It's Raining Fish and Spiders (6 page)
Read It's Raining Fish and Spiders Online
Authors: Bill Evans
How to Save Yourself If You Are Ever Caught in a Tornado
Know the signs of a tornado: Weather forecasting science is not perfect and some tornadoes do occur without a tornado warning. There is no substitute for staying alert to the sky. Besides an obviously visible tornado, here are some things to look and listen for:
Strong, persistent rotation in the cloud base.
Whirling dust or debris on the ground under a cloud baseâtornadoes sometimes have no funnel!
Hail or heavy rain followed by either dead calm or a fast, intense wind shift. Many tornadoes are wrapped in heavy precipitation and can't be seen.
Day or night: Loud, continuous roar or rumble that doesn't fade in a few seconds like thunder.
Night: Small, bright, blue-green to white flashes at ground level near a thunderstorm (as opposed to silvery lightning up in the clouds). These mean that power lines are being snapped by a very strong wind, maybe a tornado.
Night: Persistent lowering from the cloud base, illuminated or silhouetted by lightningâespecially if it is on the ground or there is a blue-green to white power flash underneath.
Frank Picini
Fred K. Smith; used by permission.
Frank Picini
Fred K. Smith; used by permission.
What To Do During A Tornado
In a house with a basement:
Avoid windows. Get in the basement and under some kind of sturdy protection like a heavy table or workbench, or cover yourself with a mattress or sleeping bag. Know where very heavy objects rest on the floor above (like pianos, refrigerators, or waterbeds) and do not go under them. They may fall through a weakened floor and crush you.
In a house with no basement, a dorm, or an apartment:
Avoid windows. Go to the lowest floor; into a small, windowless chamber like a bathroom or closet; under a stairwell; or into an interior hallway with no windows. Crouch as low as possible to the floor, facing down, and cover your head with your hands. A bathtub may offer partial protection. Even in an interior room, you should cover yourself with some sort of thick padding, like a mattress or blankets, to protect yourself against falling debris in case the roof or ceiling fails. Do not waste time opening windowsâit won't protect your home from damage and if a tornado hits your building it's likely to blow out the windows anyway.
In an office building, a hospital, a nursing home, or a skyscraper:
Go directly to an enclosed, windowless area in the center of the building. Crouch down and cover your head. Interior stairwells are usually good places to take shelter. If the stairs are not crowded, move quickly to a lower level. Stay out of the elevators; you could be trapped in them if the power is lost.
In a mobile home:
Get out! Even if your home is tied down, you are probably safer outside, even if the only alternative is to seek shelter out in the open. Most tornadoes can destroy even tied-down mobile homes, and it is best not to play the low odds that yours will make it. If your community has a tornado shelter, go there fast. If there is a sturdy permanent building within easy running distance, seek shelter there. Otherwise, lie flat on low ground away from your home, protecting your head. If possible, use open ground away from trees and cars, which can be blown onto you.
At school:
Follow the drill! Go to the interior hall or room in an orderly way, as you are told. Crouch low, head down, and protect the back of your head with your arms. Stay away from windows and large open rooms like gyms and auditoriums.
In a car or truck:
Vehicles are extremely dangerous in a tornado. If the tornado is visible, far away, and the traffic is light, you may be able to drive out of its path by moving at right angles to the tornado. Otherwise, park the car as quickly and safely as possibleâout of the traffic lanes. (It's safer to get the car out of any mud later, if necessary, than to cause a crash by stopping in the roadway.) Get out and seek shelter in a sturdy building. If you are in open country, run to low ground away from any cars. Lie flat and facedown, protecting the back of your head with your arms. Avoid seeking shelter under bridges, which can create deadly traffic hazards while offering little protection against flying debris.
In the open, out of doors:
If possible, seek shelter in a sturdy building nearby. If not, lie flat and facedown on low ground, protecting the back of your head with your arms. Get as far away from trees and cars as you can; they may be blown onto you.
In a shopping mall or a large store:
Do not panic. Stay aware of crowds. Move as quickly as possible to an interior bathroom, storage room, or other small enclosed area, away from windows. Crouch facedown and protect your head with your arms.
In a theater or other public building:
Do not panic. If possible, move quickly and in an orderly fashion to an interior bathroom or hallway, away from windows. Crouch facedown and protect your head with your arms. If there is no time to do that, get under the seats or pews, protecting your head with your arms or hands.
What To Do After The Tornado
Keep your family together and wait for emergency personnel to arrive. If you can, render aid to those who are injured. Stay away from power lines and puddles with wires in them; they may still be carrying electricity. Watch your step to avoid broken glass, nails, or other sharp objects. Stay out of any heavily damaged houses or buildings; they could collapse at any time. Do not use matches or lighters, in case there are leaking natural gas pipes or fuel tanks nearby. Remain calm and alert, and listen for information and instructions from emergency crews or local officials.
