Anyome affected by the mid-west tornadoes?

[John the train]

I've just checked the BBC site and seen the news about Greensburgh ( hope that's the right spelling ), and I see there may be other tornadoes on the way. Not a lot I can say except that I'm sure all forum members are thinking of everyone, not just our people, in the ' danger zone '. We Brits are always complaining about our weather, but we've got it easy compared to the mid-west, or JN4 down in hurricane alley.

[Wayne]

Looks like someone's been eating Heinz baked beans..... by the crateful :)

Wayne

[John the train]

I did a bit of reading on tornadoes, it seems that it's the semi-vacuum created by the wind speed that does a lot of the damage, sort of flying vacuum cleaner. At least there were no reports of fatalaties or serious injuries, so the emergency drills seemed to have worked, I expect you know all about 'quake drills Wayne!

[Wayne]

I did a bit of reading on tornadoes, it seems that it's the semi-vacuum created by the wind speed that does a lot of the damage, sort of flying vacuum cleaner. At least there were no reports of fatalaties or serious injuries, so the emergency drills seemed to have worked, I expect you know all about 'quake drills Wayne!

Absolutely! Gather up as much beer as you can and hide in a closet! :D

Wayne

[John the train]

It seems that things are worse than the initial report I saw, here's the latest from the BBC.http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6629371.stm.

[Wayne]

It seems that things are worse than the initial report I saw, here's the latest from the BBC.http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6629371.stm.

Very nasty! Hope no one here living there has been hurt... obviously hope the people there pull through!

Wayne

[Wayne]

Not forgetting that along with the danger of earthquakes we also have the typhoon season in September :( Apart from the rough seas, strong winds, etc, it also means flooding and soil erosion leading to roads and buildings collapsing.

Wayne

[Dan]

At last report here locally, there were eight souls lost in Greensburg, one in another town and several still unaccounted for. It was an F-5 twister, and the town of Greensburg looks like it's been nuked!

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070506/D8OUUHC81.html

There really isn't much left. Note the size of the pieces. Seeing the level of destruction, I really am surprised the death toll wasn't in the hundreds.


Dan

[Wayne]

At last report here locally, there were eight souls lost in Greensburg, one in another town and several still unaccounted for. It was an F-5 twister, and the town of Greensburg looks like it's been nuked!

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070506/D8OUUHC81.html

There really isn't much left. Note the size of the pieces. Seeing the level of destruction, I really am surprised the death toll wasn't in the hundreds.
Dan

I suppose after the other disasters (Katrina, etc) those people had good sense what to do or had enough beer stocked up to keep them from going out to get more!

Wayne

[lazlow]

The nick name for an F5 is "the finger of god".

Last I heard the fatalites were now up to 10 (local news). For one summer I lived about 30 miles from there (Isabel). Frequent road trip destination. The terrain is pretty flat (no place to hide) this is why almost everyone has a basement or a root cellar. I have seen a F2 and I almost had to change my shorts, so I want nothing to do with an F5.

With rural life on the decline, when towns get hit like this they usually just die. People take it as a sign that it is time to move on. Businesses do not want to rebuild until they know that enough people are going to stick around and people cannot afford to stick around without the buisnesses. It is a real shame. These are the type of towns that if your grandmother has a flat, somebody just stops and changes it for her.

[tw2113]

I'm from the midwest(South Dakota), but haven't seen any tornado's in our state yet.

[JN4OldSchool]

It's a terrible disaster. I am so thankful that few people were killed, it is truly a miracle when you look at what is left. Greensburg will be in my prayers for sure.

[lazlow]

Tw

I used to live in Ideal(Winner), Onieda, and Brookings. Where are you at? I was trying to remember the name of that little town(just a blink town), just off the highway someplace between Brookings and Redfeild, that got wiped out a few years ago. I thought that that was an F5 too.

Lazlow

[lazlow]

It was Manchester, SD. It was only an F4 (only). Here is a link to some pretty spooky pictures:

http://www.stormgasm.com/6-24-03/6-24-03.htm

[tw2113]

Tw

I used to live in Ideal(Winner), Onieda, and Brookings. Where are you at? I was trying to remember the name of that little town(just a blink town), just off the highway someplace between Brookings and Redfeild, that got wiped out a few years ago. I thought that that was an F5 too.

Lazlow
I'm currently in Madison attending Dakota State University(until the end of the week when they graduate me), and grew up in Murdo. I remember playing Sully Buttes in sports, so it's cool that someone from SD is here on the forum with me.

[sailor]

Here in Texas, we had one a couple weeks ago down in Eagle Pass (on the border with Mexico) killed 10 people. The same area had warnings this last weekend. The closest to me was about 3 weeks ago, about 15 miles away, but it did not do much damage, I think it was just skipping around in the fields.
I live west of San Antonio, about 8 miles from Castroville....I am in a area that could possiblely be hit, although it is not likely (fingers crossed) :)

My prayers go out to those in Kansas...

