What do you do when the tornado sirens go off?
- Thread starter P&R Fan
- Start date
K1500
Member
The only time they go off around here is at noon every Wednesday when they test the system.
Which leads me to ponder what would happen if there was a tornado at noon on Wednesday?!
If severe weather is imminent they postpone the Wednesday noon test. If it is bad weather and it goes off, it's a tornado warning.
It's funny. I had forgotten about this thread, but found it when looking for an old thread I wanted to re-read.
6 months after this thread died, we had a tornado hit us. EF2 came through about 75' to the North of my house. Wiped out all of my neighbors across the street. Did about $30,000 damage to my roof, siding, garage door and food, but luckily, we could stay in the house, in spite of no power... My daughter was at my sister-in-law's house about 175' North of my house, and that was the worst part - knowing she was directly in the path.
As opposed to what I had said I would do in my post 19 months ago, when the sirens went off, I had actually awoken my wife (she had worked third shift the night before and was asleep in our bedroom), and got her headed downstairs. I thought about following her, but as I heard the roar, I decided to take one last look. "One last look" was about what it was, because when I looked out the front door, the debris and sideways-whipping wind was right there, from the front door where I was standing to the middle of the street - about 75'. The sounds of all the debris hitting the roof and exterior walls "encouraged" me to make that last look a very quick one and I ran for the stairs, not sure how wide this thing was.
About the time I hit the bottom of the stairs, it felt like the house was rocking, but that quickly stopped and suddenly everything got quiet. My wife is emotionally stronger than I am (and that's pretty strong), but she was upset and confused and unsure of what she was supposed to be doing. (She's usually out in it helping others and didn't know what to do being the victim for the first time in her life...) I told her that, now that it was quiet, I was going to check on the daughter, as I had watched the tornado go right through where she was at.
I was the first person out on the street and it was quite eerie. It was 75 degrees (in November), and it looked like it was snowing. (It was really the blown-in insulation from all the destroyed houses falling from the sky...) As I checked houses down the street while trying to avoid the thousands of nails and drywall screws everywhere, I found a LOT of our neighbors were not home - shopping, church, drug store, etc. One of our neighbor's garage's roof was in the middle of the street. Got around that and could see that most of my sister-in-law's house was still standing, but there were walls down, windows blown-out, etc. Got into the kitchen after climbing through the garage and as I hit the top of the basement stairs, there was my sister-in-law and behind her standing at the bottom of the stairs were the kids, including my daughter. Luckily, all the folks home there had been marshaled into the basement by my sister-in-law. They heard the wood twisting, glass shattering, wind roar, etc
I got pretty lucky. Wife is OK, daughter is OK, I'm OK, and now, about a year after the tornado, my neighbors and their houses are all back to normal, except for 2, and they're in the process. No one in my town died, but as the tornado worsened to an EF4, two towns away (about 6 miles as the crow flies), there were three fatalities and a mile-wide track of destruction that looked like a mini-Hiroshima.
I'll heed the siren's warning better next time, but I learned something in that experience - Tornadoes do not sound like a train (or at least THAT one didn't, to me). It sounded like continuous thunder rolls up in the sky/clouds, until it was right on top of us, and then it was just a loud roar of wind, stronger than I've ever heard. I heard the tornado a good 10 minutes before it got here. I couldn't figure out what the continuous thunder sound was. I was waiting for the echo to stop, and it never did. That will be a sound I never forget, and I wanted to pass it on to you guys.
6 months after this thread died, we had a tornado hit us. EF2 came through about 75' to the North of my house. Wiped out all of my neighbors across the street. Did about $30,000 damage to my roof, siding, garage door and food, but luckily, we could stay in the house, in spite of no power... My daughter was at my sister-in-law's house about 175' North of my house, and that was the worst part - knowing she was directly in the path.
As opposed to what I had said I would do in my post 19 months ago, when the sirens went off, I had actually awoken my wife (she had worked third shift the night before and was asleep in our bedroom), and got her headed downstairs. I thought about following her, but as I heard the roar, I decided to take one last look. "One last look" was about what it was, because when I looked out the front door, the debris and sideways-whipping wind was right there, from the front door where I was standing to the middle of the street - about 75'. The sounds of all the debris hitting the roof and exterior walls "encouraged" me to make that last look a very quick one and I ran for the stairs, not sure how wide this thing was.
About the time I hit the bottom of the stairs, it felt like the house was rocking, but that quickly stopped and suddenly everything got quiet. My wife is emotionally stronger than I am (and that's pretty strong), but she was upset and confused and unsure of what she was supposed to be doing. (She's usually out in it helping others and didn't know what to do being the victim for the first time in her life...) I told her that, now that it was quiet, I was going to check on the daughter, as I had watched the tornado go right through where she was at.
