Tornadoes Tips
Read these 3 Tornadoes Tips tips to make your life smarter, better, faster and wiser. Each tip is approved by our Editors and created by expert writers so great we call them Gurus. LifeTips is the place to go when you need to know about Emergency tips and hundreds of other topics.
Where to go?
During a tornado, if you are in a house or a building, go to the interior part, or into a storm cellar, basement or the smallest room or an interior closet.
Stay away from windows, overhead light fixtures or items that can fall.
In the cellar or room it is a good idea to get under a table next to a wall preferably the southwest corner.
If you are outside in an automobile, get out and into a permanent structure. If a permanent structure is not available, or if you are out in the open, you should find a ditch or depression that would allow you to get as low as possible and avoid the debris.
Stay away from trees, power lines, tall structures, water, livestock. These can conduct electricity in the form of the lightening that accompanies the storm.
Homes disintegrate not because of low pressure causing them to explode, which is a myth, but because tornado force winds tear off roofs causing the walls to fall down. So, the idea of opening the windows to ease low pressure will not help in the least.
How severe is the storm?
The most violent of all storms is the tornado with rotating winds in excess of 300 miles an hour. More than 700 tornadoes each year slash their way through cities and towns in every state in America and many parts of the world. Making a noise like a roaring train or jet squadron, a tornado leaves a path of destruction every where it touches down.
Some large tornadoes keep going on their destructive paths for hours, cutting a swath as wide as a mile and several hundreds of miles long, at speeds of 70 mph or more. Normally, the funnel moves with its parent thunderstorm, in an easterly direction.
Tornadoes can occur at all times of the year and at any time of the day or night, but are most likely to occur in the spring and summer with the morning or early evening daily thunderstorms. Strike points cannot be predicted as the funnel can skip and jump from place to place, leaving some houses totally untouched while destroying the house next door completely.
Warnings & what to do.
When we moved to Texas, the first thing I wanted to know was, what the warnings sounded like for a tornado.
Get to know what and how the warning system works in your area. Know the difference between a "watch" and a "warning".
Have a family tornado drill. Assign each family member a job in case of an actual tornado. (i.e., mom gets the 72-hour emergency kits, dad secures the house, brother gets the family pets, sister makes sure all are in the basement, etc.)
Make sure that you have emergency supplies accessable and in good repair. Take inventory every month and replace items that are in bad repair or have been used. Place in an easy to get at place.
Make sure that the batteries in cellphones, flashlights and radios are in working condition and have additional batteries on hand.
Have travel cages for the pets on hand and copies of necessary papers in case of evacuation. Make sure that your pets have proper ID tags with name and address of owner. It is a good idea to have an ID microchip injected into your pet for proper identification.
Make sure that the family knows who and how to contact you in case of separation or being at work or school.
Do not come out of your place of shelter until you hear the all clear signal. Many people think that because the wind dies down the tornado is over. But, this is probably the "eye" of the storm and the wind will begin again, trapping hapless people in the open.
| Guru Spotlight |
| Jennifer Mathes, Ph.D. |
