Tornadoes here today

[Laurens_Mom]

We have had such bad weather here today, I hope I can sleep tonight. The tornado sirens went off 4 times, yes 4 times today. The first time I was at work and they hurded us all into the bathrooms (I work at Lands' End). That was fun, 40 people in a bathroom and we were in there for over an hour. Talk about hot and noisy.
Then right after we ate supper tonight, they went off again (for the 4th time today). We live on top of a hill in the second story of a 2 story apartment building. So we headed off to friends of ours to hang out in their basement. The rain was insane. The golf course behind their house was flooded.
We just got home and it is quiet now. Lots of flooding. Many roads are shut so getting around the city was interesting. I hope tomorrow brings better weather.

Stay safe everyone!

[ForeverLurkin]

TOrnado's are my biggest fear, but I'm completely fascinated by them too. I do not think I could ever live in any of the "tornado alley" states. Even though we get our fair share in Florida, they do not seem to be as strong most of the time. I hope everyone in the path of those storms were safe!

[Crabbie]

Stay safe!

[Tiffers]

I'm so glad you're okay. Where abouts do you live? We've been having them like crazy this week also (St. Louis area). Yesterday we had 4 touch down within 15 miles of my house. I know how scary it is!

Reports are saying this is a record breaking year for tornado activity.

I hate tornados, hate hate hate them. I need to move to Florida.

[xobehs]

I'm so glad you're okay. Where abouts do you live? We've been having them like crazy this week also (St. Louis area). Yesterday we had 4 touch down within 15 miles of my house. I know how scary it is!

Reports are saying this is a record breaking year for tornado activity.

I hate tornados, hate hate hate them. I need to move to Florida.
The only one I have ever seen was in FL, the water spout off miami 10 years ago.

[Laurens_Mom]

We are an hour north of Madison, WI.

[Tiffers]

We are an hour north of Madison, WI.


Ah yes, I have a friend who is on the Chicago/Wisconsin border and they had a lot of tornado activity as well.

There are supposed to be more severe storms here late tonight, around midnight. I hope they don't get too bad.

[Theywerepert]

I hope everyone stays safe this season. It seems that the storms are more active than in the past. Dh is right now in Ceresco helping cleanup from storms earlier this week. Just last night my mom called at 2:30 am b.c sirens went off in her county (neighboring) and wondered if they went off near me. They didn't-but a tornado touched down about 15-20 miles away. Scary!

[Tiffers]

From weather.com today:

"Caught between the increasingly midsummer muggy heat over the South and East and the sometimes April-like chill over the Northwest, the Plains and Midwest continue to deal with the stormy side of this weather pattern.

Along a stationary front, severe thunderstorms and more flash flooding rain are likely through Monday from the central Plains to the Great Lakes.

The severe thunderstorms will produce more damaging winds, hail and tornadoes.

Waterlogged parts of the region will get no break from their flooding woes.

Similar to what happened on Saturday morning over the south-central Illinois and Indiana, a thunderstorm complex this morning could dump over 5 inches of rain, with locally heavier amounts, across southern Minnesota and central Wisconsin and a second thunderstorm complex late tonight into Monday morning could dump comparable amounts of rain on parts of eastern Kansas and central Missouri. "

[JudyJudyJudy]

We're roasting down here, but I prefer it to what y'all are going through right now. Please take care of yourselves.

[MiMi_of_4]

We drove home through that deluge on Friday afternoon, Tiff :( That was after we all had to take cover in T's basement when her DH called and said a tornado was reported in Bridgeton :eek:

Thankfully, my DH had driven up to pick me up and T's 19 year old step son was home, because T had just gone up stairs (veeeeeeeery slowly and carefully) to change her shirt.

I grabbed Maggie and the diaper bag, a blanket for Liam and DSGS grabbed Liam and we headed down the stairs to the basement. My DH waited for T to get to the main floor from her bedroom and then helped her down the steps to basement.

She has fully stocked pantry downstairs (including 3 cases of bottled water, plates, utensils, candles, etc.) and lots of toys, and there was a whole load of Maggie's diapers and covers in the dryer, so we were set if we had to stay very long. Also, I had just folded umpteen loads of clothes, so if something had happened, the whole family would have still had several changes of clothing.

Thankfully, the storm passed over quickly, but then we ran into round two right after we left St. Charles ~ it was a tad bit hairy, but we kept the radio on and luckily, the traffic on 70 was okay (unlike on all the other highways surrounding St. Louis).

[JudyJudyJudy]

MiMi, I'm really glad y'all are okay.

[Tiffers]

Oh Mimi, I'm glad you're all okay. I know it's so flippin scary. And it's so hard to stay calm for the little ones.

I always remember when I was a kid, I didn't get scared as long as my daddy didn't seem scared. But the other night when I called my dad during the tornado warning he told me to get to his house (we live in a trailer, they live in a house with a basement less than a mile away), I got really scared. And now we just keep getting hit with them over and over. In the past week there's been tornadoes sited at least 6 times within 10-20 miles of my house. I'm so scared that if it keeps up like this, one of the times it's bound to hit here.

[camille97]

I'm so glad you're okay. Where abouts do you live? We've been having them like crazy this week also (St. Louis area). Yesterday we had 4 touch down within 15 miles of my house. I know how scary it is!

