How To Survive A Tornado

How To Survive a Tornado

Over the years people have learned how to survive just about every crisis, those who don’t haven’t been paying attention. Of course as usual the best strategy is not to be there in the first place. Don’t build your castle on sand, river bank, volcano slope, etc.

From the harmless whirlygig trash tornados often seen in city alleyways to the giant twisters of the mid west, the dust devils of Arizona to the water spouts of Florida it is not easy to find places entirely without tornados.

If you are in a location where deadly tornados appear on a regular basis be prepared with a place to shelter. It is always amazing to read about mid west mobile home parks that failed to provide residents with any form of shelter what-so-ever leaving these people to their potential doom.

Appraise your situation. Tornados can rip apart even sturdy homes built of wood or even brick. When a tornado warning is sounded, or your antenna TV goes all static and you hear what sounds like a freight train going by, by all means get into shelter.

The best shelter is underground. This means digging a hole, putting in a shelter either pre made or built, with several feet of earth on top. You can buy plastic shelters for this purpose, they have a strong door at ground level and are shaped not to pop out of the ground when ground water rises. Tornados tend to stay in an area only a few minutes so the issue of comfort beyond a place to sit really isn’t an issue.

A basement can always be a second place to shelter, though not as good if the house were to fall into it and the protection above is the house floor not feet of earth.

A third alternative is a safe room. You can buy these either as a steel box that can be bolted to the garage concrete floor or build one inside the house that looks like any other room except the walls and ceiling are a double layer of overlapped 3/4 plywood instead of drywall with a sturdy steel door. This room must in some way rely on the house staying together for the most part.

If you are out shopping, seek shelter in any strong building, ask to be allowed into the basement or interior room without windows, even a janitor’s closet with a secure door is acceptable for the limited time you will need to be there.

On the road, try to stop the car under an overpass, if not see if you can out run or take a road out of the path. If trapped leave the car if you can seek shelter in a culvert or lay in a ditch beside the road.

When a tornado strikes without warning or you have no shelter, lay on the floor in a doorway with a mattress held over yourself, it’s better then nothing.

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