All the experts around here always tell us that being in a car during a tornado is basically certain death. Consider the fact that tornados often pick up cars and deposit them as much as a quarter of a mile from their original position. It's not just going to knock you around a bit. You may very well become airborne for a very long time. Of course, it's the landing that's the bitch.

http://www.tornadoproject.com/graphics/schlbus.jpg

I guess it's a case of ' choose your destruction'.I'm not sure whether i'd prefer flying a quarter of a mile with, or without, a vehicle surrounding me.
Incidentally, did " the experts around here" comment on the mortality rate of house dwellers, with no cellars, taking a direct hit. Judging by the photo I'd say...people at ground zero 0- tornado everything else.

I don't know of any hard statistics. But yeah, there's basically nothing you can do except try to get to the lowest point possible.

I've actually become sort of apathetic about it. I live in a Tornado-prone area, and every time there's a heavy rain the local news stations cancel all the tv shows so they can broadcast non-stop weather reporting. It's really irritating! I mean, can you imagine, every time it rains.. you can't watch tv. It's a freaking conspiracy!

Which is, of course, why I'm glad that while I live in a tornado-prone area, I'm very glad to have a basement. Typically they say to get underneath either a REALLY heavy table in the basement or get under the stairs.

This reminds me of a conversation I was having with my cousins who live on the west coast. They said they would much prefer earthquakes to tornados. Again, its a choose your own disaster, but I'd rather take the realitively narrow focused tornados at lower odds to a massive earthquake which just wipes everything out :p

Wolf, that tornado that hit near us was in Limerick and was at least 3 miles away. I don't even know that we would be susceptible to tornado because we are on a hillside, but when it gets close you do decide to take that 30 seconds to work out what room you would go to.

Yeah, with earthquakes you at least get to keep the same address!;)

Well, during an earthquake, sometimes your house moves...

More damage.
 

A little late...but

Less we not forget other pictures of tornado damage that has been on the cellar in the past :)

I've been through an F1 back when I was a kid - Luckily F1s can be fairly "Mild" - The one I went through was on the F0-F1 border - Took the roof off the house across the street, and we lost a tree. The local park lost a LOT of trees - This was suburban NYC of all places

I've seen an f3 close up (about a mile) - I don't want to see it again (NEPA)

Since that time I've become a Skywarn spotter. I do NOT chase, but I do watch - we are the "eyes and ears" of the Weather service on the ground

I saw a show on TV about those crazy storm chasers. An SUV got caught in the way of a tornado. It didn't pick up the car but sucked the driver out from behind the wheel and out the side window. The passenger, wearing a seat belt, was unscathed.

Originally posted by xoxoxoBruce
It didn't pick up the car but sucked the driver out from behind the wheel and out the side window. The passenger, wearing a seat belt, was unscathed.



OH.. man from now on i'm wearing a seatbelt.

As to how to be safe in a 1-story house built on a slab: the advice I've heard is to get in the bathtub and pull a mattress over your head. The idea is that the sides of the bathtub will stop any large beam that falls on top of you and prevent it from crushing you, and the mattress will cushion the flying smaller stuff. Of course, this won't work if the mattress gets pulled away into the funnel, or if you do.

And if you come down on top of a witch and kill her, you're in for a heap o' trouble.

Yeah, my wife told me she heard the same thing.

Storm cellars
 

Was watching the history/discovery channel a while back, and they had the story of the f5 that went through a texas town a few years back. THe town was basically construced on 2 feet of dirt, over a layer of rock hard granite, so people couldnt dig storm shelters. THe only family to survive at home was the one where the father dug like a 3 foot deep storm cellar in his living room, taking 2+ years to chip through the granite. Vrtually everyone else was killed. His house was gone, and nearly evrinthing down to ground level in the town was basiclaly vaporized.

THeyre now studying how to build above ground storm shelters. Cinderblock, reinforced with steel rebar will work. Its hard to design against a 4x4 post hitting something end on travelling 300+ miles an hour.

That makes sense. Much more than protection from falling beams.
The extreme low pressure (vacuum) in the center doesn't lift anything. It's the higher pressure air rushing into the void that pushes objects up into the funnel. The pressure differential that creates lift on an airplane wing is another example.
So being in a bathtub would protect you from that multi hundred mph horizontal wind (with debris) pushing you too.
Of course the whole tub may fly but it's a sensible option.