tornados - question for americans :)?

Question

hiya so heres my questions...
do everyone have a tornado shelter in the back garden? if not where do you go? and what happens if you live in a flat?
how much warning time do you have before it comes?
and how do hospitals evacuate in such little time? (assuming warning time is around 5mins)
thanks for your answers!:D xx

Answer 1

Not all parts of the U.S have tornado's only some parts. Unfortunately, where I live they do have tornado's! Usually... usually (unfortunately OUR town doesn't) town has a siren that goes off to alert the community to seek shelter. (Some radio stations will automatically turn to an alarm sound to let you know) If your home has a basement your supposed to go down there and get under the stairs (in case a car comes flying through...or other objects and crashes through the main floor.) If your caught outside in the middle of no where get in a ditch and lay flat. (Tornado's just skip across) I had a friend who was driving on the freeway and saw one coming at her. She pulled over and ran to an over pass bridge (concrete bridge) and got wedged in the very corner where others were huddled and held on to each other. The tornado went over the bridge and thankfully no one was hurt. You can predict at times when you look out when there is a high chance of one could form. The sky gets a weird faint pee green color, rain will turn to hail (some golf ball sizes if not larger) and then suddenly all is quiet. THAT'S NOT the time to go looking outside. That is when it comes...when you go from hail and rain to nothing real quick. The noise sounds like a train. Pretty powerful stuff. You never want to get caught sitting in a car, it will pick it up like nothing and you'll likely end up crushed in some way.
Sometimes you can see a cloud forming into a cone and as it gets closer to the ground, you don't have much time...I've seen it near my house. I head down to the basement and have some supplies on hand. (Emergency stuff in case of being trapped like a jug of water, Ax, Flashlight, canned food, bandages, etc. In case I'm trapped I would stay out of any water (in case a "live" wire accidentally touched it ) to avoid being electrocuted.
Sometimes the radio will tell you it just went through such and such county and is spotted moving your way and they alert you to seek cover. If you live in a flat and if you have time, you would need to leave immediately and seek low ground (not level). (I'd advise staying out of any water drainage pipes in case of a flash flood.)
Hospitals are trained to evacuate in emergencies. I have taken patients to the basement and if I have them with me and if we are already there, I stay with the patient. However, if I need to rush out and bring in others a staff member would stay with them while we get the others.
Great question!

Answer 2

I live in Indiana and we have tornados. Actually we have a lot more powerful thunderstorms. Those sometimes produce tornados.

The big storms roll in and we hear warnings of tornados but most of the time they are some distance off, or don't touch down wehre they cause prolems; like a town.


Once in a while there is one really close, but rarely one that affects you.

The warnings come over the radio and TV. People are good about spreading the word, especially if it is close. Around here there is probably never more than twenty minutes of warning. The tornados pass through in minutes. There isn't time to evacuate hospitals. They probably do what they can to get people away from windows. Some people go to basements, interior rooms like a bathroom with no windows, a garage or sturdy building.

But I would say that for the most part they would do so only in a line of sight case. Otherwise, people wouldn't run for shelter unless they saw the tornado or a neighbor called and said one was going to hit.

I personaly stood at a back window (4' by 6' window at that) and watched a tornado take my barn roof off a hundred yards away. Of course I was just watching a thunder storm and didn't know it had a tornado in it until the roof went flying. I was safe and the house only got a small amount of damage. (The same one flattened barns and destroyed some houses and toppled a telephone tower that killed a lady in her house. I was lucky.)

I don't think most people worry about them. If they come we try to protect ourselves. You just never know. I've seen damage down a street, every house destroyed, it skips a couple houses and begins the destruction again. We had one a couple years ago come across a town nearby damaging businesses, lift up over a childrens day camp and resume tearing up a strip mall across the street. They just do weird things and you can't be afraid of them, just be cautious.




g-day!

Answer 3

Only those people who live in what's called "Tornado Alley" typically have storm shelters in case of a tornado. Mostly these are in rural areas. In a city you can use the basement of any large building for shelter.

The same is true if you live in a flat (apartment). Personally, I don't have one so I watch out for the warnings. I leave near the bottom of Tornado Alley, but I also live close enough to the coast to worry about Hurricane generated tornados.

