Saturday, May 28, 2011
I'll be very blunt. If you are presented with the situation of sheltering in place during an F4 or F5 tornado in Calhoun County, Alabama, you most likely will die. The Joplin, MO tragedy put an exclamation point on this theory.
You might survive an F4. You will most definitely not survive an F5, unless you are below ground with some handles to hold onto to keep from getting sucked out of your shelter.
An F0 tornado can kill you under the proper circumstances. Even straight line winds can flatten you like a crushed beer can if a tree falls on you during the event
Seems like in my youth puffy white clouds would turn into pleasant showers and even thunderstorms off and on all summer long. Nowadays, about the only time we get good rain from Spring until Winter is when a rowdy violent squall line roars through our fair towns.
It's pretty clear now to a lot more people that simply going to the lowest floor of the house, which is most often the hall closet or interior bathtub isn't going to cut it any longer.
Even better, if you're at work, what are you going to do? Leave? And go where?
It is time in Calhoun County, Alabama that the people in charge spend some of our tax dollars to give more people more options, and that means constructing underground storm shelters where they will do the most good.
I say that this could be accomplished, from start to finish by next spring...if there were a will to do it.
In the meantime, safer locations could be identified and plans put into place to assure that they would be available to the public in times of storms. I can think of two places this very minute. One in downtown Oxford AL, and one in downtown Anniston AL that were locked when the Tuscaloosa tornado came within 20 miles of ruining our collective lives here.
I say that there is no reason for folks who want to survive to not be able to survive. If there was ever a wake up call, this season of twisters was surely it. Shelter in place is not viable when the air hits you at 200+ miles per hour.
The challenge here is that someone must step up and lead the movement to provide livable shelter for folks who want to use it when a storm is coming. It won't get done by itself, and if I'm any judge of local politics, it won't get done easily.
If it comes down to ball parks or bomb shelters, I choose the latter. We can live to play ball another day. (Of course with all this Obama money floating around, we should be able to have both.)
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Survival Information is good to know.
You might survive an F4. You will most definitely not survive an F5, unless you are below ground with some handles to hold onto to keep from getting sucked out of your shelter.
An F0 tornado can kill you under the proper circumstances. Even straight line winds can flatten you like a crushed beer can if a tree falls on you during the event
Seems like in my youth puffy white clouds would turn into pleasant showers and even thunderstorms off and on all summer long. Nowadays, about the only time we get good rain from Spring until Winter is when a rowdy violent squall line roars through our fair towns.
It's pretty clear now to a lot more people that simply going to the lowest floor of the house, which is most often the hall closet or interior bathtub isn't going to cut it any longer.
Even better, if you're at work, what are you going to do? Leave? And go where?
It is time in Calhoun County, Alabama that the people in charge spend some of our tax dollars to give more people more options, and that means constructing underground storm shelters where they will do the most good.
I say that this could be accomplished, from start to finish by next spring...if there were a will to do it.
In the meantime, safer locations could be identified and plans put into place to assure that they would be available to the public in times of storms. I can think of two places this very minute. One in downtown Oxford AL, and one in downtown Anniston AL that were locked when the Tuscaloosa tornado came within 20 miles of ruining our collective lives here.
I say that there is no reason for folks who want to survive to not be able to survive. If there was ever a wake up call, this season of twisters was surely it. Shelter in place is not viable when the air hits you at 200+ miles per hour.
The challenge here is that someone must step up and lead the movement to provide livable shelter for folks who want to use it when a storm is coming. It won't get done by itself, and if I'm any judge of local politics, it won't get done easily.
If it comes down to ball parks or bomb shelters, I choose the latter. We can live to play ball another day. (Of course with all this Obama money floating around, we should be able to have both.)
-----
Survival Information is good to know.
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