Opinion: What do we do?

    How do we save more lives during, and after the storm?

        

               

Lets identify the problems associated with storms warnings. First is warning, how do you get and the process that information? Most people look at Facebook and twitter to see what kind of weather will impact them that day, and let’s be honest. How trust worthy is that information if it isn’t coming from a well and reputable source or the NWS? There are a lot of people, especially on Facebook, who find themselves finding false or misleading weather information from pages that either don’t know what they are talking about or just simply don’t care. Over warning is also causing a issue, why get yourself into a safe place when 99% of the time nothing ever happens. I know that personally my family does this, they wait until the sirens start to wail, that’s if they can even hear the sirens. That starts me on my next point, we need to lose the sirens. Absolutely no reason we, with all this wonderful technology, are still relying on WW1 technology that was used to warn us against incoming German raids. Back then it was wonderful, no tv, no ac, open windows. This has all changed. How we live has changed so much compared to the technology assigned to save our lives, we’ve have computers in our pockets and some cases on our wrists. We know that some people just won’t do anything, even when a warning is on them. We cannot help them, we cannot physically make them get into shelter. But what about those people who would go into safety, if only they received the information in a timely and straightforward message. How do we reach the masses who get information from different places, sometimes through social media. 

Lets talk social media, and how it’s separating us from the truth. We all have seen those posts saying we’re going to have the heaviest snowfall recorded since the great blizzard of ‘78. This is just a tactic to get more people to your page and to get your engagements up. No one can accurately predict winter weather at the beginning of the winter snow season. These pages tend to bring fear for clicks to your parents and neighbors, they throw some wild forecasts out there to get you panicked and get you to keep coming back to the page for more information. This goes back to the over warning problem, though not the same it causes the same issue. People prepare for mega storms only to be left with nothing but a dry season. I will say, I don’t see this much with severe weather, it’s more prominent with winter weather storms. Let me gripe about the Facebook algorithm. How useful is it to you to get your storm warning two days after it happens? Well it happens. Posts on Facebook are not chronological or even pushed to timelines. Some warning pushed by tv station or meteorologists get missed because Facebook doesn’t bring those to your timeline right away. Bless the elderly but this is a big issue with the 70+ group who have just figured out how to post let alone look at dates and times of other posts. Twitter seems to have a better handle on the situation, with the feature of being able to put people into lists and being able to watch posts are they are tweeted by verified sources. 

How does this get fixed? We first need to acknowledge the problems we have. Both in how people get the information, and how they act upon that information. We almost need a marketing approach to teach people the basics of weather, especially since some science books still teach you tornadoes occur when front meet. And that’s simply not true. We also need to unify the weather enterprise from warnings to information dissemination. How do we save more people for something that happens every year. 

What will save you during the storm? A helmet. Plain and simple. Even if your underground, it’s that extra safety precaution that will save your life. Shoes for after high wind impact damage, walking around on broken glass and splinters can send you to the hospital and even permanently injure your feet. At least 3 days of water and food, depending on the storm and situation. But the fact is you may not be rescued right after the event, it could be up to a day or more depending on level of damage done to the surrounding areas. 

How do we as a community at large help those effected in our community and region right after the storm? Well, frankly you can avoid the area. Let recuse teams and emergency personnel do the things they need to do. I know it’s hard not to help, but let’s be honest. You’d be in the way, especially when roads and areas are heavily damaged. One thing you can do is start collecting water, non perishables, and clothing for donation when the time comes. For winter storms opening your place of Buisness so that people can get out of the elements especially if there are stranded drivers on the road. During bad storms maybe checking in on your neighbor and letting them know what’s coming, especially for elderly people who may not have a Facebook or twitter, or if they’re hard of hearing and won’t hear those warnings coming. Every county in my belief should have a humanitarian fund, for when a disaster happens; there’s plenty to take care of the people. 

 So, we’re really trusting WW2 era technology to save people.

    Yes, the tornado sirens you hear is technology that was installed to warn you of air raids in the emergency of a German invasion, during the 1950’s the were used to warn of a impending nuclear launch. It wasn’t till the 1970’s they were implemented for tornado warnings or severe weather. 

These sirens were never meant to warn people in buildings. They were meant to warn those outside to get into a place of shelter. Especially true for today, when we all watch tv or a service for our entertainment. Everyone now owns a pair of headphones or a tv with a loud audio, you’ll never hear those sirens going off until it’s knocking on your door. Especially at night; we all sleep with differently. But I promise you that siren at night will not alert you like it should; especially with breathing machines, fans, or white noise machines. We should not be relying on a siren which is barely audible during the day to wake us up at night.

    Why do we use sirens still? I have no clue. The amount of false warnings and reliance on these systems contribute to deaths and injury’s every year, and every siren that goes off and no bad weather comes creates this false idea of either “it’s never gotten as bad as they said it would” or “every time I go down there it’s for nothing”. THIS HAS TO STOP. Personally I see it a lot, and each time I want to tell those people to just wait until it hits you, then you’ll understand it’s better to be over prepared then underprepared. A tornado can strike anywhere, doesn’t matter if there’s hills, valleys, lakes or streams; big cities and small towns.

