QUESTION ABOUT TORNADO COUNTRY .... - Page 7

Hooty · ‎03-09-2010

On 4/30/2014 gidgetgoeshawaiian said:
On 4/29/2014 gazelle77 said: I could and would not live in a place where these storms are a yearly occurrence. I would move, live anywhere but THERE.

Good luck finding a place where there is no possibility of bad weather.

As for me, I'm sure it's beautiful where you live, but I couldn't live with the abundance of rain, dampness and gloomy days that you have. I just couldn't do it. But, that's home for you and you love it and that's great. We all choose where we want to be, warts and all.

Well said Gidget!!!

I love the South and don't plan to move! I look at this way, it is left up to us to have a plan to protect ourselves from harms way, but if it is our time to go, nothing is going to prevent it!

The AL/FL Gulf Coast is flooded from last night's and this morning's rain, how to you prevent that? You never know when Mother Nature is going to strike!

hckynut · ‎03-10-2010

On 4/30/2014 brii said:
Having a basement doesn't give me peace of mind at all. If the tornado sirens go off and we go down there, I imagine the whole house collapsing on us. And then what?

One might feel vulnerable no matter where they go during a tornado. I spent a lot of days helping clean up areas where this tornado hit and I didn't see 1 basement, that was completely below the ground, where a house had collapsed on itself into the basement.

Sure there was debris in the basements but a tornado picks up objects and moves them through the air, including things much heavier than what most house materials used other than bricks and concrete. Brick home stay pretty much in tact as do solid stone buildings.

No place will be 100% safe in these types of storm but given no choice I will take my chances in our basement because where I saw this horrible damage the full underground basements were the place for the best chances of surviving this type of storm.

hckynut(john)

151949 · ‎03-09-2010

On 4/29/2014 scotttie said:
On 4/29/2014 hope-Q said:
Cellars and basements can have a tendency to flood, filling up with water. That's why it's often safer to be in a bathtub or a ditch. If you are in a ditch, at or just below ground level, a tornado will usually go right over you because of the rate of speed at which they are moving and due to the fact they are spinning so rapidly. They don't dip down and grab things right below ground level, they just pick up what is on the level ground as they swoop over it and catch things in their wind tunnel. If they are a very highly rated one, like an F-10 or something as dismal as that, nothing matters. Everything will be wiped out. Fortunately, it's extremely rare for one to reach that number.

I'm under a severe tornado warning as I type this. Have been all evening, was last night, and am predicted to be for the next two nights after dark.

Have no basement or cellar. In our county, they don't build them anymore with new residential housing. But we built this house, and I had the contractor show me the best place to go as far as support beams and walls, etc.

Where I live the basements don't fill up with water. I guess it depends on where you live.

They don't in pittsburgh either.

brii · ‎06-20-2010

I have a sump pump, a battery back up sump pump, and a generator that kicks in when the electric goes off.

If I didn't, my whole basement would flood to the ceiling so fast.

songbird · ‎03-21-2010

Many people in the south and the mid-west, don't have cellars. The water table is very high there. So many houses are built (on slabs) with interior rooms. That would be the safest place. If you don't have that kind of room, anything else handy, like closet. Many homes in Texas have outside underground storm cellars. Texas and Oklahoma seems to have the most, but they don't get the huge F4 tornadoes that mid-west gets. Oklahoma sometimes gets the big ones, but not usually. My husband lived in Texas and the second day he was there.....a tornado came. First one he ever experienced.

As for tornadoes and the chance of getting them. Well anyplace in North America really. North America has the worst weather in the world. It happens here most frequently. One reason (that I've read) is that North America does not have a horizontal mountain range. There are only two mountain ranges (Rockies and Appalachian) and those are vertical. Any place in between is more prone to getting tornadoes. All that land is big and open. And most of the population lives there. Outside of the U.S. I've read the UK has the worst weather.

Pianomama · ‎03-10-2010

On 4/29/2014 ennui1 said:
On 4/29/2014 Jules5280 said:
On 4/29/2014 gazelle77 said: I could and would not live in a place where these storms are a yearly occurrence. I would move, live anywhere but THERE.

LOL!!! Please tell me where there is a "safe" place on this planet. People have to deal with earthquakes, tornadoes, floods, hurricanes, avalanches, mudslides, and many other disasters I am not thinking of.

Fire.

Yes, we are dealing with a fire situation right now. I am in So. California. Fire broke out this morning in a canyon about a mile from us. It is not yet contained because the winds were too high and water dropping aircraft could not help.

I grew up in the south and only saw a few storm cellars in my life. When we had bad storms, we got under the dining room table!!!

ivey · ‎03-10-2010

As a child, I remember going to the storm cellar in N. Texas. And all our neighbors came over, too. It was separate from our house and was built well by my dad and friends.

ilovedaisies · ‎07-20-2010

Relatives in the Ozarks called their storm cellar the ""Fraidy Hole"".

Suhse · ‎03-13-2012

On 4/29/2014 tansy said: No matter the map, Rough Draft, we do not get any serious tornado in WA where gazelle and I live for which I am very thankful.

I also live in Washington, Eastern Washington, Spokane.

We are surrounded by hills and mountains, which pretty much precludes any real Tornado activity. Years ago, I was at work and there was a report of a funnel cloud, west of Spokane, out in the flatter areas.

We had some people kind of freaked and a co-worker who had grown up in Little Rock, thought it was hysterically funny, that anyone here would imagine there could ever be a real tornado. As he put it, he wasn't an expert, but, he was still pretty sure, with the geography, it would be impossible.

l think the Northwest is one of the safest areas of the country, in terms on natural disasters.

In Eastern Washington, although we do get our share, we're even safer than the folks west of the mountains, from the possibility of going "rain insane"!

I don't mean to make light of the topic, I was horrified to see the destruction on the news. I can't imagine the terror and the heartbreak of dealing with the aftermath.