New Red Cross safety recommendation on cars and tornadoes

[John Farley]

It appears that the Red Cross has changed its recommendation regarding what to do if in a car and a tornado approaches:

http://weatherblog.abc13.com/2009/04/new-tornado-saf.html

Lively debate already going on about this on the Weather and Society list.

 

[Shawna Davies]

We were discussing this at the KC AMS meeting the other night. Obviously, there are no "right or wrong" answers when it comes to shelter, so I'm not sure how I feel about this new information from the Red Cross. If you are caught by a tornado in your car, it's a crap shoot on whether or not you are going to survive no matter what you do. The famous overpass video from the Andover day shows a mini-van being tossed by the tornado before it went "over" the overpass (albeit it was sideswiped by the outer edge of the circulation) and the car occupants were banged up pretty good but survived. However, last May 23, 2008, the poor couple that pulled over and stayed in their car in the path of that EF3 in southern KS were killed instantly. If they would have gotten out of their car and into a ditch, they most likely STILL wouldn't have survived as it was such a strong tornado. This was also a night tornado, so information was vital.

Driving away from the tornado at right angles if there is plenty of time, or away from the tornado path is always a good idea and one I suggest. However, the road network doesn't always support that idea. Example, last Saturday on I-70 near Kansas City, the people who were driving westbound as the tornado approached them really had no time or options. (But were very lucky as the tornado mostly stayed parallel to and just off the interstate.) And we all know what the public does when caught in a hail core, they take cover under overpasses. If the shoulders are full, they will just stop on the road under the overpass, thereby blocking traffic and putting everyone in danger. That irritates me more than anything.

When talking to the public this is usually the first question I'm asked. I use this opportunity to tell people the best chances of survival is to NOT get themselves in that situation in the first place, and I give them suggestions on how to obtain weather info before they head out and while they are on the road. I then say if they still get themselves caught and cannot out run the tornado or find shelter, to get out of their car and run as far away from their car as they can and lay flat in a ditch. Again, once you are in that situation, it's all a matter of luck, and having to choose from a poor set of options.

Now as far as taking shelter in your car instead of a mobile home. I don't feel comfortable with the new Red Cross advice of taking shelter in your car over the mobile home. If it were me, I'd choose the mobile home in the bathtub. But this is quite similar to being caught on the road, so it's hard to determine what the right answer is.

Compare all of this to a home fire. Let's say you do not have a smoke detector and a fire breaks out in your living room. You're in bed on the second floor and your home below is engulfed in flames and you wake up smelling smoke (well, if you do wake up). Do you take a chance to run through your home to get out through a door (risking your life with smoke inhalation or flames), or do you jump out of your bedroom window risking your life with a pretty long fall. You'd have to make a rash decision with an uncertain outcome. However, if you had a smoke detector, education on how to properly escape, a plan (and especially an escape ladder), you would have more time and a better opportunity to get out, therefore increasing your survival chances.

IMO, the best chance for survival in all disasters is knowledge and planning. That's what I emphasize to the public over everything else.

Good post, John.

 

[Jason Foster]

The head of the committee, Rick Bissell from the University of Maryland-Baltimore County wrote on his blog, "We found no evidence to support the NWS suggestion that people should lie in a ditch during a tornado if they cannot find solid shelter." Furthermore, they found being in a car is safer than staying inside a mobile home.

I'll have to see if I can get Rick and other's to comment further and site some sources on the study. I just don't see it being good advice from my observations.

 

[Simon Brewer]

There's only one way to settle this debate: SCIENTIFIC STUDY

We need to put a few thousand people in ditches and cars in the direct path of multiple tornadoes of varying intensity and determine what method is safest from the results. I love science. It might be difficult to find a good sample group. I suggest we use convicts and bribe them with early release...lol.

 

[John Farley]

Several good comments have been made. Shawna's point that the best thing to do is avoid getting into a situation where one has to choose between car and ditch is a good one. I suggested on another forum that safety rules or call-to-action (CTA) statements might include something like "If you are in an area under a tornado warning, do not drive into a strong thunderstorm. Instead, stop and seek sturdy shelter." Clearly it is better to avoid putting oneself in a situation where one has to choose among options that are not nearly as good as avoiding the situation in the first place.

And yes, there are situations like being on a freeway where you can't just turn and drive out of the path - that's why we chasers avoid freeways during the active phase of the chase. But there clearly also are situations where it is easily possible to drive out of the path of the tornado - but there is nothing in the NWS safety rules or nearly all CTA statements that mentions this possibility.

One problem I have is that I know of NO studies showing that the ditch is a safer option, yet the NWS continues to recommend it. And there ARE a handful of studies with findings that people who drive away fare better than those who take shelter outdoors. For example: In the Marion, IL tornado of 1982, DuClos and Ing (1989) found that people who tried to drive to safety were less likely to be injured than people who took shelter outside, and that nobody was injured in a vehicle even in a few instances in which the vehicle was overturned by the tornado. Carter, Millson, and Allen (1989) also found in the Barrie, Ontario tornado of 1985 that people who remained in vehicles were less likely to be injured than people who took shelter outdoors. Also Daley et al (2005) found that people in vehicles were less likely to be killed than people at outside locations in the May 3, 1999 Oklahoma tornadoes. And Hammer and Schmidlin (2002) even found that people leaving their homes and driving out of the path (this is NOT something that either I or the authors of that study would generally recommend, though) fared better than people in the path who stayed home. So, although Simon's somewhat tongue-in-cheek comment points out the difficulty of studying the issue, there have in fact been some studies that have compared outcomes for people in vehicles with those for people taking shelter outside. Note I am NOT saying that it is safe to be in a vehicle if it is hit by a tornado. Just that a vehicle can be sometimes driven out of the path, and that there is no evidence that the ditch is safer than the vehicle.

The references for the studies cited above:

DuClos, P. J., and R. T. Ing. 1989. “Injuries and Risk Factors for
Injuries from the 29 May 1982 Tornado, Marion, Illinois.â€￾
International Journal of Epidemiology 18: 213-219.

Carter, A. O., M. E. Millson, and D. E. Allen, 1989. “Epidemiologic
Study of Deaths and Injuries due to Tornadoes.â€￾ American
Journal of Epidemiology 130: 1209–1218.

Daley, W. Randolph, Sheryll Brown, Pam Archer, Elizabeth Kruger,
Fred Jordan, Dahna Batts, and Sue Ballonee. 2005. “Risk of
Tornado-related Death and Injury in Oklahoma, May 3, 1999.
American Journal of Epidemiology 161: 1144-1150.

Hammer, Barbara, and Thomas W. Schmidlin. 2002. “Response
to Warnings During the 3 May 1999 Oklahoma City Tornado:
Reasons and Relative Injury Rates.â€￾ Weather and Forecasting
17: 577-581.