So what do we do? Weather radios and these handy little devices called cellphones. We need to ditch the old school technology and embrace than nearly everyone has a phone. Yes we have WEA Alerts, the alerts that are automatically pushed to your phone and that is often used for amber alerts. Those damn alerts will wake me up like no clock could dream of, they’ll wake the dead. Unfortunately you still can’t count on these, they can be easily turned off or sometimes just don’t work.  And for the case with weather radio’s, they’re old. They need a major update from county based systems to the new polygon system in order to cut down on false alarms or over alarming. I also ask you this question. Do you have a weather radio? Because if you do your the minority. Tornadoes are rare, and the likelihood of you being caught in one are slim to none. So buying these things aren’t a huge priory in peoples lives, and that’s if the person can afford it. We have many communities below the poverty line, and this is unfortunately how people die. They don’t have enough money to afford a 30 dollar weather radio, and maybe they can’t even afford tv. We need to have a education campaign to fix these issues. Did you know that you can still pick up your local tv station with just a regular antenna? Or that apps like Red Cross tornado work wonders, they warn you when you are in a warning polygon. 

July, 14 2021 Iowa Outbreak (to be updated)

 July, 14 2021 Iowa Outbreak.

Yesterday, estimated 12 tornados dropped throughout the center and northern portions of Iowa. 12 was the original estimation so more could be added in the later days. 

Picture from Lake City

The first tornado dropped from the sky around 3:54 PM just Southwest of Lake City, this tornado was designated as a EF-3 with peak winds around 136-145 MPH and on the ground for about 10 miles ending just West of Lohrville. This tornado dubbed "Lake City Tornado" caused damage in the town, including wiping out a a second story of a home on Norridge Avenue. The damage continued about a half mile outside of town, taking out farm buildings which trapped some animals on the farm. 

The second tornado found its legs just 1.8 miles north east of Stanhope and stayed on the ground until about 2.2 miles North East of Jewell. This tornado was rated EF-1 and had wind speeds of 86-90 MPH. We are still unsure of damage that was done, though with its low rating I doubt much was touched by this storm. These storms primarily were captured in rural agricultural areas. This tornado on video maintained a beautiful screw like structure and at sometimes a clear funnel coated by greenery as it tore through corn and bean fields. 

The third tornado touched down about 2.2 miles South West of Shell Rock at 5:16pm. This tornado was rated EF-1, with peak wind speeds around 95-105 mph. Most damage occurred to trees, even uprooting some. No serious structure damage has been reported at this time but that can always change as investigation continues. This tornado was sickle so it would fall apart, then re strengthen.

The fourth tornado touched down at 5:32 pm 2.7 miles south east of Waverly and ended 3.7 miles south east. This tornado was rated EF-1 with wind speeds of 95-105 MPH, lasting only 1.15 miles. No serious damage or any injuries were reported with this storm.

Tornado number 5 was located just 1 mile south west of Dysart around 7:01pm. Rated at EF-1 with wind speeds of 95-100 mph it lasted 1.15 miles with no reported width. This tornado also caused light damage before lifting at 7:06pm, only spending 5 minutes on the ground. This tornado stuck to a mostly rural path, causing mostly crop, power line damage and tree damages which some include impact to housing.

Tornado number 6 touched down in Rockwell and traveled for approximately 4 miles, this storm was rated a EF-0 with wind speeds of 85 mph. This tornado seemed to miss most structures as it crossed Thrush Ave, between the towns of Rockwell and Cartersville. It touched down at 5:52 pm and lifted at 5:56 pm.

Tornado number 7 touched down just south of 255th st and east of Union Ave outside the town of Sac City. It stayed on the ground for approximately 0.8 miles and touched down and lifted around the same time at 5:33 pm

More reports will come in from this event, as NWA continues its survey of the damaged areas. The number of tornados will likely rise but I do not see the intensity of any of these tornados rising in the coming up days.   7/15/21 8:35PM

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opinion:

  The Des Moines National weather service is honesty the gold star of all the NWS locations. They warnings were fantastic, they were responsive and active on social media and with setting warnings off but also not warning every single storm. I also noticed they did not issue both severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings, They did one or the other, depending on which one applied best. Though these tornadoes were not all strong and long lived they still caused damage to both structures, vehicles, and agricultural areas. This still could've been much worse then it actually was. No injuries and no deaths, but yet still some significant damage to a few structures especially with the Lake City tornado. We are lucky in the Midwest to have a abundance of well built homes compared to somewhere in the south where there are larger areas of mobile homes, which is one reason out of many why we don't suffer as many deaths as the Dixie alley does. 

 Central Illinois Tornadoes July 10, 2021

July 10, 2021 was a medium risk day. About 4 Tornados touched down in Cass, Morgan and Schuyler Counties. 

The first tornado touched down along Arenzville Road, damaging trees and power lines as it neared the intersection with St. Pauls Church Road. The tornado dropped at 1:55 PM and continued on the ground for  0.90 miles, eventually lifting around 1:58 PM Just west of Arenzille.

The second tornado touched down 3 miles North East of Littleton. The tornado which was rated a EF-0 lasted 0.10 miles, dropping at 2:00 PM and dissipating at 2:02 PM almost exactly where it started. The " Littleton Tornado" damaged a old bar as well as a few large tree limbs down along its path.

The third tornado hit the countryside of Virginia in Cass County. This tornado was rated a EF-0 with estimated wind speeds of 85 MPH and lasted about 3.25 miles. The tornado touched down about two miles West/Southwest of Virginia, jogging around the edge of town damaging a bus barn and causing tree damage southeast of Walnut Ridge Cemetery.

The fourth tornado which was rated a EF-1 hit the outskirts of the Chandlerville, starting about 3 miles south/southwest of Chandlerville and lifted 1 mile south of the village. The tornado path was 2.4 miles long causing damage from Route 78 to Palmerton Road to Philadelphia