Wanabee Quiltin

When the horn blows, it means (to me) turn on the TV and see where the tornado is. Usually it is sighted somewhere in the St. Louis vicinity. When it blows continually, that means go to a safe area in your home. If you are in your car, you should find a ditch somewhere closest to the tornado area. A room without windows is safest and I find that texting family members in another city telling them where you are is best as the house may come down on you. I have lived in tornado areas all my life and can tell by the way the sky looks that there is a tornado coming. I moved to Idaho once and on my way home from work, I could tell there was a tornado nearby. That evening, my boss called and I told him about it. He said they didn't have tornados, but on the news that night, I was right as there was a small tornado about 15 miles away. The sky gets a funny color and everything gets very still and then the wind starts. The tornado is not on your doorstep when it blows, you have plenty of time **normally** before it hits. Sometimes it hits fast like in Kansas and western MO.

reginalovesfabric

one thing we are told here in south MS is to go to the bathroom and to have a helmet for people to protect your head. Great idea. Be sure to grab your quilts and a pillow for you will be in the tub.

maviskw

In the 60's I was doing the evening milking in very hot and humid weather. After we finished I took off my scarf which I wore tied behind my head, and I remember thinking I wanted to take off my hair, too. The heat and humidity were oppressive.

Tornados can very funny things. One picked up a house in which a many and his wife were eating dinner. It set the house down some distance away, and the people inside didn't even know what had happened.

running1

I think I can help... I live in western Oklahoma and because we see so many tornadoes, even our high school mascot is the "Red Tornadoes" (our dirt is reddish). You'll want to go to the smallest room in the house if you don't have a basement or cellar. Underground is the safest place to be, especially with a large tornado and the weather conditions determine the size of the tornado. When the house falls down, the smallest rooms/closets/bathrooms are sometimes left standing. The ceilings of larger rooms collapse more easily... Get into a bathtub (the old porcelain tubs are heavy), and cover yourself with whatever you can. Our cellars are equipped with radios, water, flashlights... and don't go without your phone! In my neighborhood, there are many homes without basements/cellars so we are often the "tornado host"... About the warning...here where we have many tornadoes, the civil defense system of each community installs very loud sirens to warn of approaching tornadoes. We usually have plenty of time to reach safety, but not always... Nature is unpredictable sometimes! Hope this helps...

Onebyone

Every weather newscast for tornado alerts here say get out of a mobile home. Even if anchored down mobile homes are not safe in tornados. Most homes in the south don't have basements. If you live where tornados are likely then you know where to go and how to prepare. It's up to the individual to learn this and not wait for sirens which many can't hear anyway.

Needles

Angelmomma, has it down pat. I was born in IN and raised in OH but have lived in FL over 45 years. I will take a hurricane over a tornado, any day, even though hurricanes spawn many tornadoes. None of them are the magnitude of a midwest massive tornado. They wipe out whole towns there. Was still in OH when The Palm Sunday tornadoes hit in 1965, from Nebraska/Iowa through western PA, 78 storms rammed across the country. I believe total deaths were close to 300. My uncle farmed in southern MI. Two weeks later he was plowing, saw a pile of debris in the field so stopped to see what it was. Mostly paper and trash but a checkbook, a person's in Iowa. He called her and she was amazed but said he need not send it, her house was totally gone, she had to open a new bank account. All her information of life was gone too, along with her home.

When people ask me where I grew up, I always say, the basement. Yes, the SW corner of it, we kept blankets and pillows there along with flashlights, portable radio and water jugs. Storms come out of the SE and travel to the NW, thus should your home be hit, it hopefully will carry the debris away from your safety spot.

After we moved south, Xenia, OH was hit by a massive storm, was in the mid 70's or so. The funnel was 1 mile wide, sat down on the SW side of town and run NE, on the ground, for 5 miles. The massive damages were unbelievable. OK also has many storms like this, along with TX, KS and others in the plains. People I know who live in that area with no basements, either have storm cellars or storm vaults, under the house...................and they use them. As a child, we had homes with a basement, but many times in IN, we ran to our neighbors to share their root cellar if one was approaching during the day. Yes, they are a scary scenario.

But when you think about it, all parts of the country have weather phenomenon to worry about. Flash floods, earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, excessive heat, excessive cold, etc. I think what I dislike most here is lightening. Don't ever go under a tree in FL when it's lightening, get off the beach and away from any large open areas and stay out of the water in small boats, canoes, kayaks, etc. We had one of those storms last evening. Wow!

mac

Wow, those storms sound like a doozy. And people worry about earthquakes in California. Most of them are nothing in comparison to what you are all talking about.

Needles

Oh, no don't think that way, the Northridge quake, I believe was in the 80's and then the one near San Franciso, it took out parts of the freeways along, levels of it, piled up on it, crushing commuting cars. I think if we never lived in certain areas, we have no idea of the frailty of them, or didn't. Now with the internet, in 5 min., it's out there. Look at the terrible fires out west. An tsunamis caused by earthquakes, we only think of them happening in Asian countries. Not so.

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-h...mi-hits-hawaii

http://www.drgeorgepc.com/Tsunami1958LituyaB.html

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquak...ts/alaska1964/

Grant you, they were a long time ago, but if there were a large Pacific earthquake today, the west coast could be in great peril, especially since the population has changed in all these 50-60 years. The one that hit Hilo years back was caused by an earthquake off the southern part of Chili!

I love history so that's one reason I love the internet, all these facts can be looked up quickly and I love my big screen monitor. Live life and be happy, and may you all be safe.

Needles

And here are the links to two of the bad CA quakes. My cousin was an RN at the Hospital but worked 7-11 shift.....the earthquake woke her out of a deep sleep. Another cousin was in commute when it happened in Oakland, he was already through the pancaked area before it fell.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiabD0WBl7w North ridge, a recreation with real photo damages

http://www.livescience.com/48324-lom...-pictures.html

tessagin

Needles, I was born and raised in Indiana and was 15 during the Pam Sunday tornadoes. We lived in Yoder and the tornadoes hit right along the towns that 224 ran through all the way to through Decatur, Monroe and Portland through to Ohio. And I remember Xenia, the were hit in the evening. If it weren't for many of the animals before the alarms went off more people would've lost their lives.