Oh fun! The Tornado Experience!

[Bliss]

Btw Kinkoid, the advice of a lightning rod is good, but while you get it, if the house is steel top to bottom faraday caging should protect you from harm.

[Gerrinson]

The closet I've even been to a Tornado was when I was camping with a group.

Lucky a possible F1 missed us by three or so miles. That was close enough for me.

This wasn't by any chance back in 1995 on Memorial Day weekend, was it?

I was 300 feet from the F1 that came ripping through southern Berkshire county that day. And yes, you read that right - 300 feet from it.

Fortunately, that 300 feet was mostly vertical and the building I was in held together. More than I can say for the gas station next door, which collapsed in on the two employees. They managed to make it over to us looking for help, bleeding and rather worse for wear.

The tornado also ripped through my route home. My 2 mile drive turned into 20 miles with all of the extra driving I had to do to get around the path of destruction.

[MrsEclipse]

I can see this happening at, like, a Disney park or something, where the special effects can be downright dazzling to those unfamiliar. The person would still be an idiot, don't get me wrong, but I can actually see it being possible for the special effects to be SO GOOD, that someone isn't ready to believe the tornado isn't.

So, of course, I immediately imagined you in a state-fair style amusement park with your standard midway rides, although revved up. Becaue that makes the customer THAT MUCH stupider.

(There IS a difference between an amusement park and a theme park, too, although it's not always acknowledged anymore. That has no bearing in my imagination of other people's experience.)

[Seshat]

Btw Kinkoid, the advice of a lightning rod is good, but while you get it, if the house is steel top to bottom faraday caging should protect you from harm.

As long as Kinkoid is insulated from the metal caging.

[Dragon_Dreamer]

I have friends in Lucerne who work at Jamestown and Henricus. People have actually been known to ask if the fires in the firepits are real.

[Dips]

That fire question seems universal.

One answer worth considering:

"No. It's actually a holographic representation of fire. One of our members is a crack programmer. It took her months to get it looking, sounding and smelling as real as it does. It uses so much electricity that the event hosts made us put in a meter."

If they ask where the meter is:

"We had to hide it under the bench of the third latrine from the left in that row over there."

It's funny if they still believe you after that. It's even funnier if they go over to the latrine to check it out.

[AriRashkae]

This wasn't by any chance back in 1995 on Memorial Day weekend, was it?

I was 300 feet from the F1 that came ripping through southern Berkshire county that day. And yes, you read that right - 300 feet from it.

Fortunately, that 300 feet was mostly vertical and the building I was in held together. More than I can say for the gas station next door, which collapsed in on the two employees. They managed to make it over to us looking for help, bleeding and rather worse for wear.

The tornado also ripped through my route home. My 2 mile drive turned into 20 miles with all of the extra driving I had to do to get around the path of destruction.

I remember that! Wasn't that the one that took out the Great Barrington fairgrounds? I was too far north to be worried for myself, but my great-aunt lives in GB, and near the grounds, IIRC. I was very glad to hear she was ok.

[Gerrinson]

I remember that! Wasn't that the one that took out the Great Barrington fairgrounds? I was too far north to be worried for myself, but my great-aunt lives in GB, and near the grounds, IIRC. I was very glad to hear she was ok.

Yep, that's the one alright. I was working across the street from the fairgrounds at the time. It was quite a mess.

It did wash all the dirt off my car though, something about sucking up a large amount of water from Green River and dumping it onto us. I felt bad for the guy who owned the truck next to my car, though. He had a tree imbedded in the driver's side. Lengthwise.

[Dragon_Dreamer]

"No. It's actually a holographic representation of fire. One of our members is a crack programmer. It took her months to get it looking, sounding and smelling as real as it does. It uses so much electricity that the event hosts made us put in a meter."

If they ask where the meter is:

"We had to hide it under the bench of the third latrine from the left in that row over there."

That actually sounds similar to one of the answers they've aid they give! Minus the latrine part.

[daleduke17]

Closest I've been to a tornado: about 3 miles.

August 19, 2009. If the storm would have wrapped around the hill twelve miles west of here differently, my town would have been in the cross hairs and probably got pretty messed up. F3 tornado, about half to three-quarters of a mile wide, lots of wood buildings.

Yeah, we'd have been screwed.

[sarasquirrel]

one of the few fridays nights i didnt close and we had a tornado. now it wasnt in the town i worked in but the town i LIVE in....

i was at a friends house in the town i worked in and we got craaaaaaazy rain wind and hail. then lost power.

my mom calls to see where me and my bro were and i said we were inside the house there. we got home maybe 10 or 11 at night and forgot it was a friday and my dad wasnt home that late...my mom had been in the dark by herself

the next morning i woke up early and surveyed the damage around town. it was only an F-1 but for Connecticut, which we don't get very many...it was intense.

during
just ignore the guy talking...idk who he is but it was the best i found of the craziness
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Os6f_bn7XnA

after
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGN9VgU_gw8

[trailerparkmedic]

One of the call centers I worked at had all of the small rooms in the center of the building--break room, HR, training rooms--and the cubes with phones were around the outer perimeter of the building. There were lots of windows, too.

