Tornado warning!

[thewayne]

Today someone sent out a tornado warning to everyone who works for the City.

THE SAFEST PLACE TO BE DURING A TORNADO IS IN A BASEMENT. GET UNDER A
WORKBENCH OR OTHER PIECE OF STURDY FURNITURE. IF NO BASEMENT IS
AVAILABLE...SEEK SHELTER ON THE LOWEST FLOOR OF THE BUILDING IN AN
INTERIOR HALLWAY OR ROOM SUCH AS A CLOSET. USE BLANKETS OR PILLOWS TO
COVER YOUR BODY AND ALWAYS STAY AWAY FROM WINDOWS.

IF IN MOBILE HOMES OR VEHICLES...EVACUATE THEM AND GET INSIDE A
SUBSTANTIAL SHELTER. IF NO SHELTER IS AVAILABLE...LIE FLAT IN THE
NEAREST DITCH OR OTHER LOW SPOT AND COVER YOUR HEAD WITH YOUR HANDS.

OK. Basement is good, I once again work in the basement. I can theoretically crawl under my desk. The entire wall behind me is glass, but there's cork covering a lot of it and a big book case, so I should be relatively safe.

But what's this crap about lying in ditches? WTF? As I recall, tornadoes are frequently accompanied by voluminous quantities of water. We have an amusing little feature here in the southwest: flash floods. I can just picture someone lying in a ditch to avoid a potential tornado and getting killed by a flash flood!

Comments

[quasar273.livejournal.com]

My sister (or was it two of my sisters?) survived a tornado by abandoning the car and getting in a ditch. On the other hand, that was in Ohio. I've driven through potential tornadic weather in very flat portions of Oklahoma and Texas, looking for places to take shelter along the way, and sure enough all the ditches were full of water. I'd guess in NM the sensible thing would be to look for a small depression that ISN'T an arroyo or ditch. Or maybe the lee side of a hill or something. (Imagines being eaten by migrating gypsum dunes) Or maybe not.

Outrunning a tornado (in a car) is theoretically possible, except for that little problem where your car needs a ROAD that happens to be going in a sensible direction. Add in the fact that tornados often travel in packs and it really isn't always easy to see one approaching, and then if you CAN see it you need to watch long enough to tell which way it's moving, and they might follow curved paths -- sometimes hunkering is a better idea than running.

Sounds like you need to watch more Storm Stories.

I, on the other hand, was sitting holding the dog's paw in a flimsily-constructed house reading my email and watching the radar and thinking, 'Tornado warning? Is the NWS nuts? Those aren't tornados.' Which is kind of pitiful on a lot of levels.