High risk. A proposal.

JustinS said:
My university goes on lockdown when there is a tornado warning and they force all the students to stay inside the dorm hall ways on the 1st floor of the building... So since thats lame some of my friends will go chase storms instead. :D
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When I was at Riddle, we had a tornado warning, while I was over in the sim building. A little background, the tornado that hit the place, destroyed the sim building back in 2006. So, they go to tell us to lock down in the building. I basically said not a chance, because 1, this building got nailed before and 2, I'm from tornado alley, and this ain't nothing.
 
KSCessnaDriver said:
When I was at Riddle, we had a tornado warning, while I was over in the sim building. A little background, the tornado that hit the place, destroyed the sim building back in 2006. So, they go to tell us to lock down in the building. I basically said not a chance, because 1, this building got nailed before and 2, I'm from tornado alley, and this ain't nothing.
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Yeah. It's usually a cat and mouse game of get off campus before campus security tries to make you stay on lock down in a building here. Good times.
 
Yet again, not sure you are catching my drift. I know there are hundreds of tornadoes every year. I am not advocating lockdown when there is a tornado watch or warning. This is all beside the point. The point is when they draw this high risk area, it's not just a tornado guarantee, it's a strong tornado guarantee. I was watching closely during Missouri, Alabama, and Kentucky in the last two years. In all three cases during weather forecasts, the forecasters made it a point that this isn't a garden variety tornado prediction. They tried to sound the alarm bell the best that they could, indicating that in these rare instances, very strong tornadoes could be predicted with very good accuracy. All three times it held true there were once In a century tornadoes in all three cases.

I don't think this was possible ten years ago. The forecasting models weren't that good. This isn't about tornado watches or warnings. It's about this high risk area. Wait until you see it again. When you see it again, just remember, this isn't just a tornado prediction.
 
cezzna said:
I believe this area, when drawn should be treated al,ost as a war zone or martial law area. Schools and non essential businesses should be closed and people should evacuate or go to serious tornado resistant structures. It would be guaranteed to save lives in these rare instances.

What do you think?
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I think you really haven't thought this through.

I live in tornado alley. I've been here for 23 years. I've never saw a tornado ANYWHERE near my house. Not saying they haven't been within a couple of miles or it'll never come, BUT....

These tornadoes and high winds can literally develop in a matter of minutes. 5 minutes ago it was just an ugly thunderstorm. Now it's a REALLY UGLY thunderstorm.

So an area has been declared as a "High Risk" area and you want people to evacuate at this instance? You want them to get out and leave a building to go somewhere else? That's horrible. Can you imagine how many people would get killed trying to get to a "tornado resistant structure" when they should have kept their butt right where they were? What if the structure was full? What now? Turn around and go back? All while the wind is blowing 60+mph and the rain is blinding and debris and crap is flying everywhere? Good luck.

"Almost treated like a war zone or martial law area"? So, are you gonna deploy the troops or police officers at the intersections to say "Get to The Tornado-Proof Building NOW!" All while a tornado warning has been issued? How would you like to be the Cop out in the storm?

I'll be damned if I'm somewhere and someone tells me I HAVE to go somewhere because a tornado warning has been issued.

I'm sorry if this comes off a little bit jerkish and I know it was probably just an idea of yours, but I've had it with Government/Politicians/Other people that "know" better telling others how to live and run their lives.

How about this. I'll take care of my rear-end, and you just take care of yours.
 
I just returned to Tinker with one of our E-6's from a weather divert overnight down to Houston... cezzna, much like your idea that people should be encouraged to leave at the first sign of a good possibility of something happening, my command attempts to predict the future and prevent damage to our aircraft when we can't get them in hangers due to lack of space.

9 times out of 10 however, when we take the planes somewhere else, nothing happens. Same thing last night. Doom and gloom, possible tornado outbreaks, pretty good chance of baseball size hail... We go spend the night somewhere and Tinker gets some light ice from freezing rain.

Running from tornadoes, that DON'T exist yet, due to a warning is a complete waste of time for the everyday person. Yes, tornadoes have the potential to kill people when they strike. So do drunk drivers, mentally unstable people with AR-15's, and many other things in the world. All of these things can and WILL happen at one point or another and we, as humans, can do nothing that will prevent them all.

The weather forecasts we have now are great for warning people of the potential damage... Until they can forecast the EXACT line that a tornado is going to come down, at least a few hours before it happening, there is no reason for people to run for the hills. For all you know, the people will move out of their home that won't get touched and move into the building that is demolished by the F5 blowing through.
 
tomokc said:
I'll simply state that this is an entirely false statement. I've lived in Oklahoma City my entire life, my house has probably been in hundreds of tornado warning areas in that time, I've never even SEEN a tornado, and the worst that I've experienced is hail damage.

