Sunday's Tornado. Or, How to be really, really ignorant....

Soooo... A tornado made its way past the house Sunday. I got an alert for possible hail and a damaging thunderstorm. I went out, brought plants up to the porch, did what I could to protect our new patio table, looked up, and saw this churning mass of clouds. (NOTE: I had never seen a tornado past the occasional video of one, and it was half obscured by clouds and driving rain). I thought- "Those look like weird clouds- I'll have to video it and ask the wife what I'm looking at."
It got closer. I, being the super genius I am, went back inside, and fetched the phone.
While videoing, I saw the rain going up, the explosion, and something black. It was roofing.

FINALLY, that little red alert siren went off in my head... and I **** a brick. Twice. Into the tub I went, grabbing blankets.

It missed us by about a quarter (if that) mile, lights blinking on and off, and me, sure I was gonna go for a trip.

Anyways, check out the nice, smooth video taken by a dummy of a tornado...

youtu.be...

Wow!
Natural disasters , close to home, can be quite frightening.

May I please request that when filming using a mobile phone, that it's done in landscape mode?
Portrait mode is fine for still images, but viewing video is better when filmed in landscape.
Sorry to be nit picking about that.

Glad to read you were safe.

a reply to: wylekat

Don't be too hard on yourself. We never know how we will react to things.

Cool footage. Stay safe.

Don't feel bad.

You want close? These guys were dumb close, and they had no excuses because you can hear the sirens screaming the whole time. That thing went through the back end of the parking lot; it was that close.

That tornado? It was the baby stages of a long track monster that grew to F5 and late on ate an entire small town killing a bunch of people. I was in high school then and remember it vividly. We had several years of extreme tornado activity. One even hit the town I lived in during those years.

a reply to: ketsuko

The May 3rd tornado that at that time was the largest recorded was about to rip through Norman Oklahoma which is where I lived at the time. We gathered everything we could but we knew that when it hit our actions would be futile. We couldn’t leave the city because traffic was bad because of people leaving. Couldn’t even get out of the neighborhood it was so bad. At the last possible second the Tornado turned and ripped a mile wide gap straight through the middle of Moore Oklahoma. Nothing survived that was in it’s path. Since then I have been in three tornados. They are scary but unless it is bigger than an F3 you should be ok. Stay vigilant my friend.

a reply to: Allaroundyou

When we bought our house, we told the realtor that it had to have two things:

1. basement

2. kitchen

We told him it might only have those two things being just a basement kitchen, but it had to have them. You don't grow up in tornado alley and have a few close calls without learning how to appreciate the value of a storm shelter.

a reply to: ketsuko

The house I was living in had a storm shelter but the guy that owned it before I got there let it get flooded and there was a deadly mixture of chemicals mixed in. I should have been more on my game and demanded that it be fixed but I was desperate at the time.
I had to watch that video two times because I can’t believe those dudes where just that close and stayed in the path just to get some footage. I hope they learned a lesson from that. That thing could have wipped over 50 feet and gobbled them right up.

a reply to: Allaroundyou

Yeah, I don't envy you folks in Oklahoma. Your plan seems to be to either pay to have the storm shelter installed or look to see which way it's coming from and drive the other way.

I've seen footage of OKC during big tornado alerts and the traffic looks like hell.

a reply to: ketsuko

Ya we are all really stubborn and most are pretty stupid. At that time I was no exception lol
Glad I live in Nevada now but man I miss those rainy nights. But these dust storms here freaking blow. I left a window open last year during a big one while I was at work. When I got home that room was so bad I spent the next day doing the carpet and wiping down everything. It sucked

a reply to: wylekat

You aren't alone!

A few years ago when my husband and I had just moved into our previous house, it stormed really bad. Tornado Watch, then Warning. Sirens. Bad rain and then hail.

We decide to "really quick" go see if we could shift boxes around in the garage so that both our cars could come inside and escape the hail damage. As we had just moved in, the garage still had multiple boxes in it and the cars were in the driveway. We rush like superheros and basically throw stuff everywhere so its no longer all nicely organized by room.

