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As tornadoes pummel the American South, and 100s are killed/hurt, are all our RF members safe?

Kathryn

Kathryn

It was on fire when I laid down on it.
The trouble started here in Texas Tuesday night. Four tornadoes hit within 20 miles of our home in northeast Texas, and we spent two hours alternating between watching the radar on TV in the den, to standing in awe on the front porch watching the 55,000 recorded lightning strikes, to bolting for the "small, windowless, interior room" as the trees in the yard whipped around like balloons on a string.

We were lucky - only two people killed, and just a few injuries, though of course there's lots of wind damage, and some really cool videos. Personally, our home and our family are fine.

But others along a huge swath across the South are devastated. Are any RF members or their families affected by these storms? If so, what can we do to help?

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Tornadoes: 172 Killed Across South, Including 128 in Alabama - ABC News
 
Kathryn

Kathryn

It was on fire when I laid down on it.
By the way, the month of April usually hosts about 100 tornadoes in the United States. So far this month there have been nearly 900 tornadoes - and the month of May, which is normally a big tornado month, is still looming ahead.
 
A

angellous_evangellous

Guest
I can't believe that in 2011 people die in storms in the United States. One or two, ok. But more than 100? I've lived in tornado alley all my life, and I've seen my fair share of tornados. It's hard to get killed if you're taking proper shelter.
 
ninerbuff

ninerbuff

godless wonder
They would be ugly, but if houses were built with "round" roofs, there would definitely be less damage.
 
A

angellous_evangellous

Guest
ninerbuff said:
They would be ugly, but if houses were built with "round" roofs, there would definitely be less damage.
Click to expand...

You're kidding.

An F5 tornado doesn't rip off roofs. It destroys everything on the surface of the earth.
 
Koldo

Koldo

Outstanding Member
Hope you will stay safe!

Those things must certainly be frightening.

I know this is very off-topic, but would anyone mind giving me an answer to the following question: I have noticed that many houses in the USA are made of wood. Is this the standard everywhere or just in specific states?
 
ninerbuff

ninerbuff

godless wonder
angellous_evangellous said:
The way you said it the first time made me think of a home with a dome roof rather than a home that was a dome.

Big difference.
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My bad. I should have been more specific. But again though ugly, how much money could be saved if homes in tornado alley were built this way? Millions of dollars in reconstruction would be diverted to more pressing needs.
 
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angellous_evangellous

Guest
ninerbuff said:
My bad. I should have been more specific. But again though ugly, how much money could be saved if homes in tornado alley were built this way? Millions of dollars in reconstruction would be diverted to more pressing needs.
Click to expand...

I don't think that they're ugly. We'd just have to get used to them.
 
Skwim

Skwim

Veteran Member
Our home was hit by a small tornado some years back, which tore off shingles and toppled a 50' pine tree onto the roof. We were all safe in our basement at the time as were many others in the neighborhood in theirs, so no one was seriously injured. Gotta say, it was a scary 15 minutes I never want to repeat.
 
Kathryn

Kathryn

It was on fire when I laid down on it.
I was in a tornado in 1988 in Texas. It lifted the roof right off our house - and then sat it right back down. We were in a downstairs bathroom and water was running down the walls - it was WILD. I'm here to tell you - it wouldn't have mattered where we'd been if it had been a direct hit. Any force that rips oak trees out of the ground and throws helicoptors and planes around like matchsticks is a force to be reckoned with. (This was on Fort Hood and helicoptors were ripped from chains bolted to concrete and cars were tossed like matchbox toys all over the place.)

My mother's best friend from high school and her daughter, along with their husbands, were in their bathroom huddled down in the bathtub, with the men on top and the women down in the tub. Both men were ripped away when their house exploded, and were killed.

They were prepared and in a "small, interior windowless room." But they died anyway.
 
Kathryn

Kathryn

It was on fire when I laid down on it.
angellous_evangellous said:
I can't believe that in 2011 people die in storms in the United States. One or two, ok. But more than 100? I've lived in tornado alley all my life, and I've seen my fair share of tornados. It's hard to get killed if you're taking proper shelter.
Click to expand...

From the AP:



The death toll from Wednesday's storms seems out of a bygone era, before Doppler radar and pinpoint satellite forecasts were around to warn communities of severe weather. Residents were told the tornadoes were coming up to 24 minutes ahead of time, but they were just too wide, too powerful and too locked onto populated areas to avoid a horrifying body count.
"These were the most intense super-cell thunderstorms that I think anybody who was out there forecasting has ever seen," said meteorologist Greg Carbin at the National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla.
"If you experienced a direct hit from one of these, you'd have to be in a reinforced room, storm shelter or underground" to survive, Carbin said.

A tower-mounted news camera in Tuscaloosa captured images of an astonishingly thick, powerful tornado flinging debris as it leveled neighborhoods.
That twister and others Wednesday were several times more severe than a typical tornado, which is hundreds of yards wide, has winds around 100 mph and stays on the ground for a few miles, said research meteorologist Harold Brooks at the Storm Prediction Center.
"There's a pretty good chance some of these were a mile wide, on the ground for tens of miles and had wind speeds over 200 mph," he said.
The loss of life is the greatest from an outbreak of U.S. tornadoes since April 1974, when the weather service said 315 people were killed by a storm that swept across 13 Southern and Midwestern states.
Brooks said the tornado that struck Tuscaloosa could be an EF5 -- the strongest category of tornado, with winds of more than 200 mph -- and was at least the second-highest category, an EF4.
 
GabrielWithoutWings

GabrielWithoutWings

Well-Known Member
We somehow got missed by both fronts that came through Atlanta at the same time. One storm system moved north of us that developed tornadoes that hit between Chattanooga and Atlanta on over to South Carolina. The other hit south of us just under Atlanta and moved northeast toward South Carolina.

Gwinnett County and Hall County got lucky.
 
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ninerbuff

ninerbuff

godless wonder
Maybe the rapture is starting early..........OK bad joke, but the "finger of god" ran rampant these past few days.
 
D

Duck

Well-Known Member
Kathryn said:
I was in a tornado in 1988 in Texas. It lifted the roof right off our house - and then sat it right back down. We were in a downstairs bathroom and water was running down the walls - it was WILD. I'm here to tell you - it wouldn't have mattered where we'd been if it had been a direct hit. Any force that rips oak trees out of the ground and throws helicoptors and planes around like matchsticks is a force to be reckoned with. (This was on Fort Hood and helicoptors were ripped from chains bolted to concrete and cars were tossed like matchbox toys all over the place.)

My mother's best friend from high school and her daughter, along with their husbands, were in their bathroom huddled down in the bathtub, with the men on top and the women down in the tub. Both men were ripped away when their house exploded, and were killed.

They were prepared and in a "small, interior windowless room." But they died anyway.
Click to expand...

I remember that! I was living just west of Copperas Cove (just outside city limits) when that storm came through. It missed the area I was living in but I remember the damage, parts of Killeen were without power for several days if I remember correctly.
 
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