As of my writing this comment, the last EF-5 was the Moore tornado in 2013. It was one of the biggest tornadoes in history. It was 1⅓ miles wide, had winds of 210 mph, and tracked for about 17 miles. It hit a school and a hospital in a populated suburban area. You can get on Google Earth Pro and look at the damage yourself. It’s like precision annihilation. Blank slabs were left behind in the worst cases.
And while it’s tragic that 24 people died, consider how many people were in its track and survived.
The thing is when a tornado passes through a populated area, it’s gonna hit someone. But the odds of it hitting you specifically are low. The odds of it being big enough that sheltering in place is not enough are low. The absolute vast majority of them are extremely survivable. I’d rather live in Oklahoma where tornadoes often start and end in unpopulated fields than in the southeast where they also get lots of tornadoes and hurricanes that inflict equal devastation over vast swathes of land. You can hide from a tornado most of the time, but in a hurricane, the hidey hole is about to be full of water. If it’s bad enough, the only thing you can do is run away with a million other people or ride it out and end up on The Weather Channel.
I have a brother who moved to Moore a few years after the tornado. His house was two houses away from a house that was leveled by it. Half of the neighborhood was rebuilt, but the house he rented was perfectly fine. It’s funny how a tornado can do that.
Yeah a lot of people don’t seem to understand that a tornado is a very violent storm but it covers a very small fraction of the storm’s total area. For the overwhelming majority of space in the path of the storm, it just experiences a severe thunderstorm, and every single one of us has experienced that. Only a slim percentage are going to get the funnel.
The reason you’re supposed to take shelter during a tornado is because oftentimes you don’t have visibility on it, have no idea where it’s going to go, and you might not have enough time to get into shelter by the time you realize it’s on top of you. And just because it’s always good to play it safe.
But realistically, if you could see the thing, you actually have a pretty good idea of how safe you are from it.
Tornadoes don’t rip you off the ground from half a mile away, and the vast majority of them don’t throw debris that far either. They’re also not teleporters, and many are short-lived. You can look at them from a distance, just don’t go chasing them, and be within 30 seconds of shelter.
As of my writing this comment, the last EF-5 was the Moore tornado in 2013. It was one of the biggest tornadoes in history. It was 1⅓ miles wide, had winds of 210 mph, and tracked for about 17 miles. It hit a school and a hospital in a populated suburban area. You can get on Google Earth Pro and look at the damage yourself. It’s like precision annihilation. Blank slabs were left behind in the worst cases.
And while it’s tragic that 24 people died, consider how many people were in its track and survived.
The thing is when a tornado passes through a populated area, it’s gonna hit someone. But the odds of it hitting you specifically are low. The odds of it being big enough that sheltering in place is not enough are low. The absolute vast majority of them are extremely survivable. I’d rather live in Oklahoma where tornadoes often start and end in unpopulated fields than in the southeast where they also get lots of tornadoes and hurricanes that inflict equal devastation over vast swathes of land. You can hide from a tornado most of the time, but in a hurricane, the hidey hole is about to be full of water. If it’s bad enough, the only thing you can do is run away with a million other people or ride it out and end up on The Weather Channel.
I have a brother who moved to Moore a few years after the tornado. His house was two houses away from a house that was leveled by it. Half of the neighborhood was rebuilt, but the house he rented was perfectly fine. It’s funny how a tornado can do that.
Yeah a lot of people don’t seem to understand that a tornado is a very violent storm but it covers a very small fraction of the storm’s total area. For the overwhelming majority of space in the path of the storm, it just experiences a severe thunderstorm, and every single one of us has experienced that. Only a slim percentage are going to get the funnel.
The reason you’re supposed to take shelter during a tornado is because oftentimes you don’t have visibility on it, have no idea where it’s going to go, and you might not have enough time to get into shelter by the time you realize it’s on top of you. And just because it’s always good to play it safe.
But realistically, if you could see the thing, you actually have a pretty good idea of how safe you are from it.
Tornadoes don’t rip you off the ground from half a mile away, and the vast majority of them don’t throw debris that far either. They’re also not teleporters, and many are short-lived. You can look at them from a distance, just don’t go chasing them, and be within 30 seconds of shelter.