Summer Storm Preperations... Where do You go?

gilly

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Well as I am from the UK we don't get anything like you guys get in the US with regards to storms... But, if anything nasty was to happen, there is this large cupboard in my hallway that is built inbetween the buildings beams etc. I remember when I moved in, my dad said that it would be the safest place to hide if anything was to happen!

Btw, I am so scared of thunder & lightening. I went to Singapore a few years ago and on a daily (and nightly) basis they have these amazing tropical storms. That's the one thing I remember most about that holiday because you just don't experience that freak weather as much in the UK. Don't get me wrong, we have pretty bad weather over here with regards to cold/rain but nothing like some other places get
 

darkeyedgirl

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Here in the Ohio Valley we see our fair share of pop-up thunderstorms. It'll be sunny, hot and muggy one minute and then in rolls the clouds, thunder, lightning, wind picks up, and the rain comes down in sheets! We have a warning system here (really dang loud sirens) that go off when there's a seveere thunderstorm warning or worse, a tornado warning.

I haven't seen a tornado here since 1997. It passed overtop of the city I live in (did not touch down). However I awoke to the sirens and grabbed my then-7 month old baby and my then 2 cats, and went into the bathtub. I lived on the top floor of an apartment building!!! It was easy back then, only 2 cats and a baby that couldn't walk yet.

My daughter and I were just talking about this the other day -- what we will do when the sirens go off and we have to go to the basement. She's in charge of getting 2 of the 6 cats and I have to round up the others. With tornadoes you don't have much time to really get your arse down to safety, but I am really vigilant about it since I have so many kids to round up.

We have a safety spot in the corner of my basement, this corner is totally underground and *I think* the safest. When the tornado hit in 1977, we had just moved into that same house, and I rememeber the darkness of the sky, seeing the trees twisting... man was it cool. A tad scarier now that I'm the adult!
 

momofmany

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We had a tornado pass over us 2 years ago with no warning. I thought about going into the closet under my staircase, but husband insisted that we head into our underground storm cellar. You have to walk outside for about 30 feet to get there, and we had tornado debry hitting the house around us as we made that dash. That could have been a disaster - no time to grab the cats cause there was no warning - the tornado was hitting the neighbors house when we realized what was happening. There were 2 injuries from that storm - the guy in the camper that was flipped over and my knee when the wind blew me over and I hit the ground hard. We now have the cellar set up with chairs, a table and candle lanterns.
 

katspixiedust

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Originally Posted by catherine

We don't "hide" from our bad weather, we "RUUUUUUUUN" like hell from it. (Hurricanes) We don't really get horrible weather without a warning. So, when a hurricane is coming we try to get onto the west side of it. Too many people run north so you end of stuck on the interstate in the middle of the hurricane!


BTW, if you're ever stuck down here when a hurricane is approaching (even if it's 3 days away) it is a custom here to get to the store, (ASAP) and fill a buggy with water, one with batteries and one is spam!
Luckily when hurricanes come and I go home to ride it out at my parents house, there is no spam.
Mom always buys all sorts of canned fruits, stews, and veggies (since we still have our gas grill, even without power)!
 

squirtle

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I am glad this thread came up. Since we have moved to the new house I hadn't given much thought to where we should hide out if a tornado came through. Here during the summer we get awful thunderstorms with a lot of lightning. We get tornado warnings several times during the summer, but there is only 1 tornado that I can remember that really caused a lot of damage nearby. I think we would hide out in the bathroom. It is the only room without windows all though there is a skylight. I worry most about the fact that for the most part in the summer months the worst thunderstorms occur in the afternoons when I am at work. I HATE knowing that Dori is at home alone and probably scared to death

As far as with hurricanes, the way Florida is shaped Jacksonville is rarely evacuated. With the exception of this past hurricane season they recommended evacuations twice. If we have to leave we would just travel farther north or south depending on where the storm is headed.

A question for you guys....
I have heard that in a tornado a good place to go is the bath tub. Why?
There is nothing covering your head...
 

katspixiedust

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Originally Posted by squirtle

A question for you guys....
I have heard that in a tornado a good place to go is the bath tub. Why?
There is nothing covering your head...
I can't speak for everyone's reasonings, but I know that for me it's the sturdiest area of my apartment and apart of one of the only rooms with no windows. In the apartment, there's nowhere that you could go that would cover your head. The only place you could get to that would cover anything is under my roommate's bed and that's a really old bed, under a window, the most outside room of the apartment, and where there's a lot that could start flying around. I was always told by my mother that if I ever had to use the tub here, I'd need to drag my mattress in as well to cover our heads so for the way I was told to do it there is, essentially, something over your head. Even though you have to move it.
 

