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Surviving Tornadoes 449

SharkJumper writes "We here in central Oklahoma, USA are just climbing out of the wreckage of another series of tornadoes. Unlike the tornadoes of May 3rd, 1999, which killed 47 and injured more than 800, we now have much better tornado information and prediction technology. Largely because of this, there have been far fewer injuries, and (as of this morning) no reported deaths. Here in the greater Oklahoma City area, we can even register our storm shelters with the city. After a severe storm, GIS technology is used to create a map for rescuers detailing location and type of the shelter as well as emergency contact information. Rescuers can then use these maps to search for survivors that may be trapped by debris in their shelters."

Surviving Tornadoes

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  • Tip #1 (Score:5, Funny)

    by SpanishInquisition (127269) on Friday May 09, 2003 @01:39PM (#5920108) Homepage Journal
    Being a big fat ass can actually increase your chances of survival.
    • Re:Tip #1 (Score:5, Interesting)

      by robslimo (587196) on Friday May 09, 2003 @01:52PM (#5920245) Homepage Journal
      I suppose. But being a wide-load also makes you a bigger target for flying debris.

      I live in Stillwater, OK and was watching the news very closely yesterday afternoon/evening just to make sure those twister weren't headed my way.

      Sure, the early warning systems are better, but the main improvements are:

      (1) Modern variants of doppler radar (and software for it) that can better identify wind velocities in terms of rotation and likelihood of funnel formation. However, the radar can rarely (if ever?) tell for certain if a rotation in a storm is actually a tornado or if it is on the ground.

      (2) Communication. The National Weather service and the Severe Storm labs in Norman work closely with radio and TV to get the info out about severe weather. But too often, they know to report actual tornados only after an eyewitness has called to report one on the ground.

      The one thing they do know fairly well is the conditions that could lead to tornado formation. But the presence of those conditions (as we can sense/interpret them now) does not tell us that there *will* be a twister or *where*.

      • Re:Tip #1 (Score:3, Insightful)


        Actually to be entirely technical only when a funnel cloud touches down on the ground is it called a tornado... prior to that it's called a funnel cloud
    • Thanks. My fat ass is safe. lol... BMI 29.5 (almost obese).

      Actually when this thing hit I was working at home and the power went off. I was trying to figure out why (I live in Norman which is about 5-10 miles south of where the tornado touched down in Moore) so I turned on the TV (it was sunny and clear in Norman). The cable recycled and of course I turn on local channels and they are showing a tornado just north of where I live. Crazy ass weather. The alarms didn't even sound in my town (which they should
  • by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 09, 2003 @01:40PM (#5920109)
    Don't live where they happen.
    • The best way to survive is not to be stupid.

      1) Know your surroundings
      2) If the sky is green, there's a problem.
      3) Have a plan
      4) Practice the plan
      5) Hang on for dear life

    • by YrWrstNtmr (564987) on Friday May 09, 2003 @01:49PM (#5920198)
      Don't live where they happen.

      And move to where?

      West coast? quakes, fires, mudslides, volcanoes
      East coast? Hurricanes
      South? Hurricanes
      Northeast? Blizzards

      Everywhere has stupid weather. Just stupid in different ways.

      No, the best way to survive a tornado is not to live in a trailer park/tornado-hurricane magnet.
      • And move to where?
        England has weather that's quite unlikely to kill you.

        Unless of course you find a winter season that lasts from September to June a bit too depressing and kill yourself.

        • by sjbe (173966)
          England has weather that's quite unlikely to kill you.


          I had a roommate back when I was an undergrad who was from near Birmingham. Everytime we'd have a rainy, cold, gloomy, miserable day he'd get homesick. None of us quite understood why you'd miss that but hey, it's home right? You get used to it I guess. Being from near Cleveland, I don't think it's winter unless there is two feet of l
        • What if you're walking around in the fog, and fall in a hole and break your neck?
      • West coast? quakes, fires, mudslides, volcanoes
        East coast? Hurricanes
        South? Hurricanes
        Northeast? Blizzards

        Up here in NH, we just go inside during blizzards.
      • Blizzard Survival 101

        1. Have food already bought
        2. Have wood already cut for heat
        3. Have a steep enough roof to naturally dump off snow.
        4. ...
        5. Profit!