A tornado touched down a quarter of a mile away from the building. It had been nasty and stormy all day, but they kept the blinds pulled so we didn't see how bad it had gotten. We didn't even know what was going on until the windows started vibrating like crazy and we heard a freight train go rushing past. Some people hung up on their callers and ducked under desks/went into the center of the building. Some people had no idea what was going on and just kept on going with the calls. The people who hung up got threatened with disciplinary action until someone pointed out that management had been watching the radar and KNEW that there was a tornado headed towards us and had done nothing so that they wouldn't miss their people on phone quota.

The tornado shook me up, though, since I had never been anywhere near one. They are terrifying! Thankfully my boyfriend is from Dallas so he understood why I was freaking out and calmed me down.


Those people watching the tornado remind me of something I saw on TV when Ike hit. Ike made landfall around 2 am. About 14 hours before that, I was watching TV and the reporter in Galveston said that several people had come up to them and asked if it was going to get any worse. It was already pretty bad--if you've never been there, there's a big seawall that is 17 feet above the water. From what I could tell about where the reporter was, they were at a spot where there is a rather large swath of beach between the seawall and the the edge of the water. When I was watching TV, the water was up to the seawall. Hmmm... the water has risen that much 14 hours before landfall and you're wondering if it's going to get worse??

[Arcade Man D]

Worst one I've been in (besides the Blizzards that you expect here) is what's called a derecho.

Sustained ~60 mph winds, 300 mile long, fast-moving line of T-storms. The sky before it gets that "Tornado color", and it will spawn F0-F1 tornadoes, too.

All in all, nasty stuff. Which I watched outside my window until my mom got up, watched the sky turn that sickening green, and dragged us all to the basement, just in case.

[EricKei]

It had been nasty and stormy all day, but they kept the blinds pulled so we didn't see how bad it had gotten. We didn't even know what was going on until the windows started vibrating like crazy and we heard a freight train go rushing past. Some people hung up on their callers and ducked under desks/went into the center of the building. Some people had no idea what was going on and just kept on going with the calls. The people who hung up got threatened with disciplinary action until someone pointed out that management had been watching the radar and KNEW that there was a tornado headed towards us and had done nothing so that they wouldn't miss their people on phone quota.

My story's more about a watery-tornado-ey-thing.

My bro was running a "DaddyJim's" Pizza in coastal Mississippi when Katrina was due to hit (his wife ran another, same town). Early Saturday morning (before mandatory evac, iirc), they were in their respective shops battening down the hatches (turning off the gas to the ovens, securing what they could, etc) -- one or two workers stopped by, just to help out. Weather radio on, portable TV tuned to local news, etc. During this process, he ended up speaking with the District Manager. Said DM insisted that they should stay open to cater to the holdouts who might want want pizza -- after all, everyone else had left, so they'd have the market all to themselves! ... Note that the DM himself was somewhere in far NORTH Mississippi by this time.

The bro calmly finished the call, being noncommittal, and promptly told all of his workers "OK guys, it's time to GTFO"; he called the ones who didn't come by to have them do so as well, just in case. Wifey did the same. This turned out to be sage advice. When they came back after the storm, one of the two shops just wasn't there anymore. The other had a Coke vending machine inside of a pizza oven, several feet off of the ground. Note that the oven did not actually have any openings large enough to accomodate the drink machine

As it happens, nobody was able to get in touch with the DM in question for a good six months -- he would have been out of a job and possibly up on charges anyway. It's my understanding that Corporate, along with pretty much everyone else in their area, wanted his head on a platter ^_^ Fortunately, everyone ended up OK when all was said and done.

[Pagan]

I know most people never believe it, but we have gotten tornadoes in New Mexico. Mostly in the Eastern part of the state. Got down to Las Cruces once and found out I had been driving most of the trip under a tornado watch. Good times.

Tornadoes are not fun to be in. This I know.

My mom's house was destroyed by a tornado when she was 4....and she was in it. Which explains her intense dislike for thunderstorms 60-odd years later.

Once we were out of danger, we stopped at a restaurant to eat. One the interstate headed for home, a bolt of lightning hit the road right in front of our car and my mom nearly had a stroke.

When I drove down to Cruces from Albuquerque this past 4th of July, I wound up driving into the worst thunderstorm I've ever seen about 10 miles outside of town.

It was about 7:45pm and nowhere near being dark yet. Within about 5-10 minutes it was pitch black and raining so hard I almost had to pull off. I snuggled in behind a big pick-em-up truck, followed it, and got off the interstate earlier than normal. This takes me into the part of town where my grandparents used to live and me to backways to the house that I can do in my sleep.

When I still out on I-10, there was a lightning strike really close behind me. I don't know exactly how far and I don't want to know.

I'm a bit terrified of lightning now. I didn't experience it much in the desert, but when I moved here and first heard the weather guy use the phrase "deadly lightning," I thought, "Is there any other kind?"

There was someone killed by lightning up in Rio Rancho on the 4th this year. another seven were put in the hospital.