Florida Tornadoes This morning !!

[rox]

After a little research, my best guesstimate is that Soundguy lives about thirteen miles northwest of Lady Lake where a lot of the damage was.

Man I sure do hope Soundguy and his family is okay. 13 miles, hmm that is petty close, I hope he is okay.

 

[rox]

I read this new story that is jsut incrediable-

An Alabama man survived the Florida tornado and storms that wreaked havoc on everything in its path and left 19 dead.
His 18 wheeler was swept into the twister, spinning several times.
Gerald Broaddrick lives in Hodges, which is in Franklin County.
WAFF 48 spoke with Broaddrick's wife Angela Friday and she is definitely one grateful woman.
Angela says it wasn't until she saw the devastation on the news that she truly realized how lucky they are that her husband was spared.
He could feel the front of the truck being picked up and it rocked back and forth and then in seconds the whole semi was up in the tornado.
Angela Broaddrick tells us how her husband Gerald got swept up in the Florida tornado.
"He could see limbs and trees flying by ..debris..he said he didn't remember how long he was up there or how high up it actually took him.. It just kind of dropped him out and it landed on the side,the truck landed on the side," says Broaddrick.
The truck,completely crumbled, Broaddrick miraculously survived.
"There were several 18 wheelers laying on their sides, there was one instance where an 18 wheeler had been picked up and thrown on top of another 18 wheeler and I think it pinned the driver in the truck."
She says her husband describes it "like a war zone. Everything is flattened, we definitely thank God today."
Broaddrick is still stranded in Florida.
Angela says even though she knows he's safe, she won't be truly happy until he's home.

I am no construction engineer, but it seems to me that if tornados can pick up 18 wheeles and throw them around like tonka Trucks than the onlyy thing that can save you is a basement. When we were living in the midwest I can't tell you how many times we all went down in the basement during tornado warnings. Many times. We also had tornado sirens throughout our whole commuinity, if there was a tornado warning the sirens went off.

 

[elalexander]

Mr. Jim. Any word on Sound guy or our other friends from Florida?

Eric

 

[DUMBDOG]

Soundguy posted early this morning in some of the tractor areas.

A side note on the storm is that 18 young whooping cranes were killed during the storm.

 

[elalexander]

Thanks Dumbdog

 

[MossRoad]

.... I am no construction engineer, but it seems to me that if tornados can pick up 18 wheeles and throw them around like tonka Trucks than the onlyy thing that can save you is a basement. When we were living in the midwest I can't tell you how many times we all went down in the basement during tornado warnings. Many times. We also had tornado sirens throughout our whole commuinity, if there was a tornado warning the sirens went off.

I live in North Central Indiana. I will not let my family live in a house without a basement.

As for warning sirens, ours stink. You can't hear them if you are inside and it is only two blocks away. Best bet is to keep a weather radio on hand when the skys turn ugly. We have one with a hand crank battery for power outages.

 

[sandman2234]

Basements are great for areas of dryer climate. Here in Florida, there is just too much water too near the surface to want to have one. Water table is usually 3 or 4 feet below ground surface.
My last house was on a hill, mostly sandy soil and could have used a basement. I tried to dig a pipe out, that had gotten stuck drilling a well and was standing in a hole on dry ground 10' 6" deep when a friend came over with a tape in his pocket. My current house is above ground construction (crawl space) and wouldn't handle a basement without a pump running year round.
As bad as tornados are, hurricanes tend to make them small by comparison, due mostly to just pure size. A tornado ravages a path, whereas a hurricane covers several counties/or maybe even a small state. It also spins off tornados, in addition to dumping huge amounts of water, besides being a massive tornado itself. What doesn't get torn up by wind gets flooded or goes bad due to non available support systems.
Above ground concrete basements are available in precast forms but they have never caught on due to cost and street apeal.
After the last couple of years of hurricanes, I wonder if consumers won't take another look at them.
David from jax

 

[rox]

Although a hurricane may have a wider swath, it is my perception that tornados have more wind velocity than a hurricane. I ahve never ever lived in an area that would have a hurricane so i really don't know.

 

[sandman2234]

Fujita Scale of Tornado Ratings

FLASH: Federal Alliance for Safe Home

Rox,
Realistically, if you look at numbers on a piece of paper, what you say is true, that tornadoes have faster winds than hurricanes. If you look at the actual distructive powers of each storm, and compare them to a similar storm, hurricanes are a lot worse than tornadoes, for several reasons. Simply because of the ability to get out of the way of a hurricane, in my opinion, it lessens the people aspect because people can actually leave an area when a hurricane is coming, something we were unable to do earlier in history. Now the problem of people not leaving is another subject. Tornadoes are a little harder to predict their actual path with accuracy and since a hurricane has other problems that it brings on, beside just the wind, it adds to it's destuctive powers.
Either way, I don't want to be in front of either one, although I have ridden out hurricanes that came within a hundred miles of my house. Still had some 10" trees laid over, but that is just lucky for me.
David from jax