Reports are saying this is a record breaking year for tornado activity.

I hate tornados, hate hate hate them. I need to move to Florida.

Doesn't FL have hurricanes? I mean, unless you move to the panhandle. Hurricanes would be worse than tornadoes IMO.

[Tiffers]

Doesn't FL have hurricanes? I mean, unless you move to the panhandle. Hurricanes would be worse than tornadoes IMO.


I guess it's a matter of preference. I know hurricanes are bad, but they're slow moving and you have plenty of warning to get somewhere safe. With tornadoes, you can go to sleep and wake up to your home being torn apart by a freight train.

Oh yeah, and Florida has my favorite Sunnysouth and Babyhellfire, which is really why I want to move there. Getting away from the tornadoes is a bonus.

[Laurens_Mom]

Now they've declared my county a State of Emergency. They are telling people to stay off the roads. Many are flooded and damaged and mud slides. They have been evacuating people in my city as well and opening up shelters. Please keep all those affected by this unrelenting weather in your thoughts and prayers.

[catkrazy99]

This season has been crazy. Stay safe! Wish we had sirens.

[JudyJudyJudy]

FL has hurricanes and tornadoes, just not as many tornadoes as the Midwest. Also, hurricanes very often spawn tornadoes. A lot of times the hurricane damage one sees was caused more by tornadoes than the hurricane itself.

[Tiffers]

Stop it Judy. You're ruining my excuse to move to FL.

[JudyJudyJudy]

:gig:

[JudyJudyJudy]

You might be interested in this before you make your move. ;)

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/severeweather/tornadoes.html#maps

In the United States, there are two regions that get proportionately more tornadoes than anywhere else. Florida is one and Tornado Alley is the other. Florida has a lot of tornadoes simply because it is home to almost daily thunderstorms. In addition, the Florida peninsula is often impacted by several tropical storms or hurricanes each year. When these tropical systems move ashore, the embedded thunderstorms in the rain bands often produce tornadoes. However, despite the violent nature of a tropical storm, the tornadoes they spawn (some being water spouts) tend to be weaker than those produced by non-tropical thunderstorms.

[Tiffers]

I think you're just doing this so I'll move to GA instead.

[JudyJudyJudy]

I don't know if GA is the place to move, either. We've had at least four people killed already this year in tornadoes.

[Tiffers]

Well, see, there's a secret place between Sunnysouth's house and Babyhellfire's house that never gets hit with any life threatening or property damaging disasters. That's where I'm going to move!

[JudyJudyJudy]

Well, let me know where it is, and I might move, too. One of the deadly tornadoes came very close to here. We had three tornado warnings back to back to back that morning, and areas very close to here were hit (we had a lot of debris, but no real damage), and two died about 7-8 miles away. Two died recently 0.1 mile from my sister's house.

[Tiffers]

That's so scary. How severe were the tornadoes?

[JudyJudyJudy]

The one near here was an F3. (They used to call this area "Little Tornado Alley," but I haven't heard that expression much lately.) I think, but I'm not sure, that the one near my sister's house was an F2. The people who were killed near here were in houses; even brick houses were basically leveled. The people who were killed near my sister's house were in a mobile home. Georgia has had its share of F5's in the past (not this year), especially in the Gainesville area.

[MiMi_of_4]

All this talk of tornadoes reminded me of the worst tornado in U.S. history ~ the Tri-State Tornado of 1925, an F5 that stayed on the ground for over three hours and left hundreds dead or injured as it passed through three states.

It traveled nearly 250 miles on the ground, and at some points was a mile in width. After it was over, there were 695 deaths reported, and the largest single amount of deaths in reported history from a tornado were in my hometown ~ a total of 234 people lost their lives here, including my great-great grandmother and her infant daughter.

As my great-aunt told the story ~ "We were sitting on the front porch and the tornado sucked the baby right out of my momma's arms (the baby was later found in a field nearly a mile away), and then momma just up and disappeared."

My mother-in-law described being separated from her family when fires erupted after the tornado destroyed 40% of the town. She said she wandered around for hours until a fireman found her and took her home.

The tornado roared into town without warning shortly before school dismissed that day and my grandfather was in his grade school classroom when it hit. He was buried under the rubble for two days, because his school (one of four) collapsed. After two days of searching for him, his parents finally found him and dug him out.

He lived to a ripe old age, but had constant headaches from the steel plate that was surgically placed to close his skull. As an adult, he self-medicated with alcohol and eventually became an alcoholic (he quit drinking shortly before I was born :) )

If you are interested in reading a little more the fourth greatest natural disaster listed in 10 Worst Disasters of the Last 101 Years, here are a couple of links.

http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/7847/tornado2.htm

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/worst_case_scenarios/4219866.html

[MiMi_of_4]

In 1957, another F5 tornado hit my hometown, just seven days before Christmas and I watched it through our kitchen window while it followed the river just below the hill we lived on. Fortunately, the loss of life was not nearly what it was in 1925, but I'll never forget seeing the destruction it caused.

http://www.thesouthern.com/articles/2007/12/18/top/22617793.txt

[Babyhellfire]

I guess I won't tell you about the tornado damage and power outages we get then ,tiff...
We should all move out west with Crabbie or Hammy instead.
Then we'll only hafta worry about earthquakes ,wildfires ,and cost of living lol!