Tornado!! :eek:

[Nirvana]

Just heard on the news what we had here was an EF1 whatever that means

[Griff]

Scarey freakin stuff, I'm glad you're okay.

[HungLikeJesus]

Really? By your description it sounded more like an HS#2.

[Nirvana]

When you see it coming right at you, OF comes to mind before HS

[wolf]

One's heading toward Allentown according to the emergency alert crawler.

Wonder if Billy Joel will have to do a new verse for the song.

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by Nirvana

Its amazing how calm you get when you think your ass is grass! [ endorphins?] It was almost like watching the beginning of the Wizard of Oz in slo mo

That's a good survival instinct. They've done studies revealing that people who are totally relaxed during car crashes (e.g., very drunk people) usually walk away with far less substantial injuries than people who are tense and scared shitless. If your muscles are tight, the force will tear them. Relaxed, and you'll just flop around until you stop.

[infinite monkey]

Yikes, 'vana! Me too glad you're OK. So sorry about the cow.

We had some more warnings last night. More this spring than I ever remember before. The last media-induced scare (well, the do exaggerate a bit) was funny in retrospect, because the sirens didn't go off in our town until well after the system had passed. I thought that was true, but since I live outside of town I thought maybe the alarm was drowned by rain and wind sounds. My friends in town said, no...about 15 minutes after it all had passed our alarms kicked in.

Nice.

[classicman]

Holy Cow! Glad you are ok. Very scary stuff.

I saw one up close and in person - no thanks.

sorry bout the animals.

[monster]

How is the dog today, Nirvana?

[BigV]

glatt and others--

some other thread discussed the uselessness of weather radios for alerts for dangerous weather/flood/etc. Here's something that I think will fill the bill for you. Coming soon: weather alerts to your cell phone.

The U.S. government and local authorities will soon be able to reach people directly on their cellphones to warn them of imminent danger or alert them about missing children — even in the middle of a widespread emergency that overloads communications systems as happened after the Sept. 11 attacks, officials said Tuesday.

The emergency alert system will be used only for critical national messages from the president, information in life-threatening situations and Amber Alerts meant to widen the search for missing or abducted youngsters, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced Tuesday. He was accompanied by Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski and Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Craig Fugate.

The system, set to launch by the end of the year in New York City and Washington, D.C., will spread to most if not all U.S. cellphones in the next few years as people replace their old phones with new devices containing a special chip that will enable them to receive the messages. They will receive the alerts free of charge.

[glatt]

Sounds like a good idea, but I know how these things work. Soon, they will be texting us that using seat belts will save lives. Oh, and time to set the clocks back. Power corrupts.

[monster]

There'd better be an optout.

[BigV]

do you believe the current incarnation of the emergency broadcast system has been corrupted like you imagine the phone based one might be?

wrt optout==powerswitch.

[monster]

Originally Posted by BigV

wrt optout==powerswitch.

/=. I would still want to hear from my loved ones.

[glatt]

Originally Posted by BigV

do you believe the current incarnation of the emergency broadcast system has been corrupted like you imagine the phone based one might be?

No I suppose not, but the local emergency text alert system is used to announce flyovers and street closures as well as real emergencies. So most people who signed up for it initially after September 11th have now opted out.