      • And move to where?

        West coast? quakes, fires, mudslides, volcanoes
        East coast? Hurricanes
        South? Hurricanes
        Northeast? Blizzards

        Could one include Texas in the South's list, or is this list only for natural disasters?

      • The Northeast is the safest place.

        Blizzards are laughable to those who were raised there.

        Our snow removal corps are well paid and trained, and most people own plows to help quicken the process. Everyone learns to drive on ice, and also that you shouldn't be on the roads in the first place.

        Where I was raised (Central Maine) dying from severe weather is practically unheard of.
    • Earth... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Nick Driver (238034)
      You mean move to another planet???

      Seriously, tornadoes can occur *anywhere* where a _thunderstorm_ can develop. That's pretty much most of Earth's surface between the Arctic and Antarctic circle latitudes. Of course there are unique areas within these zones where thunderstorms are rare like extremely high mountain tops, etc, that interfere with thunderstorms.

      Of course you can also build a city under the sea to escape them.
      • This place is Brazil. We don't have tornados, hurricanes, earthquakes, blizards are *very* rare, floodings happens sometimes in some places but are quite rare too and not too severe and mostly due to abnormal wheater fenomena as the "El Niño". I'm not 100% sure but I believe our surrounding countries have the same lack of wheather disasters. This makes me ask myself sometimes why people lives in such places, have to been aware of tornados, for instance. Don't get me wrong, I understand what is been att
    • It would appear that there is only one state in the US in which you can live with practically no fear of tornados. That state is Alaska [].

      I live in the far SE corner of Kansas. Yes, I live within miles of where the fatal tornados passed through on Sunday. 6 miles north of me the tornados eliminated (No [], I'm [] not [] joking []) the town of Franklin, KS. 7 miles south of me tornados ripped through Columbus, KS, over near Asbury, MO, and finally tore through Carl Junction, MO. I've lived in this state all my life

  • by aridhol (112307) <> on Friday May 09, 2003 @01:40PM (#5920117) Homepage Journal
    So we have an emergency resource, posted to Slashdot when it's most required. Genious.

    • by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 09, 2003 @01:46PM (#5920172)

      no comment.
    • by tunabomber (259585) on Friday May 09, 2003 @02:29PM (#5920634) Homepage
      Yeah, but who's going to visit the links? We'd much go straight to the comments and read witty little observations about the pertinence of emergency resources on Slashdot.

      It's not like the links lead to pages with Duke Nukem Forever screenshots or 1:2 scale Sherman tanks made of legos.
  • Tornado Tip (Score:5, Funny)

    by bmongar (230600) on Friday May 09, 2003 @01:40PM (#5920119)
    Don't stand outside on the deck and film it hoping a local news station will buy your tape.
    • by genkael (102983) on Friday May 09, 2003 @01:43PM (#5920152)
      Instead setup a web cam and sell the digital feed to them.
    • by Buzz_Litebeer (539463) on Friday May 09, 2003 @02:30PM (#5920656) Journal
      and let me put it this way, live feeds really really really help.

      anyway, yesterday I get a call from my father saying I should probably keep an eye on the weather right (i live in lawrence kansas btw), and I was like "uh ok dad" anyway, so I am watching the news and they say "you should probably seek shelter if you live in lawrence kansas" so I instant messaged my family members on trillian that I was going to leave my apartment to go find somewhere with facilities for protection. So me and my roomates head on over to a restaurant a block away from where we live, because there is a cooler there. We arrive and all the TV's are on news channels (its a sports bar) and a lot of people were already in the back cooler (pretty solid place).

      Anyway so I sit down and order a drink, and start watching the news. A lot of people started filtering into the bar at this point, because the rain had become pretty severe at this time. Then the sun came out, bright as day, calm outside no rain at all! So people started to leave the restaurant right, and then they all turned right back around about a minute later and goign "get back in the cooler"

      Right then the television pops on with live coverage from a helicopter outside of lawrence looking INTO LAWRENCE, and we watched the tornado take a merry jaunt through the south of town, and we were watching and we could see the restaurant on the TV, so a lot more people filed back into the cooler. Though I watched the TV since I could see the restaurant i figured if it started getting close I was 10 feet from the cooler and I could probably make it.

