Tornado hits Illinois

[Dr. Trainwreck]

What the title says. I just saw it on the telly so I didn't fish around for articles. Anybody know what's going on? And what about Broomstick?

[Zaune]

See the current Venting thread. So far as I know, all our Illinois-based members are accounted for.

[Broomstick]

We had amazingly ample coverage and warning on the storm, which was more than just tornadoes though, of course, those are the most dramatic manifestation. All normal TV programming was preempted for weather coverage, extensive radio coverage, reverse 911 to our cellphones, community weather sirens... As the tornadoes progressed the the broadcasters were saying "if you're in this town take cover NOW!". That probably accounts for the small number of deaths compared to the level of destruction. Had one small town where 200 of the 300 homes were damaged or destroyed but no reported deaths or injuries.

At one point I signed off the computer, caged up the family parrots, and stuck to monitoring the weather but that was for about 20 minutes at the worst of it. Winds in my area were "only" about 135 kph, which you probably don't want to be standing outside in (really, you don't - the small debris stings pretty good when it hits you, and there will be larger, more hazardous bits flying around) but our roof is supposedly rated for 177 kph. And, good news! The roof repairs done over the summer held just fine. The sky turned tornado green for a bit but The Big One passed to the west of us, and a smaller, less intense one to the east. We have some debris to clean up in the backyard but nothing major and nothing that looks like the contents of someone's house. Which has happened - the stuff sucked up by the tornadoes have been found 250 km away and there is now a lot of social media attempts to reunite the people in the destroyed areas with what personal possessions other people are finding in their backyard.

As usual, there are more volunteers to help than can be used. The national guard and state police in Illinois are keeping order and spent time yesterday pulling people out of the basements of collapsed homes.

What gets forgotten sometimes is that tornadoes happen inside big thunderstorms. There was also large hail, which caused some damage, and torrential rain, which caused some local flooding in places. I have some concern about my place of employment, which is to the west of where I live and was closer to the center of the storm, but it looks like Northwest Indiana got the tail end of the big Illinois storm and if a tornado passed through it was much diminished in strength. Most structures around here can handle an EF0 or even an EF1 with nothing more than repairable roof damage. South of here, places like Kokomo, Indiana also got hit hard. The news this morning is reporting as many as 40 tornadoes broke out in the Midwest yesterday, of various intensity.

The news, of course, is showing pictures of the absolute worst damage. That damage is in vary narrow tracts. To either side of those tracts the buildings are intact with only minor damage, if that.

[Dr. Trainwreck]

I coulda guessed that the storm wasn't absolutely bad since local TV also reported 6 deaths. And the tornado bit was my fault, yeah; I kinda went blank for a moment and didn't write "storm" in the title.

[Tsyroc]

Apparently the house of one of my cousins was leveled in Washington, Illinois.

[Broomstick]

Went to look at the backyard. Yep, debris all around, mostly smashed wood, twisted siding, and so forth. Tossed the metal into the back of the pickup along with the rest of this month's scrap to take down to the recyclers. Turns out the storm blew 4.5 kg of metal into my backyard, along with everything else. The wooden bits are piled off to one side, the scrap paper/plastic/whatever tossed in the dumpster. No personal items that could be identified or returned to original owner.

Now remember, I was in a relatively unscathed, lightly-affected part of the region.

[Broomstick]

Picture showing where some of yesterday's Midwestern tornadoes touched down. Latest I heard was as many as 80 erupted yesterday, hence the term "tornado outbreak". The exact number is being debated, but the point is we had a fuck of a lot of bad weather yesterday.

[Borgholio]

See that's why I prefer living in CA with earthquakes. Often, by the time you realize you're having a quake...it's almost already over. We don't have to deal with seeing a finger of God narrowly miss our house like you did, Broomstick.

[Broomstick]

The thing that amazed me is that we had nearly an hour's notice on this one. That's... well, that's like living in a Star Trek world. When I was a kid you often got no notice at all, or at least no more than the sky turning that peculiar color, maybe just a few minutes, maybe just a few seconds. When I was a kid these just happened. Now, the day before they tell you they're likely, then we track these suckers on radar in real time. It's just so futuristic.

Oh, and we get earthquakes out here, too. Can't say I care much for them, either.

[Borgholio]

That's... well, that's like living in a Star Trek world.

Except you don't yell, "KHAAAAAANNN!!!!" if the twister ruins your home.

[PhilosopherOfSorts]

That's... well, that's like living in a Star Trek world.

Except you don't yell, "KHAAAAAANNN!!!!" if the twister ruins your home.

You don't know that, maybe she does and (thankfully) hasn't had the opportunity.