Showing posts with label tornado. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tornado. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

3735 What are the odds? Not good, it seems.

May 28, 2013

Money is like sea water. The more you drink the thirstier you become.
-- Roman proverb --

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In most of the reporting and stories about the tornado that hit Moore, OK, last week, someone asks why there aren't more tornado shelters.  Most people answer that although the area is called "Tornado Alley", the chance of a tornado actually coming close is so small it's not worth the cost.  It's big country there.  It's sorta like getting hit by lightning.

In all those stories and reporting, no one to my knowledge has mentioned the 1999 tornado that hit Moore.  It was an F5 (the  highest rating), a mile to two miles wide, killed 41 people and injured almost 500, hit 8,132 homes, 1,041 apartments, 260 businesses, 11 public buildings and seven churches, and has the distinction of the fastest winds ever recorded for a tornado, at about 300 mph.

That sounds like the topography around Moore is conducive to funneling funnels right through there, maybe? 

Maybe a few dollars worth of root cellar would be a good investment after all.
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Monday, May 23, 2011

3261 Tornado

Monday, May 23, 2011

I read an ad for a toy that "flies as far as a football field".
I'm wondering, just how far can a football field fly?
-- Silk --

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Those green quotes at the top are random, honest! About once a week or so I set up skeleton draft posts, numbered, with the next seven or so quotes on the list, and then use them in order over the next few days. This quote is apt for today - I think maybe Joplin, Missouri, can tell us how far a football field can fly.

Wow. It looks really bad there. Houses are just heaps. I wonder how many people are trapped in basements under those heaps.

A hospital got hit. A reporter said that patient records from the hospital were found 60 miles away. What about the patients? Where are they now?

It's completely overwhelming.
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