      Anyway we watched go around town a little, then go back up into the air. And then we went back and told the guys in the cooler that the tornado was gone, and everyone started getting their cell phones out, and someone let us borrow their cell phones and we called our relatives so that they knew we were ok.

      It was a pretty weird expereince because I had never actually been in a "calm before the storm" scenario, but it really does happen, because the sun came out and it looked really pretty outside.

      It was surreal watching the tornado going around and people driving on the roads as tracked around parrellel to Iowa street. and knowing that its actually VERY close to where YOU ARE right then watching it.

      And then it was a bit weird watching the news later that night and they had classical music while a camera was just viewing a big swathe of destroyed land and it had text at the bottom "please do not go out in your cars so that Emergency traffic can move freely"

      anyway live feeds are pretty important, because you KNOW where the tornado is, and all the live coverage of the event most assuradely saved lives.

      The tornado touched down 5 blocks from my house, so the only thing that really got to me was the police sirens the car alarms that kept going off.

      • I also watched this all unfold. Everyone hiding in basement, watching channel 9. Suddenly, there is the helecopter footage. Soon it is over. Then helecopter footage of damage. Followed by the traffic jams of people wanting to see the damage and blocking emergency vehicles.
    • Re:Tornado Tip (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Casca (4032) on Friday May 09, 2003 @02:48PM (#5920855) Journal
      Is it ok if I stand in my driveway and take a picture once its gone by?

      I took that last night. I live in Moore, Oklahoma, in the same neighborhood that was smacked hard in May 1999. This place is nuts.
  • Oh no toto! (Score:5, Funny)

    by CaffeineAddict2001 (518485) on Friday May 09, 2003 @01:41PM (#5920137)
    I don't think Oz has valid GPS coordinates!

    Ok, you just climbed out of tornado wreckage (which is nothing to laugh about, I've been through a couple when I lived in Indiana), but the first thing that comes to your mind is dude, I bet we can submit this to /. and they'll post it!

    Seriously, though, its cool that technology can help when mother nature is being a muthah...
    • by robslimo (587196)
      That's right, pick on us Okies when we spin a little figure of speech.

      What I take exception to is this phrase:

      Perhaps the fact that '99s tornado was an F5 and this one was a F2 to low F3 has a little to do with the difference in damage/causualties?


        I though that the F ratings were a measure of the damage caused. If so, then what you said is a tautology.


        Actually since the rating of a tornado is directly based on the amount of damage it does... yes it does have a 'little' to do with the difference in damage but nothing to do with the number of casualties.

        This does not change the fact that the "size" of the tornado has little to do with the rating on the Fujita Scale []. A tornado that is capable of being a F4 or F5 may

  • Sadly... (Score:5, Funny)

    by American AC in Paris (230456) on Friday May 09, 2003 @01:42PM (#5920144) Homepage
    Despite all our advances in tornado detection, storm shelter technology, and early warning systems, the fact remains that tornadoes still really suck.


    • the fact remains that tornadoes still really suck.

      Actually, Microsoft Tornado 2003 - with ActiMate Barney Technology is the first Microsoft product that doesen't suck.

      It blows.

    • Yeah, this whole big tornado season reminds me of that movie ... Playing God. That sucked too.
  • Just ejoy where you live. If you feer about these things move. I live in OKC. I've helped dig people out. But I still wouldn't move.
  • I've always wanted to see a cow fly by like in Twister...

    Ok, seriously, I know that they always tell you to get in a doorway, or bathtub, supposedly because it is a 'more sound structure'~ I would think you wouldn't want to be near porcelain at a time like that...

    And not living in an area like that, how often do people build their own 'shelter' as opposed to a central/public one?
    • Re:Crazy Winds~ (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Wyatt Earp (1029) on Friday May 09, 2003 @01:47PM (#5920189)
      We had Tornado shelters in South Dakota.

      Storm cellers, basements, crawl spaces. It's all good.