Tornado ChasersâAre They Crazy?
Want to feel your heart pounding in your chest? Want to feel the real-life fright of your life? You're excited yet anxious, nervous and scared, trying to keep your composure. Who are you? You're a
tornado chaser
experiencing a very real once-in-a-lifetime thrill ride. I have done it personally and I can tell you, there is nothing scarier than standing right in front of an approaching tornado spinning at 250 mph.
I'm in western Oklahoma, it's late in the day. I'm with a crew of chasers equipped with cameras and a portable Doppler radar, driving right into the teeth of a nasty super cell, into the area known as the “bear's cage.” It's the area between the main updraft of the storm and the hail. Pritt J. Vesilind, who chased tornadoes for
National Geographic,
put it this way: “It's aptly called the bear's cage, because chasing tornadoes is like hunting grizzliesâyou want to get close, but not on the same side of the river. Sometimes you get the bear; sometimes the bear gets you.”
The sky is pea green and black but everything is calm as we approach the super cell. When we enter the mammoth storm, we're immediately hit with a ripping gust of straight-line winds of 60 mph. Rain is pouring down as if it was being poured out of a pitcher onto our van. We can't see a thing. Brilliant lightning is zapping and snaking all around, sounding like cannons.
It wasn't a good idea to drive head-on into the storm's fury, but we were on the only road in the desolation of this part of western Oklahoma. Emergency vehicles, flashing red lights, sheriff's deputies, storms chasers, and spotters are everywhere.
The road takes us slightly to the storm's right, where we are blasted with hail the size of golf balls, and some larger! The van's windshield cracks from the force of the hail. As we fearfully press on, outside we can see the wall cloud where the tornadoes would be found. Inside, the crew is looking at Doppler radar and the instruments, getting a fix on the super cell's path.
We see beautiful mammatus clouds overhead and the sky begins to take on a reddish hue in the light of the setting sun. The rain and hail end. The crew stops to set up the camera outside. The world looks eerie and very frightening. The Doppler radar shows a hook echo. Our excitement and anticipation grow. We hope to see this awesome, beautiful freak of nature drop from the sky. Dark clouds billow across an open field in front of us right before we're hit with another round of hail. In the distance we can see a vortex spinning at the surface, picking up dust and dirt as the tornado snakes down to meet it.
I jump in front of the camera to describe what I'm seeing; my heart is pounding and I'm nearly out of breath. Barely able to contain my composure, I do a play-by-play of the tornado as it spins up debris: soil, plants, and eventually some power lines. As the storm crosses the road going away from us, it climbs back into the cloud as quickly as it had descended. Fortunately, no homes were destroyed and no one was hurt.
The crew was great, courageous, and brave. I was very happy to have witnessed this powerful, awesome form of extreme weather and to be heading home safe and sound.
Weather Myths Solved!
One of the most frequent questions I get asked when I speak to students is “Will opening windows to equalize the air pressure save my house from destruction by a tornado?”
I've always wondered who originally thought of such an idea. Most likely it was born of the desire to do something, anything, to make the tornado less harmful or to somehow ward it off. Well, let me tell you, raising a window is certainly not going to render an EF5 tornado harmless! In reality, this is a dangerous and useless waste of time. Instead of opening windows, you should be getting to a place of safety. Raising a window will do nothing to stop one of the most violent forces on the planet.
Since I am a meteorologist in New York City, one of the largest cities in America, kids often say to me, “Tornadoes never hit big cities.” Well, that was disproved in the spring of 2007 when a funnel cloud was sighted on Doppler radar over Staten Island, New York. It passed over New York Harbor and touched down in Brooklyn, New York, as an EF1. The tornado uprooted trees, damaged roofs, and blew over fences. The last time that happened was 100 years earlier. Tornadoes do not form in big cities as often as they do in tornado alley, but they're not unknown in metropolitan areas. The DallasâFt. Worth area in Texas has been hit with tornadoes. Oklahoma City is often rife with tornadoes. St. Louis, Kansas City, Indianapolis, Omaha, Chicago, and Detroit have all experienced tornadoes right in town or in their suburbs! The incorrect idea that one's town is protected is due to short memory, the rarity of tornadoes, and wishful thinking!
While chasing tornadoes in Oklahoma, I thought to myself, “If we need to seek safety from an approaching tornado, would a highway overpass be a safe place?” Well, common sense should dictate that anytime you find yourself aboveground in the path of a tornado, either deliberately or by coincidence, you are in harm's way. Every year, dozens of drivers pull off highways in the face of an oncoming tornado and run under overpasses. They also block the road near the overpasses, putting other motorists in extreme danger. On May 4, 1999, this myth was put to rest when a woman and her child climbed underneath an overpass with several other people. The intense winds grasped the woman and, unfortunately, carried her half a mile to her death. Her child was only slightly injured. It's too bad this myth could not be dispelled before someone was killed.
