We are under a tornado watch here in my southern coastal town.

[jalefkowit@vmst.io]

The best part of a tornado watch in a southern coastal town is, if it gets upgraded to a warning good fucking luck finding a building with a basement

[heartofcoyote@neuromatch.social]

@jalefkowit Best luck. 🍀

[chrisod@social.lol]

@jalefkowit We are under a watch until 7 PM. I think the powder room on the ground floor is our safe haven.

[aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@jalefkowit what is the best practice in this situation? hang out in a room without any windows and hope for the best? pile the family into the car and drive like mad to find an overpass?

[jalefkowit@vmst.io]

My mother, a newspaper journalist, helped cover the 1974 tornado that wiped out the city of Xenia, Ohio. She kept a book her newspaper printed afterwards compiling all the stories and photos. And that book gave me an extremely healthy respect for tornadoes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1974_Xenia_tornado

[jalefkowit@vmst.io]

@aeva I believe it is the same thing as the old atomic bomb drills, i.e. ”put your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye”

[vadhakara@mastodon.social]

@aeva @jalefkowit Speaking as an expert on this matter (I am a lifelong Kansan), best practice is to run outside and film video. If the tornado is far away, you film horizontally, and if it is up close you can film vertically, but only if you can keep the tornado near the center of the shot without being struck by a flying Volvo.

The person filming is almost never hit by the tornado.

[david@saff.dev]

@vadhakara @aeva @jalefkowit

Abraham Wald would like a word...

[aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@jalefkowit good luck and god speed

[chillicampari@layer8.space]

@aeva I am super out of practice with this but having lived in a mobile home in North Dakota for a while as a kid- during watch you need to check if the local shelter is open (in our case the trailer park manager's basement), crack open the windows and unplug unneeded electrical appliances and at warning if you could, go to the shelter, if not, sit in the bathtub. I have no idea these days if most of that was actually useful information.

@jalefkowit good luck, that is no fun at all!

[ipd@universeodon.com]

@aeva @jalefkowit

Have you looked out the window today?

[timmy@goblin.camp]

@aeva @jalefkowit in a residential wood timbered thing, i think the recommendation is under your kitchen table if it is strong. whatever gets you away from glass is usually good too. your house getting picked up and whisked away isn’t really what you are trying to protect from, its cuts and bumps from flying debris

[aeva@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@ipd @jalefkowit yeah the street flooded and then half-froze and it's snowing again