      Bathtubs are good not because of the material, but because it's one piece, they usually survive and it's a place you can get down and cover your vital organs and noggin while having some side protection.

      Tubs usually were cast iron with a porcelain coating over them, now they are usually fiberglass.
    • by itchyfidget (581616) on Friday May 09, 2003 @01:48PM (#5920197) Journal


      I'd be wishing I was near porcelain, since the alternatives involve begging rescue-workers for a clean pair of pants...

    • I would think you wouldn't want to be near porcelain at a time like that

      What porcelain? The toilet? Bathtubs have historically been made of iron, with a porcelain or enamel cover. Nowadays most are made from fiberglass.

      Bathtubs, particularly old standalones, are seriously heavy, and due to the shape of the clawfoot variety, resist the wind picking them up.

      Every paranoid should have a clawfoot tub in their house. besides tornado protection, they make a pretty good bullet shield if the black helicopte
  • I like bad weather (Score:5, Interesting)

    by paRcat (50146) on Friday May 09, 2003 @01:44PM (#5920163)
    It's wierd... I grew up in Tulsa, and I moved to NYC when I was 19. I'm now back in the Tulsa area. Why? I missed the storms. Granted, I've made sure that the areas I live in have been geographically pre-disposed to not having tornadoes, and I don't like the idea of people being hurt... but being in a shelter as an enormous supercell passes overhead is a bit of a rush.

    go fig.

    • This is why the first Matrix failed.

      Think about it.
  • by JUSTONEMORELATTE (584508) on Friday May 09, 2003 @01:47PM (#5920190) Homepage
    Oh sure, it seems harmless now -- "Just register your shelter with the government, and we'll help you out later!"
    But the next thing you know, Big Brother has these lists of shelters! It only makes it easier when they need to confiscate them later!!
    I tell you what, you can have my unregistered shelter when you pry it from my cold, dead hands!

  • by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 09, 2003 @01:51PM (#5920224)
    These things [] can survive just about anything short of a direct hit with a nuke.
  • Duck and cover.

    Works for nukes, too.

  • by Starrider (73590) on Friday May 09, 2003 @01:55PM (#5920268)
    The 1999 tornado in Moore Oklahoma killed so many not because there wasn't enough warning, but because it was the most powerful tornado every recorded. It was listed as an F5, the nastiest class of tornado, but many meterologists say that the F5 classification doesn't fit, because the 1999 tornado was off the scale.

    That tornado was so powerful it removed the foundation of the homes and left barren earth. Unless you had a dedicated storm shelter underground, you were at risk.

    I'm from Tulsa, Oklahoma, and I saw the devestation too. There was plenty of warning about this tornado, but when they are this nasty, this powerful, this devestating, sometimes there isn't anything anyone can do.

    That same storm cell went up I-44 and hit Tulsa a few hours later. The tornados by then were not nearly as powerful, but that was the first time in my life I was actually scared of a tornado. I was 21 at the time, have lived in Oklahoma all my life, but when they show a street level map of you neighborhood and show the path of the tornado coming right at you, it is unnerving to say the least. (Especially after seeing what this storm cell did to the poor folks in Moore.)

    Our home did not get hit, as the tornado hit the Arkansas River and went back up into the wall cloud. It touched down again across town.

    Here, tornados are a fact of life. Most people who live in "Tornado Alley" accept this, and just pray it never hits them. My heart goes out to those who have suffered losses from this tornado.
    • by feed_those_kitties (606289) on Friday May 09, 2003 @02:56PM (#5920935)

      I saw somewhere that the 1999 Moore tornado had its windspeed measured with a doppler radar, and the number they came up with was one mph below F6 status. It would have been the first F6 tornado ever documented.

      It was truly a monster...