I was the first person out on the street and it was quite eerie. It was 75 degrees (in November), and it looked like it was snowing. (It was really the blown-in insulation from all the destroyed houses falling from the sky...) As I checked houses down the street while trying to avoid the thousands of nails and drywall screws everywhere, I found a LOT of our neighbors were not home - shopping, church, drug store, etc. One of our neighbor's garage's roof was in the middle of the street. Got around that and could see that most of my sister-in-law's house was still standing, but there were walls down, windows blown-out, etc. Got into the kitchen after climbing through the garage and as I hit the top of the basement stairs, there was my sister-in-law and behind her standing at the bottom of the stairs were the kids, including my daughter. Luckily, all the folks home there had been marshaled into the basement by my sister-in-law. They heard the wood twisting, glass shattering, wind roar, etc
I got pretty lucky. Wife is OK, daughter is OK, I'm OK, and now, about a year after the tornado, my neighbors and their houses are all back to normal, except for 2, and they're in the process. No one in my town died, but as the tornado worsened to an EF4, two towns away (about 6 miles as the crow flies), there were three fatalities and a mile-wide track of destruction that looked like a mini-Hiroshima.
I'll heed the siren's warning better next time, but I learned something in that experience - Tornadoes do not sound like a train (or at least THAT one didn't, to me). It sounded like continuous thunder rolls up in the sky/clouds, until it was right on top of us, and then it was just a loud roar of wind, stronger than I've ever heard. I heard the tornado a good 10 minutes before it got here. I couldn't figure out what the continuous thunder sound was. I was waiting for the echo to stop, and it never did. That will be a sound I never forget, and I wanted to pass it on to you guys.
JJEH
Member
We don't hear the sirens. So we rely on internet, weather radio and on what we see with our own eyes. We are here since 10/11 and I only once had to get my kids into the closet. My wife was deployed at that time and there was some serious stuff going on. I was outside, trying to see what's going on. Our neighbor and his family ran outside to their underground shelter. He was yelling something to me but I couldn't understand a word. Guess it was time to go back in I thought. Internet was still going surprisingly. There were 3 cells that produced rain, hail and tornadoes, the closest touched down about 2 miles from the house. Didn't leave much damage, but still. This whole thing lasted maybe for an hour. No one was seriously hurt in our neighborhood.
I'm already out and working Sky Warn BEFORE the sirens go off.
I'm tied to our local PD and SO by radio. We're the ones that call for the sirens to be turned on....
So far so good - Only tornado that we've seen passed west of our little town, but did a number on Hillville and Jackson, TN before it dissipated!
I'm tied to our local PD and SO by radio. We're the ones that call for the sirens to be turned on....
So far so good - Only tornado that we've seen passed west of our little town, but did a number on Hillville and Jackson, TN before it dissipated!
No sirens here.....
The first sign of a tornado is your roof flying away. A tornado tore up a subdivision about a mile from me and a few houses were rubble.
The first sign of a tornado is your roof flying away. A tornado tore up a subdivision about a mile from me and a few houses were rubble.
Early-mid evening Groundhog Day 1998 I headed north on I-95 from my job in downtown Miami in a hard rain. The old Ford pick-em up had no A/C so I kept the leeward window and vent as open as I could manage. Sheets of rain were blowing nearly horizontal from the west when within 100 yards the wind direction shifted suddenly and violently 180 degrees rocking my truck. I was tooling along at 45 mph so my only concern was reaching across the cab to close the passenger side window to keep from getting drenched.
Severe storms are frequent, many small thunderstorms develop nearly every day during the summer months with funnel clouds and strong downdrafts almost the norm. During the spring and late fall squall lines may appear with the passing of a cold front.
Made it home without incident as the weather had passed yet the radio station I was listening to abandoned its format and was taking calls from listeners who were reporting damages across two counties. I was drying off and enjoying a couple of cold ones with nothing better to do so I grabbed a soFla road map and began ticking off locations.
Damage reports appeared in an almost straight in from South Miami to Ft. Lauderdale, about 25 miles or so. Found out the next day the system spawned numerous tornadoes from the middle Keys to north Broward including one F2 with 100+gusts that skipped along and destroyed over 200 aircraft at three airports including 25 or so I saw piled into a corner of the airfield at North Perry. One fatality I know of occurred when a man was caught between two boats in the Keys. Autos were tossed around a parking lot witnessed by a nephew attending a journeyman school in Opa Locka.
Most of the damage reported was minor, trees torn up, pool enclosures, aluminum carports, sheds, fencing and more than a few roofs destroyed.
An absolute sweetheart of a gal, an RN who had recently lost her husband when a load of pipe rolled off of a flatbed and whose son played Khoury League ball with mine was telling me about a crape myrtle they had planted alongside his grave. The morning after the storm she found it uprooted and laying in her large backyard, maybe a distance of a quarter mile from her husband. She and her brothers replanted the small tree where it landed, beside a small pond where it remains to this day.
Severe storms are frequent, many small thunderstorms develop nearly every day during the summer months with funnel clouds and strong downdrafts almost the norm. During the spring and late fall squall lines may appear with the passing of a cold front.
