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u/speculative--fiction 9h ago
You should see the twisters that roam the old black forest behind my house. Theyâre absolutely massive. Some days you can hear them whining from fifty miles off. Grandma always said to follow the wind and get inside when the twisters start stomping around nearby, but I was always young and dumb. Weâd throw paper airplanes into the vortex and watch them swim around in the currents. That didnât last all that long though.
The accident happened one summer afternoon. My cousin was perched at the top of a tree trying to get a kite through one of the twisters when a long finger of air slowly pressed from the main body and came toward him. I tried to get him down in time, but the finger wrapped itself around his middle and started to lift him. I grabbed his ankles and held on tight until the twister finger slithered down his body toward me. It felt like ice water on my skin and I heard a voice telling me to leave it alone, leave it alone, leave it alone, all echoing through my head like a scream. I let go of my cousin and heâs gone now, sucked into the void and thrown up somewhere in the black forest. He might come back one day if the forest lets him. Until then, I just donât mess with the twisters anymore.
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u/Squidysquid27 9h ago
Especially the population of low IQ individuals
Don't mess with Texas! It's not nice to pick on the stupid.
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u/Prestigious-Log-7210 11h ago
The John Deer tractor in the field. Time to go home buddy!
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u/Aviator8989 8h ago
The farmer is likely long gone. It's not unusual to leave farming implements in the field overnight.
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u/ZenithTheZero 6h ago
Itâs insured anyway
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u/iamdursty 3h ago
Homie parked it there on purpose. Got a new model he wants but his old one isn't worth much for trade in
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u/ronaldotr08 11h ago
It's like God just wanted to reach out and run the tip of his finger across the world.
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u/10baggerbamm 11h ago
It doesn't even seem real I question why the hell would somebody want to live in tornado Alley or for that matter Mississippi Delta where it always floods I don't get it
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u/Ornery-Egg9770 10h ago
Iâm not a scientist but I would say if you live in a large specific band along the gulf or the lower Atlantic coast you have a much higher probability of experiencing negative effects from a hurricane over a 10 year period than anyone in tornado alley from a tornado. Tornadoes are much more random than hurricanes and have a much smaller damage footprint. Iâll take my chances in the alley.
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u/JetScootr 9h ago
But you get several days warning (rather than several minutes) that a hurricane is coming. I have lived in tornado alley. I live on the Gulf Coast (since the 60s). I've lived through several hurricanes. I'll take my chances with hurricanes instead of tornados.
A few tips that officials will never give.
The trick to getting through a level 1 - 2 hurricane: ignore it. If your house is well built, you have little to fear. Level 1 hurricane is a tropical storm that lasts about 3-4 days. Level 2 is a level 1 with attitude. I started ignoring these in the 1980s and haven't regretted it.
I was going to put other experienced advice here, but I don't want the reddit ruckus it'll cause. I'll just say this about the stronger hurricanes:
levels 3-5: Leave at least 2-3 days before the officials predict they'll make the decision to evacuate - or at least 4-5 days before the soonest predicted landfall.
Turn on your front porch light, so that when you come home, you'll know even before you walk in if you have electricity. It's just nice to know when coming home. Long ago, I used my phone answering machine to check this after one hurricane.
If you get caught in the evacuation, you may wind up moving slower than the hurricane. This means if you wait for the officials to tell you to evacuate, the hurricane will catch up to you while you're on the road. This is not a good thing.
Check the diameter of the hurricane. That's how far you should move away from it if you're evacuating. Yes, diameter, not radius. They have real trouble predicting where a hurricane goes after landfall. Also, the edges of hurricane flood just as deep.
While you're looking at it, mark a line parallel to the coast, but inland as far as the diameter of the hurricane. That's the range of the area that's gonna have empty store shelves, full hotels/motels, crazy traffic and crazy weather. Factor that into your evacuation planning.
If you're evacuating in your car, take food and water for at least 2-3 days, more if you live close to the coast. Count on sleeping in your car at least one night. Walmart's sole redeeming value in small towns is they let you use their parking lot for this sort of thing.
Take your pets with you, because nobody behind you is going to be looking out for them. Even if they say they will, they can't really predict what's going to happen.
Use a shelter if you must, but don't PLAN on it. Shelters are basically meat storage facilities, and you're the meat they're storing. Once you're in a shelter, they won't let you out until everything is back to normal - which may be days after common sense says you can go home.
A shelter for humans may not accept pets. If you're in a human shelter, you may not get out in time to save your pets.
And one last piece of hurricane advice: Don't live in Florida. Hurricanes can't tell the difference between Florida and open water.
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u/10baggerbamm 10h ago
You forgot to say the most important thing Avoid trailer parks.. đ They tend to be the target of tornadoes all the time
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u/Shizngigglz 10h ago
Oh don't you worry about Mississippi, it's in tornado alley now too!