    • by macdaddy (38372) on Friday May 09, 2003 @05:13PM (#5922175) Homepage Journal
      Technically speaking F5 isn't the largest tornado. Ted Fujita's [] scale []was actually calculated through F-12, better known as Mach-I or the speed of sound (750 mph). The scale NOAA uses to categorize tornados ranges from F-0 to F-5. However an F-6 is entirely possible. A F-6 would have winds measuring 319-379 mph. It's actually believed that the Moore/Oklahoma City tornado was an F-6. However they'll never be able to prove it. The F-6 is called the "inconceivable tornado" and the "impossible tornado". It's not inconceivable or impossible that it will ever happen (or has ever happened) but that it's inconceivable and impossible by any practical measure to prove it ever happened. The F-6 damage would be masked by the damage caused by F-4 and F-5 winds around the core. The only way something like this could ever be proved is if researchers had an abundance of data and aerial views to compute the projected wind speed based on the ground swirl patterns in the debris. Most people don't realize that a tornado isn't categorized by its actual size. Many hear 1/2 mile wide and think "gee, it has to be a F-5." Not so. Tornados are classified by their wind speed. Wind speed can't be calculated at the actual time of damage (ie, they can't be taken directly from the tornado itself (yet)). Wind speed is calculated by the amount and type of damage done. For example researchers know exactly how muhc force it takes to put up a Ford Excursion and hurl it 45 yards. They know how much wind speed is takes to topple a 25-year old red oak tree in rocky soil. They know that it doesn't take much more than a stiff breeze to topple that 30-year old maple tree in moist soil (because it's soft as hell and moist soil means nutrients closer to the ground surface so you see a great deal of surface roots).

      Tornados are a bitch. People would be well advised to learn about them and learn how to protect themselves before they have to adlib.

  • I tought we owed all of our Tornado research to Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton.
  • by KD7JZ (161218) on Friday May 09, 2003 @01:56PM (#5920278)
    A program that has helped (even in the network age) to speed warnings is SKYWARN []. SKYWARN is an adjunct program of the National Weather Service that trains spotters to deliver real time, on the ground, info to the NWS.
  • by CommieLib (468883) on Friday May 09, 2003 @01:57PM (#5920294) Homepage
    Four words: decoy mobile home parks.
  • Get out of the trailor park... Dude... Stop driving a Yugo, get an H2.
  • by landtuna (18187) on Friday May 09, 2003 @02:00PM (#5920330)
    Sorry for the blatant plug, but my company's working right now with the University of Oklahoma on new radar technology that should double the warning time for severe storms.

    You can see some pictures and read about the new radar here [].

    The current radar technology used for all weather forcasting (NEXRAD) is really pretty old. By using a phased array, the scan times are much quicker than the old spinning dish style.

    We hope to get this thing operational really soon. Off the above site, there's a webcam where you can see the progress of its construction.

  • by dugless (453465) on Friday May 09, 2003 @02:02PM (#5920346) Homepage
    ...just not right before.
  • by MeanE (469971)
    If Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton can easily survive them anyone can.
  • MMMM... Oklahoma (Score:3, Interesting)

    by cens0r (655208) on Friday May 09, 2003 @02:02PM (#5920352) Homepage
    I actually grew up in Oklahoma, just north of Tulsa in Bartlesville, and graduated from OU. I live in Seattle now, and I actually miss the weather some times as crazy as that sounds. A few days ago I saw lightening and heard thunder here and it brought a smile to my face.

    If you haven't ever been to the middle of the US, and you get a chance, watch the weather reports some time. If you're from the west coast they will simply amaze you. All the weather people are real meterologists (most with phd's) and they really know what they're talking about. When there is a severe storm or tornado they track the thing and tell you at what time it's going to hit certain intersections in the city. The weather people here are just a joke.
  • Michigan (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Schezar (249629) on Friday May 09, 2003 @02:06PM (#5920403) Homepage Journal
    I lived in Michigan for most of my life (Southeast area, by Sterling Heights), and tornado watches/warnings were a weekly occurance.

    (By the way, just to quell misunderstandings later on, a tornado WATCH means that the conditions in the area are condusive to the formation of a tornado. A tornado WARNING means that a funnel cloud has actually been seen forming in the area.)

    I was told of several ways to know when a tornado was coming by my parents, friends, teachers, etc... These are in no way scientific or reliable. (Don't sue me if you die in a tornado ^_^)

    1. The sky will take on a slight green tint in the 20 minutes before a funnel cloud forms.

    2. The wind stops right before a funnel cloud forms near you.

    3. If the clouds that are high in the sky are moving at a different speed from the clouds that are lower, a tornado is likely.

