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katarina-stratford t1_jdlsrph wrote

21 deaths is insane.

Genuine question - I don't live in an area that experiences these types of events - Is there much warning before a tornado in these areas? I understand if they form over water there may be radar(?) that picks it up, but over land? Does it depend on the storm?

EDIT: Y'all have given me so much insight into what it's like first hand - thank you. I didn't really have any concept of what you experience until now.

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kittysback t1_jdlxqzb wrote

Mississippian here, currently living just north of the path of yesterday’s tornado.

As someone else said, most of us have no place to go. Centralized shelters are few and far between, and Mississippi clay (our type of regional soil) makes it almost impossible for people to build affordable basements—basements just aren’t a thing here. Where I am, it’s pine forests for miles, so there’s a non-negligible possibility that you run into a downed tree in an attempt to find a shelter.

Rolling Fork in particular is very rural. If you’ve never been to the Delta, it’s hard to fathom, but it is very sparsely populated. I’ve lived in bigger and smaller Mississippi towns, and when you live closer to folks, you see activity and feel something different when it’s serious. Neighbors will check on you and then you know. When you’re isolated in a rural place, sometimes it’s hard to know. In addition, the Delta is very, very, VERY flat, so in this case, the tornado had little resistance from the natural environment.

My final thought, and something I admit I do: tornados do happen quickly, and we get warnings, but a lot of Mississippians and southerners don’t necessarily take them seriously. There are plenty of memes about this, and it’s unfortunately true because we get warnings for them quite frequently. This year, where I live, we’ve had them 7 times, including one 3 weeks ago. I usually start getting nervous when I hear hail (had it last night), but deadly storms don’t always produce it. But again, Mississippi is still quite rural, and some people don’t have dependable cell service. A friend of mine who lives out in the county only got last night’s message after it had passed through.

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dboy120 t1_jdmhg6h wrote

Could the number of people living in mobile homes in rural areas also contribute? There is essentially no safe place to go in a trailer, you HAVE to go somewhere else which just isn’t always an option.

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AngriestManinWestTX t1_jdn3gyk wrote

Yes, mobile homes are death traps in just about any tornado. Even the homes are either old or flimsily constructed. Increasing building codes might help, but then how would the people living there afford new homes with more stringent building codes? This part of the country is by and large, quite poor.

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Clunas t1_jdncfm8 wrote

Adding on to it: that area is poor by even Mississippi standards. Standard building maintenance often straight up doesn't happen. Tarps are sometimes considered permanent roof repairs.

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techleopard t1_jdnv3h7 wrote

We need a combination of both laws and grants being made available.

The federal government offers a piddly community grant that a township can apply for, but as we know, rural towns are spread out so even if they built one, it wouldn't be sufficient when it takes you 10-15 minutes to get to it on a good day.

But there is NOTHING for homeowners, which needs to change. That is where stormshelters are needed -- family sized ones at the home, where they can actually be useful.

And we need firm laws stating that every trailer park and HOA community needs a shelter within 5 minutes on foot of every home.

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lifeofblair t1_jdmvpp7 wrote

I remember in college at State tornadoes were just another reason to hang out with friends at houses. We “sheltered” but not seriously at all and like you said many never take them seriously. We always had people that would go outside to look for them and hangout.

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techleopard t1_jdnuhoz wrote

Screaming winds and pouring rain? You're safe.

Hard rain followed suddenly by silence? You better be looking for a ditch, immediately.

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katarina-stratford t1_jdnxq3o wrote

This is so detailed - thank you. You really painted a picture for me. The major natural threat here is wildfire - I've never had to consider the threat of a tornado.

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MajesticOuting t1_jdn8wqv wrote

Its actually the sand that causes the problems with the basements as the very very random patch's of it in the state means digging a hole in the ground is a gamble if it will collapse or not.

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sharpshooter999 t1_jdnjhzw wrote

I'm from Nebraska and have a cousin who moved to Houston. I know they can't have basements due to the high water table but not having a basement just feels wrong. A lot of newer homes have an actual room in the basement completely made of concrete, all four walls and the ceiling, just for a tornado room

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d3lphicmoon t1_jdlubg3 wrote

A lot of people have no where safe to go.