[John the train]

One though that comes to my mind is, what is it like knowing that any year the tornado season can drop something like that on you? As I said in my first post, we've got it easy here in the UK weatherwise, the big storm of 1953 claimed a lot of lives, though I was too young to remember it, and we've had two ' hurricanes ', and that's about it for extreme weather in my lifetime.

Lazlow. I can well believe it, re--building isn't just a matter of trucking in replacement housing, businesses will have to re-build from scratch, stock and records probably blown to Colorado, even if their records were on computers they were very likely trashed by debris. A lot of people will be doing some hard thinking once the initial shock wears off, rebuild or move on?
Dan. I've been thinking about various pictures of devastation I've seen, including a chemical plant which blew up in the UK, and I think your simile is pretty well on the nose. Hiroshima is the nearest I've seen for total anhialation. Only the grain (?) silos seem to have survived, and I saaume they are reinforced concrete?

[Wayne]

I remember being in London in the mid 80's for a short time and woke up one morning after a hurricane had hit. Actually, didn't get much sleep with the wind howling and stuff. Had no electricity for a short time and when I looked out the window branches and stuff were strewn all over the place. Just up the road from me an old tree in a churchyard had been pulled out of its roots and was lying across the road and cars were trying to navigate around it! Tube was also stopped and running late.

Wayne

[John the train]

I remember being in London in the mid 80's for a short time and woke up one morning after a hurricane had hit. Actually, didn't get much sleep with the wind howling and stuff. Had no electricity for a short time and when I looked out the window branches and stuff were strewn all over the place. Just up the road from me an old tree in a churchyard had been pulled out of its roots and was lying across the road and cars were trying to navigate around it! Tube was also stopped and running late.

Wayne
Sounds like one of the two I can recall. One mainly hit the south-east, the second one ( late 1980's ) affected more of the country, we had trees down across roads and power out in this area, but to the best of my recollection most structural damage was roofs being ripped off. I can't remember how many were killed - falling debris and some cars hit by falling trees - but I don't think it would have exceeded 20 across the UK.

[rpstitz]

I'm in SE Missouri and my house is located at the base of Crowley's Ridge. Every fall we have at least one (usually small) twisters come up over the ridge within a mile from our house, but they always seem to stay up until after they clear us. Must be the ridge.
I'm rather surprised to know that the entire world seems to keep a pretty good eye on the news here in the States. The only time we hear about any other country is if a Tsunami swept through and killed millions, or if we're at war or fixing to be at war with them. Kind of makes us look like we're all about ourselves, I guess. Thanks for caring.

[Coolerthanyou]

There was a tornado a few miles from here during the last storm. I didn't see anything and it was just out there in the middle of nowhere, but it was reported. Today lightning struck a tree near here. That tree will never be the same again. :(

[Dan]

... Today lightning struck a tree near here. That tree will never be the same again. :( Ayup. That kinda takes the fight right out of 'em!

[daverj]

I used to live in the area. I know many who were affected. I plan on taking next week off to assist with the relief effort.

[John the train]

The total was 18
[
Thanks Leigh.Here's a link on the second big storm, which is the one I had personal experience of. I hadn't realised that the death toll was higher than in the 1987 storm, though of course it was a daytime storm, probably the fact that our power was out for a while meant that I missed the majority of reports. Even now the guide books to some gardens mention that younger trees in avenues etc. were planted to replace casualties in the 2 ' Big blows '. http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/anniversary/storm1990.html

[tw2113]

I'm rather surprised to know that the entire world seems to keep a pretty good eye on the news here in the States. The only time we hear about any other country is if a Tsunami swept through and killed millions, or if we're at war or fixing to be at war with them. Kind of makes us look like we're all about ourselves, I guess. Thanks for caring.
well when you broadcast every little thing on worldwide available networks, it'd be pretty hard to avoid. Not to mention that the english language is relatively well spread, and other countries know multiple languages. Most americans only know english and little bits of other languages.

[John the train]

well when you broadcast every little thing on worldwide available networks, it'd be pretty hard to avoid. Not to mention that the english language is relatively well spread, and other countries know multiple languages. Most americans only know english and little bits of other languages.
At my school - this was in the 1960's - we did latin and one modern language, if you weren't good at latin you got shunted into the ' technical ' stream, intended for factory jobs. Hence I only have a little French and a smattering of German and other languages I've picked up from multi-lingual documentation, though the situation has improved now there are still a lot of Brits who feel everyone should speak English!

[lazlow]

John



All through history there has been a "standard" language. When Rome was in power it was Roman. During the US war for independence all "civilized" people spoke French. It is the way of the world. We cannot all speak more than 2 languages. So the world picks a language.

Right now I would like all countries to require at least two languages be taught in school, English and whatever is normally spoken in that country. Is English any better than any other language? NO. It is just currently the "standard". Why is it important that everyone understand/speak a common language? Despite what most politicians think, most people are not total idiots. If everyone can understand what is being said around the world, it will be much more difficult for local politicians to twist what is actually going on in the world. This is not just a one way street. It applies to information in english speaking countries just as well as non-english speaking ones. If both you and your neighbor can understand what each is saying, it is much easier to get along.