Fuck-off HUGE Tornado in northern Texas

[Dalton]

I'm surprised there hasn't been a thread about this. I've just been on the air for an hour covering this and it's fucking batshit insane. Truck trailers being thrown around like matchsticks. Multiple explosions. Debris everywhere. Our anchor from the area trying to hold it together while getting texts from family members who still live there.

msnbc.com

[FaxModem1]

Been hearing the tornado sirens going off.

[Col. Crackpot]

Flying trailer trucks... holy shit! Seriously 18 wheel trailer truck spiraling through the air four thousands of feet, that is fucking awful!

[Prannon]

I had a friend in Ft. Worth that I kept updated with texts after she said that she was taking cover, basically typing out the bulletins from the National Weather Service word for word. Barely missed her to the east. She and her friends are fine, though she tells me that there was a lot of damage done in the Dallas and Arlington areas. She, too, mentioned that there were tractor trailers tossed around and pealed open like sardine cans.

[Broomstick]

Flying trailer trucks... holy shit! Seriously 18 wheel trailer truck spiraling through the air four thousands of feet, that is fucking awful!

Yes, it is awful.

It's not the worst, though - I've seen footage of entire buildings, some of them two stories tall, flying around in a twister like that.

My defense is that I worked a 10 hour shift, so I didn't hear about it until I got home. That said, I think in a different year this would have gotten more play but we've had so many severe storms and tornadoes already those of us in the upper Midwest are getting a bit numb.

The local story up here was the mother in downstate Indiana who got her kids into a fully underground basement just before a tornado hit, but it not only scraped away the building above but started scouring out the basement as well. She lost both legs from flying debris while sheltering in a basement. Also seven busted ribs and some other fractures. Her kids were unhurt because she was shielding them with her body, but it was near thing. (She's doing OK in a rehab facility.) I think that's what's really disturbing me - we're not just getting tornadoes, we're getting more of them, and much more powerful than typical.

Around here they're talking about upping the warnings for the more powerful storms from "Take shelter immediately" to "you will not survive above ground."

Anyhow - despite the massive destruction, the lack of deaths and relatively low injury rates seems to indicate that people took warnings seriously and got to shelter. At least there is that to be happy about, the human damage could have been much worse.

[Dalton]

That local story actually made national headlines.

[Broomstick]

Oh, just curious - have they rated those twisters yet? Based on the damage I've seen and read about I'm guessing either a high EF1 up to a middling EF2. That's just me being a bit morbid and disaster-groupie.

[Broomstick]

That local story actually made national headlines.

Did it? I thought it had stayed largely local.

Pretty fucking scary, though, when a basement won't keep you safe.

[Dave]

Flying trailers sounds fairly normal for a big tornado, honestly. Maybe it's just because I've always lived in an area with tornadoes though.

Around here they're talking about upping the warnings for the more powerful storms from "Take shelter immediately" to "you will not survive above ground."

Ah, that explains why new home construction in the Springfield, MO area had concrete panic rooms with steel doors.
Hm. I guess it's time for my apartment complex to start digging tornado shelters. Or am I supposed to wedge a tornado shelter in my apartment closet?

[Col. Crackpot]

That local story actually made national headlines.

Did it? I thought it had stayed largely local.

Pretty fucking scary, though, when a basement won't keep you safe.

they interviewed her on the today show. That woman is a goddamn hero.

[Broomstick]

New trailer parks around here are required to have what are, essentially, weather bunkers for people to shelter in. Ugly reinforced concrete block with steel doors, few to no windows, steel shutters on what windows they do have, sometimes partially sunk underground...

Apartment buildings with basements should be able to construct some sort of reasonable structures underneath, but then you have the issue of getting people to use them in a timely manner.

