Soonerfan!!!

[SoonerFan]

Thanks! (I would rather deal with my tornado's than your wild fires...)

 

[MasterBlaster]

So, will you be reimbursed for your bike?

 

[woodworkingboy]

Dying might not be so bad, but getting pulled up into one of those things and then somehow surviving, it seems like it could make you henceforth permanently dizzy.

 

[SoonerFan]

Sure, if it's damaged or destroyed. It could be just fine sitting in storage at the shop.

It's total chaos there now so it would be a waste of time to try and check on it.

I will probably wait until Wednesday and give them a call. If the phones work.

 

[sawinredneck]

Minus his deductible, yes.
Those of us "in the know" knew this was all comming Friday, but! They are not perfect, or close! Sat night we got hit, they thought it would hit Wichita tornadic, then go severe. Sun it was supposed to go severe then tornadic. Sat all the tornadoes were N and E of here, Sun the first cell dropped 3 tornadoes over Wichita then nothing!
Sun they had the sirens off an hour ahead! They are trying, and getting better, but no one really understands how they produce yet. Sun they gave us a 7 out of ten chance, today was a 4 out of ten chance! Go figure! But when and where is the next earthquake going to be? The next volcano? And so on.

 

[MasterBlaster]

If I lived in tornado alley, I kick back in something along the lines of buried storage containers.

 

[SoonerFan]

There is a FlatSafe Tornado shelter in the floor of my garage.

Move the car forward as far as it will go, walk behind the car, slide open the door, get comfy inside, ride out the storm.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

One of my favorite family stories from Kansas were my aunt and uncle.. Old farm homestead. Big ol farm house with a rock foundation basement. Mostly underground barn walls made up of boulders. Only one side open. Tornado came, jumped the tree next to the house and the house and hit the barn... Picked up the boulders and threw them everywhere. Some the size of darn near a VW Bug. Destroyed. House, not 100 feet away, couple of shingles missin.. They watched it happen from the basement. I saw the result as a kid... Impressive..

 

[sawinredneck]

There is a FlatSafe Tornado shelter in the floor of my garage.

Move the car forward as far as it will go, walk behind the car, slide open the door, get comfy inside, ride out the storm.

There's a thread on here of mine getting installed! 5 1/2' deep 12' long!

 

[MasterBlaster]

That's cool how you can use your foot to move it.

 

[sawinredneck]

I think it's well above and beyond the safety of a basement! I heard of 4 guys trying to hold the door shut on one shelter, these have chains that lock them closed.

 

[SouthSoundTree]

Glad to hear you're okay, Dennis.

My in-laws got by with property damage, no injuries. Haven't heard the extent. My MIL/ FIL lost their chicken coop in Shawnee, ~45 miles east of OKC on Saturday, but a fatality occurred within 1 mile or less of their house. Two years ago or so, their neighbor, two doors down, lost their whole house, literally. Only the foundation and safe room were left.

 

[SoonerFan]

I think it's well above and beyond the safety of a basement! I heard of 4 guys trying to hold the door shut on one shelter, these have chains that lock them closed.

Two thoughts on this...
1) The shelter was underground but the door was above ground. An outside shelter in the yard.
2) Most doors, after you shut them must be secured. It's possible they had the door shut but didn't secure it with the proper hardware.

I have no facts on what happened, just guessing.

 

[sawinredneck]

Two thoughts on this...
1) The shelter was underground but the door was above ground. An outside shelter in the yard.
2) Most doors, after you shut them must be secured. It's possible they had the door shut but didn't secure it with the proper hardware.

I have no facts on what happened, just guessing.

I can quantify both of those points after seeing the shelter in question on TV. Both points are true. This is why I'm saying, I think, the flat safe is a better option!

 

[sawinredneck]

A side note, I just finished up storm spotter, then advanced storm spotter training just a few weeks ago. The information we were trained with, vs. even a few years ago, was miles ahead! I had to find an app for my phone just to utilize some of the things they offered in the advanced class!
It's getting better, and we are able to predict better, faster. Even Sunday I was watching the radar and winds, on my phone mind you, and couldn't believe they hadn't gone tornadic with the storm on Wichita. Less than 2min after saying that a warning was issued. So it is getting better and we are getting able to give more notice.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Good on you, Andy. Very cool!