The warning time depends on the area, the Storm Chasers, the technology, the proximity to a major city and if you have warning sirens or not in your neighborhood (they are common in the Dallas Texas Area and in most areas in Tornado Alley).

In my area the TV stations have access to advanced radar and the ability to track storms down to the minute. They can literally tell you where it will be raining in the next ten minutes; during a rain storm. They can also count the number of lightning strikes. But, nothing is as good as first had experience.

Storm chasers, like from the movie Tornado, are people who actively hunt tornados. The watch the clouds and are the first to notice when a funnel cloud appears. The weather report will get them within 10 miles of possible tornado, but it won't be confirmed until a funnel cloud is sighted visually.

So warning time can be as short as a few seconds up to an hour; usually, it is only a matter of minutes for the immediate area though. Funnel clouds form quickly and tornados have a short lifespan in minutes. During that time they can destroy miles of property and kill hundreds of people.

If you are in a major building, like a hospital then the best thing to do is to go to the middle of the building and stay inside. Hospital's are not evacuated during a tornado, there isn't enough time and usually the hospital will survive. During a hurricane the flooding can cause an hospital to evacuate.

I live in the Dallas Texas area and can hear the warning sirens if needed. In case of a tornado suddenly appearing I would run into my apartment and hide in the kitchen away from any exterior wall. As long as the refrigerator doesn't fall on me I will be safe, and since I live on the first floor the tornado is not likely to take me.

However, there are F-5 tornados and if you are in the path of one of them then the survival instructions are the same in case of a nuclear attack. Bend over and kiss your rear end goodbye. An F-5 can destroy any, but the strongest buildings and if you are caught inside something as flimsy as a flat or house it can suck you totally away.

Luckily tornados in the US are rare. The conditions to create them have to be exact, and can only happen in a few seasons. Seventy-Five percent of the country is in an area where tornados can’t form easily, so they see one once every 100 years or less. Earthquakes are more common than that. When a tornado hits it does so in a random area, often small towns, rural areas, even open fields. A few years ago a good sized one hit downtown Fort Worth. It got in among the skyscrapers and caused some heavy damage; mostly by peeling off the windows of buildings. If you were inside a skyscraper then you would be safe, unless you happened to be at the window trying to see it. One building was closed because of the damage, but that was because it was all windows and the cost of replacing them would bankrupt the owners. That building has since been renovated and is opened. The original structure is still sound and needed little repair.

There is a saying in the US that; “God hates trailer parks.” A trailer park has mobile homes, caravans. They usually are very thin and have empty space underneath for the wheels. When a tornado hits a trailer park it picks them up (since it can get under the trailer easily), and shakes them apart. The worst damage done to homes in the US are always done to trailer parks. A wind proof skirt around the trailer would help a lot in its survival.

Answer 4

We had a cellar under the back yard, the door was just about ground level, and we had a pipe vent sticking out of the ground so we could get air just in case we became trapped. If You don't have a cellar, then you go to the basement. If you live in a house with neither or if you stay in an apartment building, then we are told to get into the area of the house that doesn't have windows or any thing that will crash on you. If you are in a car , get out and find the deepest ditch you can find or a ravine and get in. You don't get much warning, but most forecasts can tell you if weather conditions are right for one. Hospitals are kind of like sitting ducks, and there is no such thing as a 5minute warning. You might get warning that one was spotted nearby, but they are very hit and miss. Most times it is best to stay put. you have just as much a chance of a tornado hitting you as one meissing you if one has been spotted in the area.

Answer 5

As a resident of west central OH & about 45mi nw of Xenia (1974 & 2001 tornadoes), tornadoes do happen on occasion. About 2-3 times a yr, a surrounding county is issued a tornado warning.

My tornado shelter is a small room under my foyer in the basement. It has no windows & is surrounded on 3 sides by cinder blocks about 8ft below ground. My parents are in a worse situation. Their home is on a slab of concrete, no tornado shelter. They can go into their hallway, cover their heads, & hope for the best. People who live in apartments/flats have to get down to a basement or a lower floor, then hide in a stairwell or designated room.