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ConvolutedFluid t1_jdlvqwz wrote

This.

Several of the top 10 deadliest in US history have occurred in MS. Many other tornadoes with lesser but still substantial numbers of casualties have plagued the state. Most of these are quite violent, earning F4 and F5 ratings. The intensity, coupled with the state's historically impoverished population living in cheap housing leads to disastrous consequences. Storm shelters or installing a basement are costly things as well. It's also my understanding that parts of the state have a high water table making it challenging to do anyways.

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RNG__GoatSlayer t1_jdlzat9 wrote

Night tornadoes are scary as hell.

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PmadFlyer t1_jdnf5wi wrote

I will say, living in Kansas the storms usually die down or just have wind and hail after around 9 or 10 pm.

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Penguin_shit15 t1_jdmpqf8 wrote

Oklahoma here.. Lived here my whole 47 years.. Seen countless tornadoes and been through 3 of them (meaning close enough to take damage).. and many close calls (where it missed by a mile or so..)..

Here is my story from 5 or 6 years ago on this tornado... https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=H5dBa-TM11A .. Not really expecting bad weather, just a small chance. Me and the wife are in the living room and its windy as he'll outside and I hear a little crash outside, looked out the window and my flower pots were being moved around. I didn't want them to break so I went out there to move them out of the wind. I moved 3 of them and then heard that sound you don't forget... So many people say that it sounds like a train, but it seems most people don't think of the right sound. So some people reading this will learn something here.. They think of the train sound as being the horn.. NOPE.. That's NOT the sound of a tornado.. Its the rumbling it makes as it goes by on the tracks.

Anyways I heard that noise and looked beyond my trees and saw the telltale blue of power flashes. No siren.. No warning. I ran inside and told my wife to get in the safe room while I grabbed the cat. I never actually took shelter because I could see on my own radar program that it was headed just a bit south of us. By the time the sirens went off, it was 5 miles away.

So it really depends on the storm how much notice you get. These storms can fire up and get severe in minutes.. Others they will talk about for days and so we are all ready.. We have armies of storm chasers out there and during the day we don't get too many surprises.. But night is a different story.

And the stereotype is true.. When an Oklahoman man hears a tornado siren, we mostly go outside to see if we need to duck and cover or not.

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GreenStrong t1_jdm0h8f wrote

The National Weather Service issues tornado watch’s several hours ahead of time to let people know that a tornado is possible, and they issue geographically specific warnings as soon as they form. Cell phones alert people, and there are even special analog radios that respond to the warnings, but stay silent otherwise.

Typically, people do have a few minutes of warning when these monster tornadoes are coming, but they are powerful that almost no shelter can withstand them. Small tornadoes arise and pass very quickly. The NWS often sends out warnings based on radar before they fully form, but they are inherently unpredictable. I was near a small tornado once, I was sitting outside on a porch enjoying the storm, and there were only a few seconds between when rain started blowing in on me and roofs blowing off off houses 200 yards away.

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techleopard t1_jdnwbpa wrote

The problem is that those warnings are SO common that they are highly disruptive if people were to just drop everything and "seek shelter." It's not like, "Oh, I guess I won't go shopping today, I can stay in cuz I have basement." There's nowhere to go, so to properly plan, you're looking at literally packing up and checking into a hotel. Ain't nobody got the time or money for that.

These tornados always hit at night, too. You can't exactly find an excuse to suddenly go to Walmart at 2am, because Walmart isn't even open anymore.

I've driven 20 miles to wait out a particularly nasty-sounding warning before and the only place I could find was a hospital, and they chewed me out for trying to stay there when I didn't have anything medically wrong with me. The only reason they let us stay there for a few hours was because I had a kid with me who already had PTSD from these tornados and the MOMENT he overheard the ER lady telling us we couldn't stay he started hyperventilating and having a complete breakdown right there in the hallway.

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3OrangeWhip t1_jdm3tsx wrote

Best case, you might get a 13 minute warning, and that’s much improved from 40-50 years ago.

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polkjamespolk t1_jdm3lt6 wrote

You can get anywhere from five minutes warning to about half an hour.

