Yep, that's what Brian Williams wants you to believe regarding the recent deadly tornado outbreak. Cudos to Dr. Greg Forbes and part cudos to Jim Cantore of The Weather Channel for saying not so fast Brian. Geez, if Brian just did some homework, he would find that there is some relationship between high tornado counts and La Nina years. What Brian didn't remind us is that he works for GE/NBC Universal and they have HUGE contracts with our government for wind turbines and various other "green projects". (Remember GE paid ZERO taxes on its many billions in profits last year). Nah, much easier to dump on us and the evil oil companies (they do make billions too, BUT they pay billions in taxes unlike GE). So become an alarmist Brian. It sure will help your company's bottom line.
What is rather disturbing is the fact in this age of modern communications, we still had so many killed. People interviewed afterwards said they were surprised by the storms. Almost all of the big killer tornadoes had ample warning time. I just think people are caught up in their busy world and often don't pay attention to warnings as they believe it won't affect them. What say you? What else can NWS & the media do to keep people safe?
13 comments:
Unless you had a conrete rebar enforced storm shelter and you fell under the tornadoes direct path there was nothing you could really do. Alabama death toll now stands at 238 and I would imagine many of those did take cover and were not just sitting out on their front porch watching.
Change building codes, they have them for safety just include a small storm shelter if you live in a certain tornado prone area... small room size of a decent closet made from poured re-enforeced concrete should only add a $1,000 or so.. no big deal.
it is very dad but I really think that most people were hoping not get get hit.
How many tines have we had a tornado warning down here, in Southeast LA with sirens on and all, and there is no way to got to?
Where are we supposed to go? We don't have a basement and I'm guessing in Alabama they don't either. So were they supposed to get in their car and drive? All these houses were flattened, so even going into the safest room in your home won;t help. We are lucky we don't have these huge tornadoes here, but it is only luck so far? Could that ever happen down here Bob? I'm thinking I wanna buy a huge concrete pipe and cover it wit a few loads of dirt on it; That would make me fee safer in case some outbreaks that bad goes on down here.
I dunno? Make it mandatory that all Tornado warnings are automatically 'trasnsmitted' to all cell-phone/text type devices
since they're so prevalent? It might work only if they could legally interrupt a conversation/text message, and the warning function could not be be optioned 'off'.
I think sales of storm shelters will see just a slight increase but that is about it. The best ones are the ones in the ground just outside of your house basically a steel box but the problem is they are ugly and not exactly air tight so they tend to become homes for spiders etc.. Storm shelter in the ground inside your house wouldn't be too bad. Many homes in the are of tornados in AL do have basements.
Some valid comments. Building codes have been strengthened, however, EF4 & 5 tornadoes will wipe out even the strongest homes. The safe room is the only option, plus it will only cost an extra $3-5K on a new $200K+ home. Retrofitting an older home is more difficult. FYI, at the hurricane conference last week, a speaker said that the FCC will REQUIRE all mobile phones to be equipped with weather warning capability for FREE. You won't have to sign up and pay for that service. Since 90% of America has cell phones, that should alert many more folks to imminent danger.
Unless your home is basically built from solid concrete with rebar not a whole lot can be done. Those so called metal hurricane straps and ties won't do squat to stop your house from being ripped apart in a tornado, hurricane yeah maybe. Tornado winds are on the ground unlike hurricanes where the strongest winds are much much higher off the ground.
Seems like with new construction they could simply make the walk in closet a safe room and have it all reinforce etc.. it's just a matter of time before we see this again.
I hear there are hundreds of missing people.
Glad to hear of the mobile phone notification system going in.
I don't know how a supposedly credible anchor, like Brian Williams, is able to get away with those comments.
I think there should be audible alarm systems and evacuation shelters as there are in other states. I would be one of those people who cannot afford to add onto my home, unless the government offered some type of assistance. Still, it is the government's responsibility to keep the public safe, so some type of plan needs to be implemented which would benefit the public as a whole. Having been displaced in MO after Katrina, I had to go through the night of the three tornadoes that wiped out part of Sedalia. At least we had somewhere to evacuate to, that was also nearby. Bob, I have been watching you since I was a kid & I trust your expertise.
Oh yeah Bob, this is so unprecedented. I cannot believe you said that in your blog. You should be ashamed of yourself. This tornado outbreak surpassed the 1974 outbreak. You always downplay every bad weather event. Over 350 people died and over 200 tornado in a 24 hour period. The US has never seen anything on that scale.
"Still, it is the government's responsibility to keep the public safe," Highly disagree on this statement. Yeah safe from say a foreign country invading but not from weather. Folks simply need to be accountable for this on their own. Too many times the gov't is used as a punching bag.
What states have public tornado shelters?
This system is sure to have the most EF-5's in history. EF-5's not F-5's .
I think Bob just spoke too soon about that "unprecedented" comment by Weather Channel. You got to remember he see's them as competition.
With at least 318 confirmed dead, Wednesday's outbreak surpassed a series of tornadoes in 1974 to become the deadliest day for twisters since 1932. The storm eight decades ago was also in Alabama.
Now the storm is unprecedented..
My final comments on this issue. I stand by my original statement..."unprecedented means never happened before". The Weather Channel originally described this event that way, but now calls it "Historic, Epic". The deadliest tornado was the Tri-state tornado in 1925 that killed over 700+. Do to poor communications back then, I'm sure there were many more storms that didn't get reported like they do now.
Loves to dish out criticism but can't take it.
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