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Severe WX April 1-2 (overnight) Severe Weather Event

Kolle said:
View attachment 38956

Reminds me a bit of the truck that hit the Smithville water tower...but that might be because both were red trucks.
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Another thing they have in common: you couldn't pay me enough to be sitting in them during the time they went from normal-looking trucks to metal pancakes.
 
US_Highway15 said:
One of the takeaways I got from last night (at least up here in Northern Indiana), is how unfathomably outdated the County EMA and school/college/university tornado safety plans are. The University of Notre Dame in South Bend IN as well as my college in Koskiusko County had to take shelter for a Tornado Warning that was in effect for parts of the *county* and not for the actual campus themself. Last time I checked county based warnings ended almost 18 years ago in October of 2007. In the year of our lord 2025, where our technology even in the weather industry is as advanced as it's ever been, we should not be sounding the sirens for an entire county whenever a Tornado Warning is issued, as well as having everyone and their mother on a college/university, K-12 campus, or businesses and churches take cover whenever parts of the county (not including you) is under a warning.

It was maddening to me to hear how people at my college got anxiety because they thought they were under a Tornado Warning when they actually weren't, also due to the sirens sounding.

EMA's have to do better. Colleges, schools, businesses and churches have to do better. It's 2025, not 2007 anymore.
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Yeah, this is a very intricate subject. For safety response plans, each school, business, and church are different. Their plans may call for general sheltering no matter what. Or perhaps, they have sheltering protocols if under a SVR with winds that are greater than 70 mph. Which can occur while a TOR affects other portions of the county. I think plans have adapted more than thought. This is a deep subject and I could ramble as I’ve assisted with quite a few of these plans.

As far as setting outdoor warning sirens off countywide…perhaps that’s the only thing they can do. Most software is allowing for polygon based activation of sirens. But a lot of locations only have the ability to activate a certain geographical portion of their county or all of their sirens at once. It costs money to upgrade and a lot of EMAs don’t receive enough funding locally. They have to rely on grants, like EMPG. That money may go to other equipment or salaries. Upgrading a siren system isn’t priority number 1 and it shouldn’t be for an all-hazards EM. Besides, people shouldn’t be relying on sirens anyway. They are a tool in the toolbox with limits on their reach. I understand where you’re coming from though. But that’s my 2 cents.
 
NorthGaWeather said:
Yeah, this is a very intricate subject. For safety response plans, each school, business, and church are different. Their plans may call for general sheltering no matter what. Or perhaps, they have sheltering protocols if under a SVR with winds that are greater than 70 mph. Which can occur while a TOR affects other portions of the county. I think plans have adapted more than thought. This is a deep subject and I could ramble as I’ve assisted with quite a few of these plans.

As far as setting outdoor warning sirens off countywide…perhaps that’s the only thing they can do. Most software is allowing for polygon based activation of sirens. But a lot of locations only have the ability to activate a certain geographical portion of their county or all of their sirens at once. It costs money to upgrade and a lot of EMAs don’t receive enough funding locally. They have to rely on grants, like EMPG. That money may go to other equipment or salaries. Upgrading a siren system isn’t priority number 1 and it shouldn’t be for an all-hazards EM. Besides, people shouldn’t be relying on sirens anyway. They are a tool in the toolbox with limits on their reach. But that’s my 2 cents.
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Siren tech is a bit of a nightmare, and as much as I love them (they're really awesome works of human engineering and I'm addicted to listening to them), I think they cause unique problems in public mass notification. Sirens still remain in widespread use because they have a unique place in being able to alert large numbers of people outdoors, across a large radius, and aren't reliant on individual receivers, such as phones. In that way, they are a very efficient/effective outdoor warning solution. And yet, they are very costly, can be prone to malfunction, damage and wear, have limited range, and should never be relied on indoors. I still don't fully fold into the opinion that we should trash them all, I think they still have utility, but they're still relied upon way more than they should be in today's day and age. At the same time, I don't really have a single good solution because of the broad utility sirens provide as mass outdoor notification systems, so it poses a bit of a headscratcher - if they are, indeed, more trouble than they're worth, what do we do instead? I'm not sure weather radios and WEAs are sufficient, because I know a lot of people who 1) don't have an NWR, 2) have their WEAs disabled, or 3) may be outdoors without their mobile devices. It's a complicated problem, and I think it'll require the dialogue of many local EMA offices, social scientists, engineers and meteorologists, all discussing broadly-applicable, affordable mass warning solutions, which is no easy task.
 
Clancy said:
Man, I dunno what else we can do to convince people not to shelter under things like carports, pavilions and other flimsy structures. I mean, we still have people going under overpasses all the time, and that myth got debunked, what, over 20 years ago? Feels like such an uphill battle.
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Like the people who were killed in the Beauguard, AL tornado in mobile homes. The people who were killed was mostly EF2 and EF3 tornado damage. Nobody was killed in the EF4 damage from that tornado.
 
Shakespeare 2016 said:
Like the people who were killed in the Beauguard, AL tornado in mobile homes. The people who were killed was mostly EF2 and EF3 tornado damage. Nobody was killed in the EF4 damage from that tornado.
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Beauregard was almost certainly at EF4 intensity though throughout that whole area.
The vehicle damage, wind rowing, and partial tree debarking gave further credence to it.

The vehicle damage actually gets overlooked from that tornado. It honestly was up there with some of the most intense ive seen.
 
AJS said:
Beauregard was almost certainly at EF4 intensity though throughout that whole area.
The vehicle damage, wind rowing, and partial tree debarking gave further credence to it.

The vehicle damage actually gets overlooked from that tornado. It honestly was up there with some of the most intense ive seen.
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Well, then maybe I am not right but that is what I remember hearing on a thread 6 years ago.
 
Well-anchored home leveled by the Potosi, MO tornado. Might even be some granulation here - not really sure.
2577206
 
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