Once again tornado season is rapidly approaching. If you live in the South, it’s already at hand; farther north, where I live, it’s just weeks away. The spring pattern is starting to set in. As a storm chaser for more than twenty years, I look forward to the prospect of optimal chasing. But my enthusiasm is tempered by an awareness of the havoc severe weather can wreak when natural processes intersect with places where people raise their families, work at their jobs, pursue their educations, enjoy their pastimes, and make their lives.
Today, the main challenges of weather safety aren’t technological–they’re sociological. One of them is this: the most sophisticated warning system on the planet–which is what we in the US are blessed with–is only as good as the heed we pay it. The old mantra “We had no warning” just won’t wash anymore. Not with the big outbreak-type storm systems, anyway, and for that matter, rarely with any but the more borderline scenarios that sometimes give rise to brief, impossible-to-warn spinups. Mostly, “We had no warning” is a tried-and-true formula for selling the news, and what it really means is, “We weren’t paying attention,” or “The tornado siren never sounded,” or “We disregarded the warnings we received.”
The factors behind tornado fatalities are varied and complex, ranging from lack of shelter to age- and disability-related issues to poor home construction and more. That said, getting the public to take watches and warnings more seriously is a major hurdle that weather experts and sociologists are working together to surmount.
This problem isn’t about technology. It’s about people.
It’s apathy. A bulletproof mindset. The old axiom “It can’t happen here.”
It can happen anywhere. Sometime within these next few months it will happen somewhere. And more people living in a place where it supposedly can’t happen won’t be around the next day. They’ll have counted on a high hill to protect them, or a river, or their location well outside “Tornado Alley,” or some piece of weather lore handed down by their grandmother.
Or they’ll have simply grown indifferent through years of storm warnings that never amounted to anything–until one finally did.
Once is all it takes.
Your safety and the safety of your loved ones is up to you. Here are a few things to keep in mind this storm season:
* Big events are invariably well forecast. Your local media weather team will normally talk about impending severe weather a day or two or even more in advance. They do so for a reason: they’re trying to raise your awareness. But they can only do so much. The rest is up to you.
* Act responsibly and responsively on a day when severe weather is expected. When a WATCH is issued for your area, then WATCH. Take it seriously. It’s not a normal day, not business as usual. The sun may be shining now, but a lot can happen in just half an hour.
When a WARNING is issued for your location, seek shelter promptly. Right, I know–you’ve experienced a lot of warnings and nothing has happened. Countless tornado victims thought exactly that way.
Consider this: If a credible source told you an armed psychopath was on his way to your home intent on killing you and your family, you’d take immediate action, right? Warnings are kind of like that.
* Watch what’s happening upstream from you. You might not be under a warning right now, but a storm that’s currently well off to your west may be heading your way. And even if it’s not doing anything serious at the moment, it may strengthen as it arrives at your doorstep.
* Don’t rely on your civil defense siren to sound. It may not, or you may not hear it. It should be your LAST line of warning. In this age of sophisticated communication technology, you have plenty of other warning options, from your TV to your car radio to your laptop computer to your ever-present mobile phone.
* Keep a NOAA weather radio by your bed. These radios let you select the kinds of weather warnings you want to receive and allow you to specify your area (so you’re not getting flash flood warnings for two counties away). At 3:00 a.m., a weather radio may be the only thing that will wake you up in time to seek shelter. Of course there’s an app. There are also dedicated units, which you should view the same way you view a fire alarm for your home: as essential. Here’s a link.
* Human lives are more important than entertainment. It’s astonishing how many TV viewers send angry texts to their local station when weather warnings interrupt regular programming. Maybe you’re not directly in harm’s way, but a lot of other folks are. Maybe you are in harm’s way and just don’t give a rip. Either way, a broadcast area takes in many more people than just you. Sorry, but your televised golf game just isn’t a priority in the face of life-threatening weather.
If I sound a bit pissy about that last point, it’s for a reason. Don’t be a part of that reason.
Stay alert this tornado season. Be proactive. Take watches and warnings seriously.
‘Nuff said.