[Skywalker_T-65]

Yeah, I wasn't online when this news broke so I couldn't post it. I just pray that everyone is okay down there (I have friends in Texas). But I agree with Broomstick that we Midwesterners are getting a bit numb to tornadoes after last year. Especially where I live (Joplin). But still, this is a horrible situation, and if the tornado that had hit us hit Dallas/Ft. Worth it would...well words wouldn't describe how bad that would be. We should be thankful that it wasn't an EF5 (most likely) that hit them. Again though, hoping that everyone is okay down there.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Well, as it happens, I live in Arlington TX. I am fine, in case anyone is concerned. Tornado hit ground all of 5 km from where I live/work, and actually appears to have hit near one of my field sites. I will need to survey the damage.

Anyhow - despite the massive destruction, the lack of deaths and relatively low injury rates seems to indicate that people took warnings seriously and got to shelter. At least there is that to be happy about, the human damage could have been much worse.

They did. They really did. Hell, I know I always do. Problem is, I dont have anything even remotely resembling a storm shelter or basement anywhere within running distance from my apartment. I actually have to head to the university and take shelter in the heavily fortified basement of the Life Sciences building. Incidentally, that is where my office and lab are.

[Chardok]

F off! I forgot you went to UTA! son of a....Wait....your frogs were safer than you were?!

[Simon_Jester]

You may see more bunkers getting dug around Arlington Texas, then.

[The Yosemite Bear]

God: ok, Perry, this is for giving me such a bad name

realist: now about that climate change you keep dening?

[Broomstick]

Well, as it happens, I live in Arlington TX. I am fine, in case anyone is concerned.

Of course we're concerned. We also know you're scary smart. I think most of us assumed you'd had the sense to get under a rock in such weather. Very glad to hear you're safe.

You may see more bunkers getting dug around Arlington Texas, then.

I'm totally unfamiliar with the area in question, but I heard something on the news about the soil in the area being unsuitable for basements and below ground shelters - something my area also needs to deal with. Fortunately, there are now alternatives that seem to work at least as well as the average basement, but the problem is to first get people to pay for these shelters/panic rooms and secondly to get them to USE them when the weather gets that bad. There always seems to be some yajoo standing in the backyard filming while saying "Hur, hur, that's a big twister!" instead of running for cover while his (it's almost always a "he") SO can be heard faintly in the background screaming "GET YOUR ASS BACK DOWN HERE YOU IDIOT YOU'RE GOING TO GET KILLED!"

[Elfdart]

That local story actually made national headlines.

Did it? I thought it had stayed largely local.

Pretty fucking scary, though, when a basement won't keep you safe.

Especially when very few homes in this area have basements, unless they were built before the Depression.

[Sky Captain]

What would happen if F5 tornado like recent 2011. Joplin tornado would directly hit major city like Dallas? Would it tip over the skyscarapers causing total nuclear attack level damage in city center? Evacuating a city is not an option because tornadoes are too unpredictable. Are there enough secure places where to take cover in such event for over a million people?

[Skywalker_T-65]

Well considering I live in Joplin...I could say it would be the worst tornado in history by far. There is no way that you would get out of an EF 5 hitting a major city like Dallas without loosing a couple thousand people at the LEAST. In fact, the only reason that our tornado wasn't the most deadly in history was when it hit...if it had hit at say 1 or 2 on the next day (a Monday) it would have obliterated the High School, which had 2,000 people in it...and thats not even counting all those other business' that were hit.

EDIT: And Day After Tomorrow to the contrary, I doubt a tornado (even an EF 5) could topple large skyscrapers. Depends on how Dallas builds its buildings.

[Starglider]

What would happen if F5 tornado like recent 2011. Joplin tornado would directly hit major city like Dallas? Would it tip over the skyscarapers causing total nuclear attack level damage in city center?

Don't you think just maybe this scenario occured to the structural engineers who design skyscrapers? Of course they design for all known weather conditions plus safety margin, but that only covers structural collapse, not economic damage. What a tornado like that will do is blow out the windows (which actually reduces the wind load on the structure), strip cladding and trash the interior. There will also be significant damage from projectiles; the refurbishment costs will be a large fraction of the structure's original construction cost. In fact this is exactly what happened with the Bank One Tower.

