Community Chat

[CatsyCline]

a family member has to drive from Norfolk VA  to Seattle WA starting next week. he is in the Military.  he had duty in NFK and now has to drive 2000 miles to his new billet in WA state.

He is not great at listening to the weather radio.

i think there is I-90 through the upper midwest.  is there a safer route for him to take ?   to avoid Tornado Alley. looks like OK, IL, KN and a few others are in the thick of it right now. 

thank you for any suggestions!

[Kachina624]

To get from point A to point B, it's obvious he has to go through the middle of the country.  His chances of encountering a tornado are slim.  There are people who've lived in "tornado alley" all their lives who've never seen one.  Hopefully, if he encounters stormy weather, he'll stop somewhere safe.  Even if he was to go as far South as Interstate 10, (near Mexico) he could be hampered by storms.  They closed it last week due to lack of visibility in dust storms.

[CatsyCline]

maybe the Trans-Canada Hwy is a good choice. Tornados scare me. i have only had to deal with hurricanes and blizzards but we usually know ahead of time if they are coming!

[Mz iMac]

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@ashleigh dupray wrote:

a family member has to drive from Norfolk VA  to Seattle WA starting next week. he is in the Military.  he had duty in NFK and now has to drive 2000 miles to his new billet in WA state.

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When did the military stop flying their people to their new base(s)?

[RedTop]

My youngest daughter drives a tractor trailer and makes runs to the west coast each week.   When she has runs to Seattle, company dispatch routes her from NC to WA, by way of I-77, I-64, and I-70.   

[Sooner]

Yes, Tx, OK and Arkansas and Kansas are tornado central in late April, ALL of May and early June.  The ONLY to be safe is to keep up with the weather.  Make sure you have apps on your phone with radar, the national weather service apps and even local tv stations in the areas you are traveling through.  IF there are tornadoes in the state of Oklahoma, or even severe thunderstroms with tornado potential, channels KFOR 4 and KWTV channel 9 have apps that supply continuous comverage of where the storms.

You do NOT want to be in a tornado in a car.  After mid June the really bad storms seems to usually be more north than down here.

GOOD luck and please anyone driving be aware.  If you think I'm kidding just look at some of the tornado footage from both those tv stations from yesterday.

[CatsyCline]

thank you !!  i will give him the route information. i think I-90 runs straight across the upper midwest. through Yellowstone.  he has a GPS !!

he said the Navy won't pay to move the car unless it goes overseas.    they give per diem for travel and the pay for the housing move . he was land duty for 3 years and has furniture and household goods. 

[FastDogWalker2]

MzMac - as the wife of a 30 (plus)  year Navy veteran,  my husband was never  flown to his new duty station unless it was overseas.  We made several cross country moves.  The service member often has a car and family that has to get to the new destination,  not just themselves.  HTH.  To the OP, I hope your family member has safe travels.  

[songbird]

I read that North America has the worst weather in the world.  Other parts of the world get severe weather, not as frequently as we do.  Part of the reason is the U.S. does not have a long horizontal mountain chain.  We just have the vertical ones of the Rockies and Appalachians.  In between is a breeding ground for tornadoes.  And it's the most populated. 

[151949]

Perhaps drive north from Norfolk up into Pa then go west - very seldom do you see tornados in the north - not impossible but definitely rare. Would add a little to the trip I imagine but safety and anxierty would be improved.