds anyway.
Even in tornado alley a small number of days produce long track, violent tornadoes that kill 90% of people. You really only need to focus on those days. Really bad outbreaks occur only every 40 years, with less widespread but still dangerous outbreaks every couple of years.
Another issue is weekly testing of weather radios, which causes people to not leave them on all the time. Again, we should be rioting in the streets.
For a non weather geek not used to tornadoes I'd give the following advice:
1. Don't depend on a siren for your warning. Given the problem with weekly weather radio alert testing I recommend signing up for text alerts on your phone.
2. Follow a reputable weather person on Twitter or Facebook, someone who will let you know when a real tornado outbreak is likely. They will tell you if the situation is critical or non critical. Several days before a life threatening tornado outbreak they will have a marked change of tone that lets you know to take these warnings serious.
3. IF the situation is grave in most cases you will survive by going to an interior room and rolling into fetal position on the floor, covering yourself in blankets and pillows. Helmets increase survival chance as well. In very rare cases people get hit by the inner core of an EF5 tornado and there is no way to survive without being in a nuclear quality bunker. That is so unlikely I don't worry about it and neither should you.
4. IF the situation is grave don't keep looking out the window until it's too late. James Spann is an outstanding meteorologist in Alabama. He says that of the 250 people killed in that state during the 2011 Super Outbreak 225 where found adjacent to a "safe room" where they would have survived. If you've watched YouTube tornado videos it's obvious that people continue looking at the tornado assuming it won't hit them, then they have no time to get to their safe place.
5. Always abandon mobile homes and cars. You will die if you get hit. You are safer lying on the ground
I've noticed national news seem to sensationalize tornadoes in their news. Recently MSNBC First Look and Morning Joe's weather guy seems to be throwing out stats like "9 million people affected" - that's a pretty broad range characterization of the threat, imo.....
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