    4. If you observe spiders unraveling their webs, a tornado is likely to form.

    5. Dogs will begin to panic and/or act strangely.

    6. If you observe a tornado.. ^_^

    I love Michigan. My father and I used to sit in lawn chairs and watch tornados follow the freeway during summer storms. (Mom thought we were crazy..)
  • Doppler radar (Score:5, Interesting)

    by afidel (530433) on Friday May 09, 2003 @02:12PM (#5920464)
    Multiple unit Doppler radar really have changed the science of tornado prediction. It used to be we got a several county wide tornado watch alert, now we get realtime updates of the exact location of rotating winds, their direction, and the communities likely to be effected in the next 5,10,20, and 30 minutes. People used to ignore the warnings in many cases because they were just too broad to worry about (it was not uncommon for a storm front to past north or south of a community that was inside a watch box and so they would hear about a watch and not get anything more severe than a drizzel, not exactly good reinforcement). Of course all that great tech kind of goes to waste. Where I live only one channel routinely breaks into programming for live coverage of a stormfront, I personally usually change to that station during strong weather, but I'm not sure if their Nielson ratings prove it out to be a good (economic) strategy. Basically profits seem to override the use of the technology to inform and save lives.
  • If a tornado is heading your way, jump in the car and head to the nearest row of doublewides. The tornado will be drawn to it like a moth to a flame.

    Of course this will ruin the local Camaro-on-Blocks and Dale Earnhardt merchandise economies for some time...
  • by Darth_brooks (180756) <clipper377&gmail,com> on Friday May 09, 2003 @02:40PM (#5920771) Homepage
    Tornados have been recorded on 6 of 7 continents, and in all 50 states. If you've had a thunderstorm, you can have a tornado. Granted, they take a very specific set of conditions to form, and even then you've got no guarentees. Move to Antarctica if you want to avoid them.

    Here in SE Michigan you can get a very easy feel for what storms you can watch from the porch, and what storms you should watch from the TV in the basement. "good" storms track West to East. A high percentage of storms come off of lake michigan, track across the state, then split north or south when they hit Ann Arbor.

    (The city's a heat island. 10-ish square miles of concrete and asphault that forms a giant column of rising air that tends to split all but the biggest storms. Once the storms hit Ann Arbor, they either go north and hit Oakland county or Head south and slam Monroe. Ypsilanti, which is just west of Ann Arbor, seldom catches the full force of a storm.)

    "bad" storms are the ones that trace South to North. Theres nothing south of us (except ohio farm fields, ideal storm breeding grounds) to protect the urban areas. The worst storms I can remember have all run South - North.

    Moral of the story; know your local weather, your TV weather man is a dipshit, radar is your friend, and when in doubt, go for the basement. (if you have one, you insensitve clod)
  • by juan2074 (312848) on Friday May 09, 2003 @03:11PM (#5921085)
    Did anyone notice the Pringles crisis [] caused by a tornado last Sunday?
  • by green pizza (159161) on Friday May 09, 2003 @04:13PM (#5921651) Homepage
    Texas Tech University (the folks that invented the 2x4 launcher for testing the strength of building siding and other fun games) and FEMI have put together a lot of Tornado survival info over the years.

    Check out FEMA's website [] as well as Texas Tech's Wind Engineering site [].
  • Weather Knowledge (Score:5, Interesting)

    by The Asmodeus (18881) on Friday May 09, 2003 @04:26PM (#5921765)
    I've lived in Oklahoma all my life and take most of this for granted. It wasn't until I started traveling and found that most places across the nation had pathetic weather technology.

    The thing that is most strange is that in some places I would bet the average Oklahoma/Texas/Kansas person would have more knowledge of weather and how to read radar. We know what a "hook echo" is, can point out a "wall cloud", and know that the green tint means hail.

    Oklahoma isn't much for technology but if you want cutting edge radar tech, no place is better. They recently did a study near here to see if airborne particles (like would be released from a terrorist crop duster) could be detected on our radar. Never will know the results but.. We also have Tinker AFB, home of the AWACS (the ultimate flying radar).

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