Tornado Tips

We tend to see at least a couple of rounds of tornadic thunderstorms every year, and so far this year has been fairly active.  Tom Crabtree has a detailed list of safety tips and advice on his blog, but I wanted to really concentrate on what to do if you’re in your car when a tornado is bearing down on you.  Thanks to research, we’re able to fine tune advice that we give to people to stay safe from storms.  At one point people believed that they should open windows in their houses to equalize the pressure when a tornado was approaching.  Research showed that houses aren’t so airtight that they would explode from a pressure difference.  In fact people were wasting valuable time they should’ve used to take cover to protect themselves. 

Thomas Schmidlin from Kent State University was at the hurricane conference I attended recently.  He did an interesting study on the danger of falling trees and the statistics of where and when people are most susceptible.  He also did a study about car safety during a tornado warning, and the Red Cross quotes his advice.  We used to tell people to get out of their car and get into a ditch if a tornado is approaching, assuming they can’t get away and have very little time to react.  Now the advice is 1) try to drive at right angles to the tornado.  If it’s coming towards you then drive right or left if you can.  2) If there’s no way to get out of the way and into a sturdy building - Pull over, Stay in your car.  Keep your seat belt on with the engine running.  Duck and cover your head with your hands or blankets if you have one in your car.  This may be a better bet than leaving your car and lying in a ditch near the road.  If a tornado can roll a car, it can roll it right into the ditch, so you’re better off staying put and staying as low as you can to avoid debris. 

The best idea is to pay attention to how the weather’s changing.  If there’s a watch in effect, know that conditions could go downhill in a hurry, and have a plan of action in case you need to use it when seconds count.