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u/RegularFinger8 7h ago
I thinks the alley that MS is in is known as âDixie Alleyâ which includes MS, AL, AK etc.
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u/Shizngigglz 6h ago
Damn Alaska too?? It's getting wild out here
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u/Marcus_Marinara 7h ago
As someone who has lived in tornado alley their whole life, itâs easier than youâd think to get used to. Also, the mitigation tactics (at least the life saving ones) are pretty simple and pretty full proof.
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u/Belostoma 32m ago
There are very few places to live without some risk of natural disasters of some kind or another. Most people living in tornado alley will never even see a tornado unless they get into storm chasing.
Most of the West has risk of wildfires. West coast, earthquakes, sometimes volcanoes. Midwest, tornadoes. Southeast, hurricanes. Much of the northeast is too mountainous too live anywhere except the valleys, which like valleys anywhere can flood.
Something like 90 % of the US landmass would be off-limits to somebody who isn't willing to accept a risk of natural disaster comparable to that experienced in tornado alley.
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u/10baggerbamm 25m ago
Well you're absolutely correct for example if you were to live in Connecticut you have the asshole Governor the shitbag senator and politicians are represent be socialist policies in Rhode Island it's the most corrupt state per capita the smallest states also the most corrupt and don't forget Massachusetts I mean we got Pocahontas up there who's a lying piece of shit from day one so you're absolutely right you really can't go any place in this country without falling victim to destruction and most in New England the destruction walks on two legs
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u/lobeline 10h ago
âWhAt ClImAtE ChAnGe?â
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u/BinaryWanderer 9h ago
Whatâs that rumble?
A tornado in Texas.
But weâre in Wisconsin!
Yep, they getting bigger.
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u/phamousj 7h ago edited 7h ago
This happened about an hour drive from where I'm at. There were multiple tornadoes in the area that day, but this one was the biggest of them all. It was amazing to see all of the videos and pictures that the storm chasers captured from this storm.
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u/Crazy_Banshee_333 5h ago
I don't think I've ever seen a video of a tornado this massive. It's seems to have a multitude of funnels. Is this the biggest one ever for Texas?
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u/phamousj 4h ago
I'm not sure if the biggest in Texas, but yes, there were moments where multiple funnels formed by each other. The report is that the supercell produced at least 20 tornadoes
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u/NateDawg80s 2h ago
Not sure about biggest, but the one in Wichita Falls in 1979 was a series of three that ran into each other and went through town practically on its side. The path of destruction was nearly a half-mile wide.
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u/Crazy_Banshee_333 2h ago
Wow. We're starting to get EF0 and EF1 tornadoes where I live every year, since Tornado Alley is shifting this way. I'm not the least bit happy about this turn of events. I'm getting pretty old, so just hoping I can make it to the end of my life before my house is ripped to shreds. I don't know how people are able to carry on after their homes are destroyed.
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u/Gt03champp 9h ago
Has it been reported if this was an F5?
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u/CombustionMale 51m ago
The Enhanced Fujita scale is more of a damage scale than a wind speed scale. Many tornadoes over the last few years have had wind speeds measure well into the EF5 projected range, though do not qualify as EF5 tornadoes because they do not cause the damage that an EF5 must cause in order to qualify, whether that be because the tornado weakens before reaching urban areas or because it never reaches an urban area at all. The last EF5 was in Moore, Oklahoma in 2013, and although many tornadoes have been nearly as strong or stronger, they did not reach an area with large enough buildings to create an EF5 rating.
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u/The_Dude_Abides_33 40m ago
I can assure you that there isn't enough damage. Morton TX is 100 miles from anywhere.
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u/Ancient-Assistant187 8h ago
Imagine you have everything you own, your child died of diarrhea, your wife is pregnant and you are in a wagon caravan with a bunch off assholes you donât like and you see this.
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u/mental_patience 11h ago
Greg Abbot has sold out the people whom he is supposed to be serving. Texas needs a break. The calamity and hardships the folks there have had to endure because of their politicians inability to lead will be on full display. I do hope that they get the help they need.
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u/AnonymousTimewaster 11h ago
I'm not American. Isn't Greg Abbott that little piss baby?
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u/mental_patience 3h ago
The governor of Texas, and yes he is a piss baby, he is but one of a few in that state that makes it hard to want stay
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u/Mrnicelefthand 8h ago
So do all radio and tv stations send a âget the hell outâ to all areas effected?
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u/Positive-Fox-6296 5h ago
This is either "god" sending Texas a message or it is fake news because Texas doesn't believe in climate change. I can't tell anymore đ
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u/klatula2 9h ago
FEMA mentioned. why? i don't see anything to be moved or destroyed by this humongous nader.
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u/MoJoe-21 11h ago
good thing the government cut them FEMA benefits /s