What Would You Do???

With all the tornado activity we're hearing about I thought that it might be a good idea to set up a few scenarios on
"What would you do"?

Please post "any" thoughts, ideas, tips, etc. that you might have. It just might be something that one of us would not have thought about.

1) You are all set up at a campground. It's 7 PM, you're watching tv and you see an alert for a tornado warning in your area.

2) It's 2 AM and you are woken up by extremely severe winds....(could be a tornado).

3) You are traveling (with your rig) and you see a tornado in the direction that your heading. (No place to turn)

4) You are traveling in your truck (without your rig).

5) You've gone hiking and you are 2 hours away from your truck or shelter.

6) Once again, you are in your truck (with or without your rig), you see a tornado heading your way.... no place to turn, no ditch
to jump in, no shelters around.

7) A tornado hits your campground. Your rv is turned over, (nobody is hurt in your rv).

8) During a severe storm a large branch falls and punctures a 6 inch hole in your roof.

9) Debris falls on the electrical pedestal and you see sparks in that area.

10) "During" a severe storm or tornado, a bolt of lightening starts a fire 100 feet from your campsite.



I know and you know that there are many more situations that could be added to this list. I also realize that I might have painted a couple of situations that are "not likely" to happen. The purpose of this post is enlighten or help one of us that "may" come across one of these or similar situations.

How great would it be if just one of us comes up with a new or clever idea that could possibly protect property and/or save a life?
I have a few thoughts that I will share later.

Please, let's get together and share some ideas.

WHAT WOULD YOU DO???

Thank you
Dick

1) You are all set up at a campground. It's 7 PM, you're watching tv and you see an alert for a tornado warning in your area.

We encountered this scenario at Bottomless Lakes State Park in New Mexico where we could actually see the funnel cloud "walking" along a nearby ridge. The single bath/shower building was a concrete shelter and almost all the campers and their pets took refuge there. I didn't make it so the best I could do was get under a solid concrete picnic table afixed to a concrete pad. We were lucky that night because the ridge deflected the funnel cloud so all we suffered was peripheral high winds and heavy rain for about thirty minutes. All fared well.

Gosh Dick, you brought up some bad situations. The number one rule regarding a tornado is to get into a low spot like a ditch, lay down with your head toward the storm with your arms over your head. This would fit most situations you mentioned except the one where there where was no ditch around. I guess prayer would be in order in that case. Many RV parks have a storm shelter or solid building you can get into. If conditions are threating I would ask the park staff where the safest place would be.

Get the Red Cross Tornado App for your smart phone or tablet. We had a close call in Iowa last June. The app siren went off 2 minutes before the local sirens sounded. Headed for the park's "shelter" and alerted the people next to us who didn't hear the sirens over their air conditioning. Ann's rule is to notify at least one other on the way to the shelter.

Other weather apps may also warn you, but I'm not sure how they compare.

Lot's of scenarios there to ponder.

We spent 2:00 AM - 3:00 AM this morning in our campground's bathhouse due to four different tornado warnings issued in our immediate area within just a few minutes. We were awakened by our weather radio going off and were the first ones in the bathhouse. A few notes that were concerning:

1. The camp host on duty flagged me down yesterday evening and indicated that a friend of his in the campground has a relative that is a meteorologist and was going to call if there was any concerning weather in the area. That friend never called.

2. The second person that ended up in the bathhouse was still awake and watching television coverage, so that is how he knew there was a storm. He ended up having to call a few other people in the campground to wake them up. Others finally had to drive around and bang on RV doors to get the rest of the campground up and moving towards the bathhouse.

3. Our AT&T phones had one bar of 4G service, but effectively no internet. I had grabbed our weather radio and brought it with us (I had put in fresh batteries yesterday knowing that all this was on the way).

4. You cannot hear any tornado sirens at the campground.

I've noticed lately that the Weather Channel and our local weather station have been recommending taking and wearing a helmet (bicycle, sports, etc.) when taking cover as most fatal injuries in storms tend to be due to head injuries. I never thought of that before. We had our helmets in the truck (I put them there yesterday afternoon).

By the way, we won our weather radio last year as a door prize at a rally. It took two minutes to put fresh batteries in it, plug it into AC and verify it was programmed correctly. The newer radios allow you to enter in a code to let the radio know what county you are in so that it doesn't go off multiple times for counties not affecting your area.

Last year at the Pre-rally in Goshen we had a severe weather alert. Most went the the shelters (several well marked buildings in the facility).
Something we had not considered prior to that is the cat. we had no carrier. Dogs usually are not an issue, cats on the other hand.

So, we now carry a cat carrier if we expect to be in a tornado prone area.

Spring 2011 we were in Marietta, Ga for three weeks in a motorhome, right in the middle of tornado season. Campground was full of large pine trees, and the bath houses were metal buildings (not very sturdy), no other shelter close. One evening the weather radar showed one tracking in our direction. With no where else to go we huddled with the puppies in the 2'x3' hallway of the motorhome, where we could see the TV in the bedroom. As we watched the radar showing it get closer and closer, the hail started coming down. A steady patter at first and then increasing to roar that sounded like we were in a drum. Suddenly the hail STOPPED, as our eyes gravitated to the TV, they suddenly switched to regular programming, and of all things "The Wizard of Oz"" was just starting. My DW and I both looked at each other like "Oh &*^%". Fortunately it veered slightly and missed us by just under a half mile, which was good because it did quite a bit of damage to an apartment complex.

We have a cat carrier (she rides in the truck when we're moving) and it was even inside the trailer. Bless her heart, we left her in the trailer while we ran for cover. Our camp host brought his dogs, though.

Years ago we were camping in our POPUP camper at Wild Wings Campground on Lake Erie Ohio when a tornado came through the campground. We were in the camper with no warning (other than the green sky) and no shelters in the campground. We opened the windows on the popup and prayed. The tornado turned over all of the 5ers and Motor Homes and picked us up and moved us about 3 feet and set us down. Of course the power went out. We were okay but the campground was destroyed. We were right next to the Davis Bessie Nuclear Power Plant. The papers said it was the worst direct hit of a tornado no a Nuclear Power Plant in US history. All I can say is God protected us. The 18 wheelers on the Ohio Turnpike were turned over, condos in the area destroyed, RV destroyed and the frame of our POPUP was slightly bent but we were able to straighten it out and get it closed, move to another location and continue our trip. We now ask at checkin where the storm shelter is. Most of the time it is a restroom.