[CaptainChewbacca]

The big damage from an F5 hitting a major city (like Dallas or Chicago) isn't building collapse, but flying debris coming OUT of those buildings. Desks, chairs, file cabinets, and millions of glass shards whipping through the air would be what would cause most of the casualties. A tornado will never collapse a steel-framed structure unless something is seriously wrong with its' design.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Wait for it....

CHILD-PROPHECY!

A child crouches in a “duck and cover” position. She is at school, scared to death as four tornadoes take the roofs off of houses and destroy everything in their paths.

“They were spinning real fast,” she said.

This is the dream that 8-year-old Cesya Sandoval had a little more than a month before tornadic storms hit North Texas on Tuesday.

Cesya, the daughter of Dalila Sandoval — a custodian at UTA — is convinced God told her the tornadoes were coming to Arlington through her dream.
“It was a vision from God,” Cesya Sandoval said, her eyes wide and her tone low and serious.

Suddenly, the tornadoes stopped and she awoke from the dream. The dream still haunted her, as she said it was like the dream was still happening — it felt so real.

Cesya Sandoval described a street sign that said Arlington and the destruction of two schools and a church. She said houses were flattened and many people were hospitalized.

She said she wasn’t surprised when tornadoes touched down on Tuesday — just scared. Cesya Sandoval knew the storms were coming.

“I was praying because I was scared something was going to happen to my parents,” Sandoval said about Tuesday’s storms.

Sure enough, multiple media outlets reported two schools in Forney and a church in Lancaster received damage, and more than a dozen people were reported injured in the storms.

On March 1, Dalila Sandoval wrote a Facebook post on her group page “Conocerlaverdadyseraslibre,” (Know the Truth and Be Free) describing her daughter’s dream and asking her brothers and friends of God to pray for Arlington.

Her church, Centro Cristiano La Voz-Dios, has been praying for God to protect the people of Arlington ever since the dream, Sandoval said. She said she believes prayer was the reason Tuesday’s tornadoes didn’t claim any lives.

“God protected us,” Dalila Sandoval said.

Daniel Shue, philosophy and film senior, said he remembers Sandoval coming to him a few weeks ago about the dream. She was frantic, he said.

The look in her eyes was genuine.

Shue said Dalila Sandoval knew he devotes as much time to prayer as he can, so she came to him with the message to pray for the lives of the people the tornado would affect. The two met at Free Bucks, the church-sponsored coffee shop on campus.

“I prayed until I had peace about it,” Shue said.

Shue said he believes Cesya Sandoval’s dream was indeed a vision from God. Similar visions have come to him, he said, including a vision of the city immersed in poverty and destruction.

“I’ve seen a lot of pain and sorrow that is coming to America — soon,” Shue said.

Mario Elizondo, a pastor at Centro Cristiano La Voz-Dios, said this storm is the first of many bad occurrences that will happen in the near future. He said after they learned of the dream, the church dedicated every Wednesday to praying for the cause, but that people need to continue to pray and commit to God.

“We need to pray a lot so God will help us,” Elizondo said. “He is the only one that can help.”

With tears in her eyes, Dalila Sandoval said this storm is a warning for worse things to come. She said people need to learn to listen to the signs that God is giving them.

“He talks to all of us but we have to learn to listen,” Dalila Sandoval said.

A few things on this.

1) I am having far too much fun in the comment section.
2) This should never have been published, not in a university paper
3) The journalistic practices are such that it looks like the author just went christ-rogue and decided that it was better to try for conversions that follow proper journalistic ethics.

4) That poor little girl who had a nightmare and suddenly got the burden of being a prophetess thrust upon her. No child should be used like that. Ever.

[Losonti Tokash]

Did you seriously respond to being called "Captain Virgin" by saying "Nuh uh I've totally had sex"?

[Alyrium Denryle]

Did you seriously respond to being called "Captain Virgin" by saying "Nuh uh I've totally had sex"?

Gee, when you put it like that.