Made it home without incident as the weather had passed yet the radio station I was listening to abandoned its format and was taking calls from listeners who were reporting damages across two counties. I was drying off and enjoying a couple of cold ones with nothing better to do so I grabbed a soFla road map and began ticking off locations.
Damage reports appeared in an almost straight in from South Miami to Ft. Lauderdale, about 25 miles or so. Found out the next day the system spawned numerous tornadoes from the middle Keys to north Broward including one F2 with 100+gusts that skipped along and destroyed over 200 aircraft at three airports including 25 or so I saw piled into a corner of the airfield at North Perry. One fatality I know of occurred when a man was caught between two boats in the Keys. Autos were tossed around a parking lot witnessed by a nephew attending a journeyman school in Opa Locka.
Most of the damage reported was minor, trees torn up, pool enclosures, aluminum carports, sheds, fencing and more than a few roofs destroyed.
An absolute sweetheart of a gal, an RN who had recently lost her husband when a load of pipe rolled off of a flatbed and whose son played Khoury League ball with mine was telling me about a crape myrtle they had planted alongside his grave. The morning after the storm she found it uprooted and laying in her large backyard, maybe a distance of a quarter mile from her husband. She and her brothers replanted the small tree where it landed, beside a small pond where it remains to this day.
I had forgotten I posted this thread. Feels good talking about it now since it's about 16 degrees here in Iowa.
I have seen the destruction twisters can cause. The one that I mentioned in the OP was in 2001. Destroyed a barn and severely damaged the house of some friends 5 miles straight North of us. I helped with the cleanup. Another friend lived a few miles straight East of them. It destroyed their Mothers farm and damaged theirs, which were a mile apart. Then in 2008 in May another one took out the Mothers house AGAIN!
She was in her 70s, and it hit her hard. She was a strong Christian Woman, and I often hunted pheasants at her farm. I would always stop and talk to her, and she just couldn't understand why that kept happening. We had a lot of long talks. She just died about a month ago.
That storm also hit a small town West of us. Totally destroyed most of it. I have a friend who dates a guy who drives a gas delivery truck. He was delivering at a station in that town when the twister hit. He quickly pulled the hoses out of the ground and went in the store and huddled in the bathroom with the staff. They all survived.
I have seen the damage. I know lots of folks have been kilt dead in these storms. And, I saw "Twister" with Helen Hunt. (Hubba Hubba). I still just go out and watch to the Northeast when the sirens go off.
'Course, i have run with scissors, too.
Jim
I have seen the destruction twisters can cause. The one that I mentioned in the OP was in 2001. Destroyed a barn and severely damaged the house of some friends 5 miles straight North of us. I helped with the cleanup. Another friend lived a few miles straight East of them. It destroyed their Mothers farm and damaged theirs, which were a mile apart. Then in 2008 in May another one took out the Mothers house AGAIN!
She was in her 70s, and it hit her hard. She was a strong Christian Woman, and I often hunted pheasants at her farm. I would always stop and talk to her, and she just couldn't understand why that kept happening. We had a lot of long talks. She just died about a month ago.That storm also hit a small town West of us. Totally destroyed most of it. I have a friend who dates a guy who drives a gas delivery truck. He was delivering at a station in that town when the twister hit. He quickly pulled the hoses out of the ground and went in the store and huddled in the bathroom with the staff. They all survived.
I have seen the damage. I know lots of folks have been kilt dead in these storms. And, I saw "Twister" with Helen Hunt. (Hubba Hubba).
I still just go out and watch to the Northeast when the sirens go off.'Course, i have run with scissors, too.
Jim
That's rough.
At least we can see the hurricanes coming.
At least we can see the hurricanes coming.
I build above ground concrete safe rooms in the Oklahoma City area, and I am amazed that so many people say they go to their basement. There are not many basements in this area but I have seen a few after tornadoes pass by that have been totally wiped clean! Not a single thing left inside the basement was still there, and some houses that didn't get hit very hard, had the whole house collapse in on the basement.
Ranger514
Member
Don't know what I'd do. Prolly just run around in circles screaming like a little girl, since we rarely get twisters in the Hills where I live, and we don't have a cellar. The plains to the east get nailed from time to time.
El Paso doesn't have sirens. I dont' have a radio and rarely have the TV on. And houses don't have basements here. If one comes by (there was one about 75 miles away some years ago), I'll just have to go out and look at it.
I turn on the television, to see radar of exactly what's going on.
I head outside and look to the south,but in my experience they've already been and gone by the time the sirens wail.
We have sirens but they are not very dependable. The local radio station has a fantastic weather department so I tune that in. Yes, I go outside and look and watch all kinds of storms. Am I scared? Probably not, but I have respect for them and will hide in the basement if I think it is necessary. Have been on the receiving end of lots of various storm damage, high winds, down trees, hail, lightening strike to electric transformer. The closest I ever was to a big tornado was about 2 miles away. Sat along the hiway chatting with a state trooper. That was a good choice as I was supposed to be at my inlaws. Most of their moblie home ended up in pieces in the lake. Luckily they were only slightly injured.