Warning times have gotten better with the newer radars available, but we still have to watch the skies & use our senses, since technology is not perfect. Many towns, like Greensburg KS, had at least a few minutes lead time before the tornado struck.

Hospitals, schools, & other places have tornado plans in place. It gets people out of large rooms & away from windows & outer walls. Hope that answers your questions.

Answer 6

Very, very, few people have tornado shelters. When there is a tornado, you go to the basement or an interior first floor room. The National Weather Service (NWS) will usually issue a tornado warning around 10 minutes before people are in immediate danger. Hospitals do not evacuate because the safest place to be during a tornado is in a large building and on ground level. Leaving a hospital because of a tornado would be a terrible mistake.

Warnings are rapidly disseminated through the Emergency Alert System, which scrolls the warning text on all television channels. Warning sirens are also used when there is a tornado warning.

Here is an example warning text:

WFUS53 KLBF 040045
TORLBF
NEC103-040130-
/O.NEW.KLBF.TO.W.0083.070804T0044Z-070804T0130Z/

BULLETIN - EAS ACTIVATION REQUESTED
TORNADO WARNING
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NORTH PLATTE NE
744 PM CDT FRI AUG 3 2007

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN NORTH PLATTE HAS ISSUED A

* TORNADO WARNING FOR...
WESTERN KEYA PAHA COUNTY IN NORTH CENTRAL NEBRASKA...
THIS INCLUDES THE CITY OF SPRINGVIEW...

* UNTIL 830 PM CDT

* AT 739 PM CDT...NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DOPPLER RADAR INDICATED A
SEVERE THUNDERSTORM CAPABLE OF PRODUCING A TORNADO 17 MILES WEST OF
SPRINGVIEW...MOVING EAST AT 15 MPH.

* THE TORNADO WILL BE NEAR...
SPRINGVIEW BY 830 PM CDT...

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.

A TORNADO WATCH REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 1100 PM CDT FRIDAY EVENING
FOR NORTHWESTERN NEBRASKA.

LAT...LON 4297 10011 4282 10016 4273 9972 4291 9969

$$

13

Answer 7

I live in the Western US and we don't get tornados out here. However, I can tell you that the warning time before a tornado is very little (sometimes just minutes or seconds). Nobody has time to evacuate.

A lot of people in the midWest (where most tornados strike) do have shelters or, at least, basements. Many don't though.

Answer 8

From my time chasing in the Great Plains, I can tell you that most people do not have a tornado shelter. Many communities do have shelters that you can go to though. You can have any amount of warning time ranging from no time at all up to about 30 minutes. Hospitals are the types of buildings that would have tornado shelters built into them, so if they have time people can be moved into the shelters--it will almost certainly not be possible to move all people into shelters, but hospitals are stronger than most buildings so your chances would be pretty good inside.

Answer 9

Most people don't have shelters in their back yards, alot of people have basements under their homes and they go there. Some people do have shelters in their back yards that are fruit cellars they keep their can food in, but can use it for shelter,some of these cellars were once built for fall out shelters in the 1960's everyone was to build one but very few people did, and then they were just forgot about and no body builds them anymore. If you live in a flat as you call it most towns have shelters people can go to if there is the time after the warning whistle goes off. Hospitals are shelters within them self and are a safe location.

Answer 10

Many families in the Mississippi River Valley (aka Tornado alley) have what are known as "storm cellars" out away from the house where the falling debris, should the house fall down, wouldn't be likely to land on the storm cellar, trapping the inhabitants inside. But no, elsewhere in the U.S. your not very likely to find storm cellars, as the occurrance of tornadoes is not very likely, elsewhere.

If you live in a "flat" or apartment, you are best to stay inside, seeking cover in a part of the flat that is not close to windows, where flying glass and debris from outside would be pose a danger. Usually tornado storm systems can be predicted hours to a day in advance, but the exact location can not be predicted until just moments before one hits.

Hospitals are not evacuated during tornadoes because the patients and staff are safer indoors, away from downed power-lines and flying debris. Usually there are only seconds to seek shelter from the moment funnel is sighted, and the ordeal is over almost as fast as it began. Only in the case of mobile homes--because they are so flimsy in the face of strong winds--are people advised to get out and seek a low-lying ditch or at least to get under the mobile home itself.