heeding tornado warnings

[desmocat]

I have but one thing to ask of everyone,PLEASE,PLEASE heed the warnings that are issued from the national weather service. A pretty severe tornado tore up downtown Fort Worth Tx tonight and my girlfriend works in the same area that was hit.She was going to work late tonight but I talked her into coming home at the normal time because we just had a storage building put up and wanted her to" see the paint job I had put on it" before going to class tonight.
If I had not, she would have been right in the middle of the storm. Part of the reason I talked her into coming home was that I was listening to the storm spotters west of fort worth and they were saying that the thunderstorms would be coming into town about the same time she was leaving if she would have stayed at work. I don't know what made me do it, but somebody upstairs must be takin' care of me...Like I said in the beginning ,please pay attention to weather warnings when they are issued. This one kinda hit close to home in more ways than one... Mark

[daveleau]

I'm glad she is ok. I hope there wasn't much life or property lost. It's not often that they hit cities like that. Or at least we rarely hear of it here. Best of luck to your city int he rebuild. Be sure to time your painting job so well teh next time. http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif
Dave

[psyklone]

desmocat .... that was a helluva storm. i'm glad you and yours are safe!

[desmocat]

I just went close to downtown this morning to see what all the damage looked like for real. It was surreal to see full sive ford vans smashed flat, semi trailers piled up like matchbox toys and debris everywhere.
I stayed away from the downtown area and surveyed the damage from across the Trinity river about 3/4 to 1 mile away. The cash america building will probably be the one they show on the national news, and when I saw it for myself,it looked worse than on TV.
there looks to be not a single window left in the whole building.Thanks for the thoughts and well wishes. My thanks and much respect to all on this board who are amatuer radio operators also,you guys do a far greater service than alot of people know by being storm spotters and the like. Case in point, at one time while I was listening to my scanner, the fire departments radio system went down and they had to rely on the hams for communication for a while. You guys deserve a pat on the back!

[Toadman]

Some tornado damage pics:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/ndswed02.htm

[Wiz]

2 years ago, when Detroit was hit really hard by tornadoes, i was on the freeway in Hazel Park, a small suburb of detroit. The storm destroyed 3 houses right in front of us. The only that saved us was that we were in freeway, which was below ground level.

[brandon184]

I'm in Central/Western Canada... My aunt & uncle came down in 1996, and him and my dad went for a round of golf... They had to take a detour down an older road that was kind of away from the city. There were tornado warnings all of the TV.. MAJOR ones.. We were kind of hoping he would get home. Out of the window, we saw these deadly BLACK clouds to the east of us, where they were.

About 15/20 minutes later, we got a phone call from the hospital, saying that they were in a car accident - they didn't specifically say what it was - they just told my mom to go to hospital.

Keep in mind it was August, and where we are, the past few years and present have had blazing hot summers...

It turns out they were sitting by the side of the road, because when there are tornadoes here, it usually hails pretty bad. They didn't think anything of it.. But it was hailing so they had to pull over. Once they pulled over, the winds got so strong, that they decided to get into the back seat, incase the windows of his blazer blew out.

my uncle had taken off his seatbelt to climb into the back, when all of a sudden, the truck was lifted about 5 feet into the air and tossed into a 60 foot enbankment.. guess what the first thing that happened was.. My uncle got tossed out really fast. He is just lucky the truck didn't roll over him.

when they got to the bottom, it was hailing with such force, that afterwards, they had welts all over their bodies.. My uncle was the worst. At the hospital, he was surrounded by stare-ing nurses, because they wanted to take a look at his egg size welts.

My dad was luckier, because he had his seatbelt on, and was in the seat as it was rolling.

They recovered, but almost went into hypothermia, because it was abnormally cold during the storm.

It was pretty scary.

[Sharpy]

Glad to hear you and yours are ok Desmo those pics of the aftermath are scary. http://www.sysopt.com/forum/frown.gif
-Edit-
I'm gald i live in the UK, it rains a lot but thats all. http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

[This message has been edited by Sharpy (edited 03-29-2000).]

[tonym]

Glad to hear that you and yours are fine!

Texas has monster storms...until I personally experienced one, I though a T-storm was a T-storm. I got caught in a huge storm a few years back on the way from Ft. Worth to Dallas on Interstate 30. The tornado crossed the highway to our west (back) by 2 miles. I didn't know it at the time!! The one thing that sticks out in my mind was the sheer size of the storm -- it looked like it was 40+ miles across and dark as hell, with the most brillaint lightning flases this chicken has ever seen. Just the T-storm part was scarier than hell!!!

Here in Massachusetts we have wimpy storms by comparison.

Good luck, and I hope you all and yours are fine, and there's no major storm damage to anyone's possessions in the Ft. Worth metro area.


Tony