KittenKrazy

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Groan, the batch that came through in 2002, the night two came through Carbon Hill and wiped part of it off the face of the earth? The second of those two went smack between my mobile home and our neigbor........I wasn't there, and I'm glad that I wasn't !!! It picked the trailer directly behind ours up, bounced it off the back of ours and set it down on our new heat pump....without popping half of the supports! When they releveled both trailers, one end of ours was out of line by about 5 feet....buddy, I was in the house when they released the pressure and it popped back...even though I was expecteing it, it scared me! Our whole trailer was moved forward about a foot, not enough to get it off the concrete pilings, but almost!



Originally Posted by RoseHawke

Cindy, I commiserate
. I didn't used to be afraid of storms, and I'm still not really, but when we start getting that constant lightning with no rain and hail coming I'm like "Oh, geeez..." The track of the F5 that wiped out West Jefferson several years back went about a mile north of where we were living at the time...in a single-wide mobile home. We elected to stay in the mobile, as quite frankly the closest "shelter," my mom's house, wasn't as well built (old country house) and at least the MH was strapped down with steel strapping and anchors that went into solid rock. I know, I watched the installers cursing as they struggled with it
.

Here we do have an interior, windowless hallway we retreat to, and this house despite its shortcomings actually has good "bones" and should withstand a small tornado. Of course, NOTHING is giong to withstand an F5.

I've threatened to move somewhere where there are no tornadoes, no hurricanes, no earthquakes, no blizzards, and no fires or floods. Unfortunately I don't think such a place exists!

This is interesting: Tornado Activity in the US

That big red spot in the middle of Alabama? That's us
!
 

cjandbilly

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After living in Oklahoma for 10 years, I've learned quite a bit of what to do in case of a tornado. The best thing, if a storm shelter is not available, is to gather in the bathroom, and put a matress on top of you to take any debris. If a matress is not available, you huddle in the position.... on your knees, head tucked between the legs, hands over the lower head, elbows in to protect your head. If a bathtub isn't available, you want to go to the room with least sharp objects or windows. A closet is best.

Our preparation route is if it's coming from the north, we go to the opposite side of the house, in my parents bathroom... some people in the bathtub, some in the closet, or in my parent's closet, depending on how many people are over. If it's coming from the south, we hide in the guest bathroom, or in my, or my brother's closet. Everytime we have a watch or warning, I grab the cat carriers, and keep the cats in a place I can snatch them up in a hurry. We don't get many, since I live in Florida now, but I remeber when I was younger, I watched a funnel form directly over my head at my house, start to come down, and then sucked back up. That was a beautiful sight, despite how terribly frightening it was!
 

rosehawke

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Originally Posted by KittenKrazy

Groan, the batch that came through in 2002, the night two came through Carbon Hill and wiped part of it off the face of the earth?
No, this would've been earlier ... '97 or '98? That thing had a looooong track, went back up and back down ... it wasn't quite so bad when it got to us (in western St. Clair---Cooks Springs) but it was bad enough that most of the trailers at the end of the road got knocked around. Then it went on to kill someone north of Pell City. We were just in Hamilton/Detroit for Mother's day at my brother's, and could see where tornadoes had gone through.

Re: the bathtub thing. I suspect that that is partly a) because a bathroom is in many cases a small, windowless, interior room, and b) that almost all old bathtubs are made from cast iron and heavy as sin! On the order of several hundred pounds. Obviously an acrylic tub isn't going to be much protection from flying debris, a steel tub would be better, but probably not as good as the cast iron.

*edit* Got it. It was April 8, 1998. There's some videos of the 33/40 coverage here.
 

goosehazel

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We don't get many tornadoes either but our sirens go off a few times every tornado season. We usually just stay in the living room and look out the windows and watch the storm, knowing it's not very likely we're gonna get a tornado. If we had to though, we would go into the basement where there are no windows.
 

ugaimes

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Well, we're not too far from Hurrican Central (AKA Florida!!!), so we get our share of scares here, being a beach town and all. I remember being a kid and evacuating to Atlanta for Hurrican Hugo.
Last year, we had a few scares. Fortunately, though, my boyfriend's family is so laid-back, we turned our hurrican scares (and I don't mean to sound insensitive to Floridians; I know how hard y'all got hit; my family's in Clearwater) into parties. We'd stock up on lanterns and bottled water, then we'd sorta just....um....
That was only because we were not terribly threatened by anything too bad last year.
If we DID have to evacuate, though, we'd go to Burke County, which is near Augusta, GA. Bradley's family has hunting land with a bunkhouse and a generator there that we could all stay in (plus the kits could stay in the bunkhouse as well
)
While we're on the topic now, I'll go ahead and say a prayer for my entire TCS family that everyone stays safe from Mother Nature!!!
 
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