A big problem is that these things are hard to pinpoint. You can be in the general path of the storm but have the dangerous winds happen six blocks over from where you live.

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Whind_Soull t1_jdmsfyj wrote

I've always said that it's like artillery in a war. You may have warning that your area may be targeted, but whether (weather?) or not a shell is going to hit you personally is really hard to forecast and has very little warning.

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goldfinger1906 t1_jdn33vx wrote

Yep. It can take out every house on a block but just suddenly jump and skip over one, then touch back down and destroy the neighbor’s house. I’ve even seen one come south along the interstate, then jump to the other side, touch down and go back north.

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PmadFlyer t1_jdnfscw wrote

Unrelated but it blew my mind as a kid when you'd see road guardrail wrapped around trees and houses ripped apart. Simultaneously you'd have a kitchen with two walls remaining and all the bottles would be standing up on the counter unmoved with the paper towel still on the holder. Wind in a tornado defies logic.

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icantsurf t1_jdm4edb wrote

This one had plenty of warning for anyone who was seeking it, making the warning actually heard is the hard part. The storm tracked close to 100 miles with a powerful tornado down for most of that time. One issue with this area is that it resides in a radar hole. Weather radars are tilted very slightly to clear obstacles so the further away you are from the site, the higher and less accurate the radar returns are. A historic tornado formed in an area that meteorologists can't see well.

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Appropriate_Tip_8852 t1_jdmio8m wrote

I was asleep when it hit me. Didn't know it until it was literally right on top of me. At that point I knew pretty quickly what was happening. I learned that the alarms never triggered that day.

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that1LPdood t1_jdmikwo wrote

I live in the Midwest, smack dab in tornado alley — so I can’t give insight about Mississippi.

But where I live, we will usually get a number of hours of warning that a storm capable of creating tornados is coming. So we have kind of a general awareness that tornado-friendly conditions are coming. Depending on how the storm goes, different areas or counties can be classified as “Tornado Watch” (be aware) or “Tornado Warning” (a tornado has been confirmed via visual sighting).

If there’s a Tornado Warning, the news will usually tell you where it is, where it’s seen heading. You may only get 5-10 minutes of warning if the tornado is coming toward you — every town also has warning sirens that will sound. That means you should take shelter immediately — basement, interior closet or bathroom, etc.

SO: You may be aware that the conditions exist for a tornado, but if one forms, you could potentially have only a number of minutes to react.

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KP_Wrath t1_jdm5dlx wrote

There’s warning in the sense that “it can happen.” There was a moderate issued with a significant severe chance. For a tornado, that means there’s a 15% chance of a tornado within 25 miles of a given point, and a 10% chance (or more) that the tornado will be EF2 or higher (strong to intense). For an area that big, there were almost certainly going to be tornadoes, including 1 or 2 significant tornadoes. Question then becomes where do they happen? In this case, they fit pretty neatly in the moderate area aside from whatever shakes out of Florence, AL. That was the enhanced area. As others have said, not everyone has access to a shelter. In my case, I watched a movie while it did whatever it was going to do.

Tl;Dr: there’s warning in the sense of “it’s going to happen somewhere and it’s probably going to be strong or intense in an area or two. There is no “it’s going to happen HERE; it’s going to be THIS INTENSE.”

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Starion_Dorifuto t1_jdntwbp wrote

I live in Arkansas and there have been weeks where there was a tornado touching down in my county EVERY NIGHT for a week. We try to be careful, but you can't just stay up to watch the weather closely for that long. And even if we were about to get hit, we really have nowhere to go. By the time the sirens are going off, you're too late to drive to a shelter.

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PM_ME_UR__UPVOTE t1_jdmfjpu wrote

I blame the alert system for this shit. I live in Mississippi and they will sound the alarm for nearly anything in your county. The weather men act like any storm is the end of the world. After going through it like 100 times you stop caring and just ignore it. They need to stop overreacting to any storm and only do alerts when actually threats are going to happen.

For instance my tornado siren will go off if their is literally any detection of debress in the air in any part of my county. So I will get alert for a false alarm like 50 miles away. That shit is getting people killed because no one takes the siren serious now.

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