Big ditches, drive into them?

[Shawn Gossman]

Hey all,

So it has always been said to abandon your vehicle and get into a ditch if you cannot drive and escape a tornado coming towards you... well, lets say the ditch it deep and big, what if you drive your vehicle into it? Do you think staying in your vehicle at that point while being in the ditch would be a good idea? I ask them because you can easily get into the floor board of a vehicle and potentially your life could be saved. Even if the tornado tossed your vehicle around, the crunching and bending may not affect you in the floor board and especially if your vehicle is in a ditch right?

To me, it seems more logical than getting into a ditch and laying hoping that the debris doesn't hit your body head on...

Thoughts?

 

[rdale]

Actually I've never said that. I'd drive away from the tornado at a right angle.

 

[Lee Smith-Whaley]

When I was a kid, I heard to get into a ditch, preferred with a large drainage tunnel under a road all the time. Now, I'm hearing otherwise. However, due to the number of photos showing cars smashed into small tangles of metal, I would be hesitant to stay in a car. One thing I did find interesting is last Spring during a spotter talk, it was suggested, that if you were on a highway, or other main road, and there was time, it was better to keep driving at a right angle as fast as safely possible from the tornado if you could see it, and do so safely, and that a ditch was a last resort. I would agree with this thinking since lying in a ditch isn't the safest, especially during a HP storm.

 

[Patrick Martin]

If the ditch is big enough for vehicle to drive into, it's big enough to get tossed out of.
Crouching in the floor board means not being strapped in. If anyone thinks they can remain safely in one place not being belted in while a vehicle is tossed like a sock in a dryer...good for you.
Still won't be safe from glass/debris entering the vehicle.

If about to get hit by a tornado, being in a vehicle is about the last place I'd want to be. Yes, the laying flat in a ditch is no guarantee, but it can't be worse than a car IMO, and is certainly better than putting yourself in a position where you can get tossed/blown around like under an overpass or in a drainage culvert.

 

[Matt Tottle]

Actually kissing the dirt in a ditch is safer than being in your vehicle (*Edit: to clarify, it's safer than being in the vehicle if it is stuck/disabled/in gridlock/otherwise unable to GTF away from the tornado). Putting the vehicle in the ditch does not have the same effect as laying on the ground.

The common misconception is that tornadoes 'suck'. They don't suck, they blow. The reason a vehicle gets tossed in a tornado is because fast moving wind gets under it and that creates lift. Even if its in a ditch, it can't drop to the ground unless you have some lowrider hydraulics going on. That's why the Dominator drops down and plants the skirt on the ground, and why the TIV has the retractable skirts.. To keep the wind from getting underneath and generating lift.

When you kiss the dirt, there is no airspace under you, therefore you don't get lift and it requires much more force for you to get picked up and tossed by the wind. Your main concern then becomes flying debris, which is why you want to be below the general plane of the land (in a ditch/hole/culvert).. The debris will tend to fly straight over ditches rather than follow the contour of the land which is what offers you a bit of protection. Of course this doesn't protect you from a car that has landed and is now barrel-rolling toward your ditch.. That's why the ditch should be your absolute last resort.. (Last ditch effort?? haha)

That's also why you see foundations scoured clean but people don't get sucked out basement windows

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy SII using Tapatalk

 

[James Hilger]

Most ditches I've seen were full of debris.

 

[Skip Talbot]

Always drive away from and out of the tornado's path. If you have to bail from your car, you've already made several fatal mistakes. Maintain situational awareness. Maintain an escape route. Take your escape route early. You can usually make a make a mistake here and there and still drive out, but if you're bailing from your vehicle you were not keeping tabs on the tornado and you have no effective escape route. Bailing is probably going to be better than putting the vehicle in a ditch and staying with it. Again though, that's a last resort. To me this is sort of like asking, "Once I'm flying through the air inside the funnel, what's the best position I should take? A skydiver's arch or a cannonball?" Instead you want to focus very hard on never being in that situation.

 

[Matt Tottle]

To me this is sort of like asking, "Once I'm flying through the air inside the funnel, what's the best position I should take? A skydiver's arch or a cannonball?" Instead you want to focus very hard on never being in that situation.

Depends on where it's going to drop you.. On water? Superman. On land? Backstroke.. Theoretically you have the best chance of survival landing flat on your back because the impact is spread over the largest area and your spine is harder than your ribs.

And I did amend my post to reflect that you shouldn't be in that situation in the first place

 

[Matt Tottle]

Most ditches I've seen were full of debris.

True, but that is mostly just light trash that flies off the back of a truck, plastic bags, or other stuff that just floats around until it gets stuck.

 

[James Hilger]

True, but that is mostly just light trash that flies off the back of a truck, plastic bags, or other stuff that just floats around until it gets stuck.

Im talking about after the tornado passes. Open field with ditch nearby, not so much.

 

[Jeff Duda]

Most ditches I've seen were full of debris.

Shelter on the upwind side. Small debris has a chance to settle when striking the downwind side of a slope of land.

 

[James Hilger]

I once seen a slope that was almost straight down and around 3ft deep that had fence posts in it and they were all laid flat, so I doubt a person would have stayed put. They were on the opposite side of road that the tornado was coming from. I've often wondered about the possibilities of this decision as well. Tornadoes do some weird stuff and I think it would just be the luck of the draw. I spend alot of time looking at the wind profiles on the ground after a tornado and try to see if a person would survive if they were in one spot verses another.

 

[Jeff Duda]

If it was a small tornado or the area got a good fetch from the other side of the circulation, then I suppose what's on the upwind side as the tornado approaches would be on the downwind side as it departs, thus making any one particular spot not safe for the duration of the tornado's passage. I agree that I would feel very uncomfortable having to choose to lay down in a ditch as a last ditch effort to shelter from a tornado. I thinkt he bigger problem then is how it got to that point. I really don't see how one couldn't drive away, or if there was traffic or a blocked road, how they couldn't see it coming and run before it arrives. If someone is in such a place that they can't move and can't see anything, then they're pretty much screwed the way I see it. There really wouldn't be much they could do. Don't let things get to that point!

 

[Todd Renshaw]

I can imagine a situation where driving into a steep, narrow ditch would pin your doors closed. I could get out a window if I had to, but those of a (um) ... generous size would have trouble once that ditch starts filling up with water. It just doesn't sound like a good idea.

I'd bet most decent chasers would follow their gut and figure out the best among their dwindling options. (Usually drive away, but let's assume you're trapped by downed power poles, flooding, dead end road, etc.) I'd consider the ditch as a last resort. Didn't the whole, get out of your car and jump in a ditch thing start as advice to lay people who don't know anything about storm & tornado motion? That advice is pretty simplistic and I feel no obligation to follow it.