Wow. I bet some of the families that have lost loved ones that didn't have basements would tell you it's not worth it to save a few hundred or few thousand bucks.
Hence the recent rise in popularity of individual storm shelters. They're only a few thousand dollars, which is much cheaper than maintaining a basement over the course of a lifetime.
I guess that opens the question as to what defines "adequate shelter". Just my personal opinion, but I don't care if it's an EF-0 tornado bearing down on the house I don't want to be sitting in a closet waiting for it to hit me which unfortunately is the case at this moment if I decide to stay in place. Adequate shelter to someone like me, who respects the power of tornadoes and storms in general is anything that will get you through the most violent tornado. Just a guess, but I would bet a few dollars that 75% of residences don't have this in place. It's a cost/risk thing for many people and it will continue to be that way.
This. So freakin this. I dread telling people I chase because the same stupid questions arise. "Have you been in one? Have you seen that guy from Storm Chasers? When's the next tornado supposed to hit?" I can easily and leisurely answer those questions without sounding like an asshole, but most times I'm not. I find it more fitting to say I'm a weather photographer, because I really don't like being rolled into the same ball as those other chasers that push it too close. I'm out there for the storms and the experience, not for the money.
Translated to: What do you think of a concrete or steel shelter in the house? Of course it is more expensive but lives are precious.
They are saying it because it has been proven time and again that cars are death traps if they are hit by a tornado. Unlike you, I suspect, I do live in the Oklahoma City metro area. I chose not to leave Norman yesterday because the storm was moving directly towards the city, and I did not want to be involved in that mess.
As a side note, the number of vehicle related fatalities globally, and especially in developed nations and North America has steadily declined since the 1960's as newer safety technology and practices have been introduced. In the past most vehicle rollovers and highway/freeway collisions would often result in serious injury and/or death, but today most relative high speed collision don't result in death and often injuries are limited to maybe broken bones and whiplash. This is probably part of the reason why it seems more people survive impacts from tornadoes in cars than they seem to have in the past, despite there being more traffic on the road today than there was in the 1970's.
let's maintain accuracy please, it was not the roof of the Dominator 3 that was torn off, it was just the hood that got ripped off. Just clarifying to keep that from evolving into something it was not.
So...the question on my mind is...why didn't it? Why the rapid transition to HP waterfalls after the first tornadic cycle near El Reno? It was expected that conditions Friday were going to be prime for violent, long-track tornadoes like the Moore one. Yesterday was like the meteorological equivalent of being let off with a warning.
I'll reply to this because it's the only part of the thread I can respond to without getting dragged into a stupid internet argument.
Emily Sutton's FB Page said:
I believe the E-W oriented outflow boundary had drifted north during the day and draped itself right along I-40 through the south OKC metro area. Extremely high PW values and high CAPE were realized when the atmosphere was uncorked. There were probably three individual mesocyclones and supercells in that massive HP cluster along the OFB.
Thank you for clarifying. I obtained my information from a television media report, which I thought was accurate.
I was watching KFOR's live stream along with most of you and at one point MM stated that people would be safe (from the tornado which was south/east of El Reno along I-40 at that point) if they got as far south as Moore. That statement really raised my eyebrows, at first mainly because of the history associated with Moore. But then, where did the storm's next mesocyclone cycle go? Moore. Luckily for them (and Mike!), by then the process Tim mentioned was underway and it was only putting down intermittent EF0 spin-ups.
That's it exactly. Some outfit I've never heard of is being heavily promoted by having their video of being pelted with large debris broadcast on every channel from hell to breakfast. Their YouTube video, complete with a description in 12-year-old-ese, proclaims it to be "the most incredible footage ever caught by an unarmored vehicle". The footage is inter-cut with interior shots showing a passenger-seat chaser screaming like a girl about how they're all going to die or something (amusing, but an editing decision I personally would not have made in their position, unless they really didn't like that guy). Another video's description informs us that it is the "the LONGER INCREDIBLE WAY TOO CLOSE video" that its poster took, and includes an anecdote about how he had to stop the car because his sunglasses had blown off.
I can only armchair, I was watching rads and chase vehicle livestreams. To me, this was not a typical tornado, what started out as a tornado, rapidly changed into a large rotating base that kept putting down small vortexes over and over that rotated within the base. So that in places, with all the rain and junk in that air, it seemed to be a monster, when in fact is was more or less a contained swarm or cluster. I cant believe anyone in the right mind would actually tell people to try to go get into a car and drive to get away. Yes, we all know it is easy enough to observe from a distance and continue to move to stay safe, but masses of people getting into a car, and then becoming afraid by the large swirling mass and backed up traffic, will just panic.