I'll let others discuss the declaration of martial law when a "high risk area" is identified (including the city of Detroit, but I digress).
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You must be young as in 1999 the BIG one came to OKC. Came within a mile of our house and the pressure pulled the gutters off the house.

Gary England is the man on storms!
 
You can't shut down a whole area just because of a forecast. High risks bust all the time. Forecasting is great right now but what will always lag behind is the public's attention to that weather. Every time a tornado hits a town there are always people screaming "we had no warning" even though they had 30 minutes lead time on the storm.
 
ComplexHiAv8r said:
You must be young as in 1999 the BIG one came to OKC. Came within a mile of our house and the pressure pulled the gutters off the house.

Gary England is the man on storms!
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No, I'm over 50 years old. I responded to Moore that night with the American Red Cross Disaster Action Team. The devastation and chaos was so bad they wouldn't let us in. So I gave a pint of blood on my way home to NW OKC. At my house - 15 miles north of ground zero - I could smell the natural gas plume from all of the sheared off gas meters.

Another year you'll recall a two-day event that went across the same general area, taking out the GM plant and running across Tinker AFB up I-44 to Stroud. I did photo missions the days after each storm, photographing the path and damaged/destroyed structures. On that first night I was running home to get the dogs, came upon an MVA at 63rd & May and stopped to help. A funnel was reported at Baptist so the firefighters grabbed all victims, tossed them in their rig (I've never seen that before) and took off. Several GA aircraft at PWA were flipped over that night, and our large hanger doors were torqued and jammed shut.

No, I've been around a while and I've seen a lot of the damage. But I've never seen a funnel cloud, and I've never suffered personal damage other than hail.
 
Brn N Rubr said:
I grew up in Moore, OK. I was in high school on May 3, 1999 (google the date if you're unaware of the significance). That tornado went less than two miles from our house and affected many of our friends. Countless tornados passed by our area over the years. I don't want to say you become immune to them, but we all know to turn on Gary England and see what's going on. The lack of deaths with these forecasted tornados is a testament to how well the system is working though the destruction of property will never be able to be eliminated.
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Born and raised in Moore. I was just about to turn 9 on May 3. I lived across from 12th street park. That day is the reason why I love weather as much as I do.
 
Brn N Rubr said:
Tornados absolutely fascinate me. Can I get a "heck yeah" for Gary England and his most awesome storm coverage!?
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Born Okie here, and I'll give you a heck yeah! Gary was the best. Always loved big storm days, storm coverage was almost always more entertaining than whatever I was watching before.

Is he still doing the weather? I'm in TX now, haven't been back in a while.
 
FlyingPoke said:
Born Okie here, and I'll give you a heck yeah! Gary was the best. Always loved big storm days, storm coverage was almost always more entertaining than whatever I was watching before.

Is he still doing the weather? I'm in TX now, haven't been back in a while.
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Yep! He's still doing his thing, I vaguely remember sitting in the closet watching his coverage living in Edmond, but growing up in Tulsa I had no idea he was such a celebrity until I got back towards the OKC area.
 
I agree with what everyone else is saying OP. Some of the largest tornadoes that occur, I'm not even talking about EF level, just size, are a little over a mile in diameter. The average lateral speed of tornadoes is 30mph and last on average of 5 to 15 minutes. So if a tornado lasts 15 minutes and is a mile wide only 7.5 square miles are effected. Statistically the effected area is outside of a metro area and nobody except for storm chasers and the occasional farmer sees it.

It's truly amazing that forecasters can narrow down a high risk area to as small as they do but in all reality they narrow down to an area on average over 100 square miles knowing only maybe 7.5 square miles may have significant damage and the likelihood of that damage affecting many people is small. The whole point of those high risk areas is to put people on alert and be ready just in case that severe event happens near them. Trying to shutdown a high risk area just because there is a small chance an event may happen in a metro area or even less likely, someones farm house, is just a waste.

I'm not just speaking with no experience. I have a meteorology degree and had professors and friends who are storm chasers. Conversations like this have come up between us before and even the guys with more experience than me agree that the likelihood of damage actually effecting a large metro area is very low. Not saying there aren't exceptions to the norm because those are the events that people remember and get put in the history books, but statistically it's not worth shutting down an area. The negatives in loss of revenue etc to a community would outweigh the chance of significant loss of life.
 
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