Storm safety?

[eesquared]

Right now, the east coast (probably Eric's place, too) is getting hammered by the recent storms. As they passed from west to east, the storms arrived here a couple of days ago.

On Tuesday, after two consecutive nights of severe storm warnings, tornado watches and warnings, and sirens going off, we were down to a light drizzle for most of the day. In the afternoon, the sun finally appeared and I thought "Oh, good - I can go out and clean the pool now." So, out I went to empty the skimmers, scoop up the branches, leaves, and other stuff - including a couple of drowned lizards - out of the pool that the winds had deposited there. I finished scooping, scraping, and brushing and turned on the pool cleaner to get the rest of the gunk off the bottom.

I went back inside and turned on the news only to discover that 'the tornado warning has passed.' Huh?? And I was standing on a wet deck, barefoot, with a metal pole in the water. How's that for safe?

Safety tip: Do not clean the pool in inclement weather.

[dom]

I'm a couple hours north of E-roc and we got freaking hammered last night. The worst storm I have experienced since I've been in this home (over three years). I was up all night thinking "this might be the end." Ended up staying home from work today because I'm too tried. Actually jumped out of bed like 20 times running.

[chiph]

If I lived in Kansas or other area with a lot of tornados, I'd get one of these:

http://www.bomb-shelter.net/

Chip H.

[dom]

Those are no joke. That gives me some ideas!

[eesquared]

If I lived in Kansas or other area with a lot of tornados, I'd get one of these:

http://www.bomb-shelter.net/

Chip H.
Oh wow! That is waaayyy cool. I grew up in tornado alley and it was very strange to me when I moved to the Gulf Coast and saw that nobody had storm shelters. My grandmother had a basement and a storm cellar, the house I grew up in had a storm shelter, almost all my relatives had a cellar or basement.

If I ever get the opportunity to build, I would love to add a shelter like that.

[ducky1776]

Yeah, it was a fun night in Dixie Wed. Luckily for me, everything was north of Montgomery. However, my best friend and her husband were vacationing at Lake Martin (Dadeville tornado). About 7:30 their power went out. cell signals are intermittent. So I ended up chanelling the local weather guy via text messages to them until about 11:30. The tornado that went through there was about 200 yards away. No damage to their stuff, except the cover to their boat was in tatters. I have friends in the north part of the state I'm still waiting to hear from. Nobody here has basements. When I lived in the midwest, everybody had basements. It's been a fun time (NOT!)

[Eric]

Luckily, we live at a fairly high elevation (for the East coast) up in the Appalachians, so tornadoes are very rare. However, we do get very high winds (40 MPH gusts or more) which is why I dropped every large tree within striking distance of the main house and our two outbuildings....