tornado 101

[calimac]

I'm about to head out to a part of the world where there's been a lot of tornadoes lately. Most likely I'll never encounter one, so that possibility is covered. But what about the other possibility, that by chance I do? I know what to do during an earthquake (and often enough have done it), and hurricanes move slowly and usually allow long warnings that they're coming, but aside from a few dust devils in the Central Valley I've had no encounter with tornadoes.

Let's say I'm driving along in my rented car, and there's been a tornado warning on the radio, and off in the distance I see a tornado. What am I supposed to do? How do I stay out of its way? How do I know what direction it's likely to be going? What do I do if I can't get out of its way? What if it's behind me, and it sees me before I see it? What if I'm not in my car, and there's no other people around to follow?

Comments

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Here's what I did, failing all else, if I was driving and the sky turned suddenly weird green and sideways rain flew, I spotted the nearest truck and stuck to its bumper. It if stopped, I did. If It rolled, I did, in its wake. That got me through three or four truly scary storms when I drove to the Tennessee Mythcon via Massachusetts and NY and DC and Virginia and Kentucky.