 

[CurSedVoyce]

http://onlyhdwallpapers.com/wallpaper/oklahoma_moore_tornado_lrgoklahoma_high_resolution_desktop_2924x2678_wallpaper-232287.jpg

 

[woodworkingboy]

Do schools generally have shelters? If they expect tornadoes, why isn't there a policy about closing school for the day? If there are shelters, one place is theoretically as safe as the next?

 

[MasterBlaster]

Close the schools? Who says the tornado won't hit the homes instead? There ain't much you can do about a tornado...

 

[SoonerFan]

Do schools generally have shelters? If they expect tornadoes, why isn't there a policy about closing school for the day? If there are shelters, one place is theoretically as safe as the next?

Underground shelters - no, not that I know of.

Newer schools being built have a central area designed to absorb the impact. Sort of a safe room type system. One central hallway/corridor that is reinforced more than the rest of the building.

Older schools still use "shelter in place" up against a wall with your head down, hands covering the back of your head.

(minor issue at my house today... no water)

 

[MasterBlaster]

I used to live in Wichita Falls, TX when I was a kid - we had our fair share of tornadoes, but I was too young to be concerned with them.

 

[woodworkingboy]

Right about tornadoes striking anywhere, but I'm thinking that with kids at home, assuming that at least one parent is as well, at least you have an adult looking after a limited number of children. At school you have a lot of kids, so maybe not getting the same degree of supervision. Second guessing, I don't really know.

 

[sawinredneck]

My wife and I were talking about this last night. In school tornado drills we were always trained to go to a central hallway, mostly made of cinder blocks, even then we both knew that wasn't much hope. Doing some of the work I have, I have even less faith in that plan! Cinder block can take a lot of downward force, but topples very easily with a side force. I'd like to hope this is a wake up call for them to build re-enforced areas in schools now.
As to Jays point/question, if I saw something like this developing, and had the time, my son wouldn't be in a school! But the predictability of these storms is nil! We can speculate the general area and time, but the same conditions that create hail exisist with tornadic storms. So it's anybody's guess where in that area and how severe it's going to be!
Sometimes we get 30 seconds of notice, others hours, even others, the April outbreak here last year, days. I honestly thought they blew that one out of proportion, TV stations were live weather all day. After calling in three tornados from my back yard, and having 28 confirmed tornados in KS that night, I was very wrong!

 

[sawinredneck]

Stop me when I get boring.
But to give a great example of how unpredictable these storms are, in 1987 my wife, girlfriend at the time, and I were at a Church pick nick at a park in Wichita, a storm came through, lots of rain, decent wind and some small hail, nothing major. It was moving in the normal North Easterly fashion. It got about 10 miles East of Wichita, stopped, then came back West, right into Wichita and started dropping tornado's! We had left the pick nick and were sitting in a mall parking lot and watched the funnel dropping out of it!
Yesterday the area to watch was North of Dallas to just North of Kansas city, that's a large area to try and narrow down. The Weather channel was just South of this storm, but they were watching up to date data as they got it to find the best area to be in for spotting a tornado. It could have just as easily hit Joplin again, as it was in the warned area, or K. C. for that matter, it was just a matter of where things fell into place.
So you really can't justify shutting down schools and businesses from Dallas to K. C. with, say a 100 mile wide swath? Like I say, it's getting better, but there are a lot of parts to the puzzle and they don't always tend to do exactly what we think they will/should do.

 

[SoonerFan]

Drove the bus to Norman this morning. Picked up some athletes, support staff, and others interested in volunteering. Took them to one of the distribution points in Moore. Loaded up baby supplies, diapers, food, wipes, etc. Tyson was there cooking. Loaded up 10 ice chest full of hot sandwiches. Probably 300 sandwiches or more. Took them to a second distribution point and picked up wheelbarrows, rakes, shovels, etc.

We then went to one of the neighborhoods needing help. They have been without power for 4 days. Monday thru yesterday. Passed out the supplies and the volunteer crew helped out for about 5 hours.

Sobering day...