Right when we hear the really big hail coming down, which we couldn't see because it was night and the power had went out, there looks to be enough space to move the cars in.

My car gets in. My husband's car gets in except for the rear end. Then the hail gets even louder, louder than we've ever heard it before. We run like fools to the closet in the middle of the house and huddle with our pets.

Yeah, it was a tornado. We seriously moved our cars from the driveway to the garage in the middle of a tornado. People died and dozens of homes were destroyed. And our dumbas$es were out there, God smiles on Fools, and didn't get touched by it.

I am terribly embarrassed, and so is my husband, that we could've been so stupid.

You know why they call those "mobile homes"?

'Cause in a tornado, they get really mobile.

originally posted by: Hammaraxx
Wow!
Natural disasters , close to home, can be quite frightening.

May I please request that when filming using a mobile phone, that it's done in landscape mode?
Portrait mode is fine for still images, but viewing video is better when filmed in landscape.
Sorry to be nit picking about that.

Glad to read you were safe.

My ability to hold a phone in landscape mode is sketchy at best. I drop the damn thing. At least when I have, it was on a table about a cm or 2 up.

I need a grip for the thing.

originally posted by: ABNARTY
a reply to: wylekat

Don't be too hard on yourself. We never know how we will react to things.

Cool footage. Stay safe.

Wife said if it was a lot easier to see, I'd be less inclined to just be filming it. I agree.

a reply to: ketsuko

They win!
Also, that's what I kinda expected a tornado to look like- well defined, easily seen, etc. It was when it swallowed a substation, and I could see roof stuff that I realized what I was looking at. I was also anything but entertained, like that one guy looked.

a reply to: DAVID64

It's ironic too because they always seem to get hit. That tornado that hit my hometown? Yeah, it hit the place that made mobile homes on one side of town, bounced up, and then bounced down in time to hit the trailer park on the other end of town.

a reply to: wylekat

They can be so big you aren't sure what you're seeing, and they can get what's called rain-wrapped meaning the rain is so heavy around it that it gets pulled up around and sort of cloaks the tornado.

a reply to: wylekat

I've experienced one like you, but although nearby it wasn't close enough to see. You made a great video. You were brave whether you knew it or not, lol.

I noticed how very still the area around you is; the leaves on the trees aren't moving. I remember that. I went outside with my dogs, and everything was so "still". Not a bird or a leaf moving anywhere, and people six miles away were being killed.

I couldn't figure out why everything felt so odd, but now I believe it is because the barometric pressure drops so much during one. It has a certain "feel" to it I've never forgotten.

A tornado is a low-pressure area. It pulls massive amounts of air up and away from the earth. Barometric readings will fall when conditions are conducive to tornado formation.

Did you notice it?

a reply to: Allaroundyou

I'm not exactly sure what it was... reports started at an F2, and like Grandpa's fishing stories, blossomed into an F3- ish one by Monday.

Me- I decided the F stood for how loud the F word could be screamed.

a reply to: Ameilia

OK- with that one, being dark, no power, no lights-
How could you even *see* the thing to begin with?

Glad you didn't get hurt or worse. Also- be happy your pets went to huddle with you. I went to fetch the cats. They hissed and growled and backed away from me. DID NOT HELP.

originally posted by: DAVID64
You know why they call those "mobile homes"?

'Cause in a tornado, they get really mobile.

Ain't it the truth. Mother Nature's clay pigeons. I was considering renting a small one as a workshop/ storage place for my crap. I am now reconsidering, *especially* after finding out we are in a travel route for the things. Not to mention, but also to consider- we live next to a tv station. With a honking big antenna, guide cables, all sorts of fun stuff for one of these damn things to uproot and swing at us like a baseball bat.

I'm sorta glad we're insured for $300k (Rental management likes it if we were to wreck the place, as they get the $$, if it's a disaster, we get it instead), but money won't mean anything if we're wiped off the planet...