When driving home from college once on a rural road, I was flagged down by the highway patrol. They were making everyone get out of their cars and lie in a roadside ditch because a tornado was coming right at us. I could see the funnel cloud as it passed over us in the dim sunset light. I had never been so happy to be lying in a rain-soaked, muddy ditch before! Since we were lower than the surface of the land around us, we survived unhurt.
Those who live in tornado alley always hear “the southwest corner of a basement is the safest location during passage of a tornado.” People often say this because we know that tornadoes generally move along a cold front or squall line from southwest to northeast. But is it really true? In 1996, Professor Joseph Eagleman from the University of Kansas proved that this could be a deadly choice. Eagleman found that actually the southwest part of the basement was the worst place to be because of the way houses moved during a tornado. In a tornado, a home can be shifted off its foundation. If it collapses, it can sometimes crush people who sought shelter in the basement. As a general rule, basements are a safe place during a tornado, but sometimes even a basement is not safe.
An EF-2 tornado forms over the University of Alabama campus in Huntsville, Alabama, on January 21, 2010.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/Department of Commerce
Tornado Oddities
The Great Bend, Kansas, tornado of November 1915, is the tornado that seems to have the greatest number of oddities associated with it. To begin with, it was an unusual time of yearâin fact, it is the latest in the year that a violent tornado has ever struck the state of Kansas. The funnel began its late-evening journey 5 miles southwest of Larned, 16 miles southwest of Great Bend. Because it was nearly dark, the tornado was visible only occasionally, during flashes of lightning. The oddities began southwest of Pawnee Rock, where a farm was leveled to the ground and two people were killed. From a short distance away, one could not tell that a farmstead had ever existed there. Five horses were the only survivors. They were carried a quarter-mile away from the barn and found, completely unhurt and hitched to the same rail.
At the edge of Great Bend, the Charles Hammond house was unroofed. The family was completely unaware of the damage until they went outside to see what had happened to a neighbor's home. The south wall of Grant Jones's store was blown down, but shelves and canned goods that stood against the wall were unmoved. The Riverside Steam Laundry, built of stone and cement block, was reduced to a fragment of upright wall, yet two nearby wooden shacks seemed almost untouched.
At the Moses Clay ranch, on the east edge of town, 1,000 sheep were killed, the most ever killed by a single tornado. A cancelled check from Great Bend was found in a cornfield, one mile outside of Palmyra, Nebraskaâ¦305 miles to the northeast, the longest known distance that debris has ever been carried. Receipts, checks, photographs, ledger sheets, money, clothing, shingles, and fragments of books rained down on almost every farm north and west of Glasco, 80 miles to the northeast of Great Bend.
A necktie rack with ten ties still attached was carried 40 miles. A four-page letter from a swain to his fair damsel was carried 70 miles. A flour sack from the Walnut Creek Mill was found 110 miles to the northeast, perhaps the longest distance ever recorded for an object weighing more than one pound. Up to 45,000 migrating ducks were reported killed at Cheyenne Bottoms. Dead ducks fell from the sky 40 miles northeast of that migratory bird refuge.
In Great Bend, an iron water hydrant was found full of splinters. Mail was lifted from the railroad depot and scattered for miles to the northeast. Some of it was returned to Great Bend, but some was sent on from where it had been foundâ¦one of the earliest forms of airmail! Farmers living 2 miles from town were unaware of the tragedy and were dumbfounded when they visited town the next day and beheld the tragic spectacle. Over 20,000 visitors viewed the wreckage the following Sunday.
Things that seemed impossible were discovered for days after the storm. An iron jug was blown inside out. A rooster was blown into a jug, with only its head sticking out of the neck of the container!
Fish Falling from the Sky!
History mentions many instances of things (other than rain, snow, sleet, hail, or other usual forms of precipitation) falling from the sky. I have personally seen it happen myself, so I know that it's true! The earliest account of strange things falling from the sky appears in the Bible in the Book of Joshua. The Israelites, led by Joshua, have routed the Amorite army and are in pursuit of the survivors. A shower of stones falls from the sky and kills more of the enemy than those who died in battle. There are other biblical accounts of things falling from the sky, like the locusts and frogs that tormented Egypt.
About forty times a year, there are reports of creatures falling from the sky. Fish and frogs are the main culprits, having dropped out of the sky many times and in many places around the world.
It's raining spiders!
Christian Oneto Gaona; used by permission.
In 2006, a fish encased in ice crashed through the windshield of a parked car at a marina in Seattle, Washington. Snakes, periwinkles, tadpoles, jellyfish, and even crabs have rained down many timesâand often, still alive!
