Oklahoma devastation

[Jazzscot]

I know lots of people have died today from this disaster and that it is a terrible tragedy.

However I watched this and I must admit it brought a wee tear to my eye.

http://news.sky.com/story/1093711/torna ... -interview

[Miztaziggy]

Excellent. That brought a smile to my face. I have pets and I know how much they mean to their owners. Really happy for that woman.

[callam_nffc]

yes that is a great bit of footage

Sounds daft I know, but some while ago my dog was on deaths door due to eating a peach stone and i was heart broken thinking he was going to die, its strange how attached we can get to our pets

I heard on the news of how a school hall roof collapsed and crushed 24 children, in the process breaking the plumbing and its thought they all drowned, absolutely devastating for all those involved and my thoughts go out to them at tragic time

[darkember]

That is wonderful & very moving, thanks for sharing

[seb421]

I know lots of people have died today from this disaster and that it is a terrible tragedy.

However I watched this and I must admit it brought a wee tear to my eye.

http://news.sky.com/story/1093711/torna ... -interview

Don't take this the wrong way as i often type things and they don't come out how i would like them too but i get angry when i see sh1t about america

Yes its a tragedy what's happened but i do think it would have been drastically reduced if they had been better prepared

devastation, fires, earthquakes, tornadoes, lightning, etc etc all the time on the news

And they still build houses out of wood and subpar materials with big overhanging porches and stuff like that

if you have an environment where sh1t hits the fan you would build appropriate houses that are large but round so they are not twatted with a domed roof, and steel frames and brick etc

Take a motorbike its covered in the thinnest of plastics yet they can stand smashing through winds at 200 mph as they are slippery and smooth

Why don't they start to build properly in the various states that get horrendous storms, tornados, fires etc etc


All i could see in those pictures was wood over over the bloody place when i was on daily mail web site the other day

Please don't shoot me down i'm not saying its not horrible what's happened just that in my opinion logic would say whoaaaa lets review how we re build these homes in future!

[Virt]

Don't take this the wrong way as i often type things and they don't come out how i would like them too but i get angry when i see sh1t about america

Yes its a tragedy what's happened but i do think it would have been drastically reduced if they had been better prepared

devastation, fires, earthquakes, tornadoes, lightning, etc etc all the time on the news

And they still build houses out of wood and subpar materials with big overhanging porches and stuff like that

if you have an environment where sh1t hits the fan you would build appropriate houses that are large but round so they are not twatted with a domed roof, and steel frames and brick etc

Take a motorbike its covered in the thinnest of plastics yet they can stand smashing through winds at 200 mph as they are slippery and smooth

Why don't they start to build properly in the various states that get horrendous storms, tornados, fires etc etc


All i could see in those pictures was wood over over the bloody place when i was on daily mail web site the other day

Please don't shoot me down i'm not saying its not horrible what's happened just that in my opinion logic would say whoaaaa lets review how we re build these homes in future!

I'm in agreement with you here.. Yes, any loss of human life is unfortunate and having people go through such tragic times is hardly fortunate either...

Let's not forget New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina as another example, the city rests below sea level and is near where Hurricanes tend to form.. And after it got destroyed they started rebuilding it again, why? It's an occupational hazard that they won't win against, nature is stronger than ill-prepared humans in most circumstances, if not all...

I know that it's quite common in some areas of America to convert a basement or something into a safe room in case of such events, by having steel plates on the inside of the brick (a plank of wood launched at 180mph + will go through a brick wall.. but not steel) but they have to do this with their own money in their own time. It's not a standard feature to be included when houses or any other type of building is erected in the first place...

[Rob]

A storm of that intensity would probably destroy a brick house as well.

So may as well go for the cheapest construction for when you have to rebuild.

The sensible ones do have underground storm shelters/basements though, which is what most of the rescue was aimed at - moving all the crap out the way and letting them out. When working out there I stayed at a guy's house for a night (due to a hotel booking problem) who had made his storm shelter (underground) quite big and it was a games room/gym/bar. I would have been happy stuck down there for a couple of days

Really, for the amount of destruction the loss of life was quite small.

The tornado was classed EF4.

Code: Select all

EF4 (T8-T9) damage typically results in a total loss of the affected structure. Well-built homes are reduced to a short pile of medium-sized debris on the foundation. Large, heavy vehicles, including airplanes, trains, and large trucks, can be pushed over, flipped repeatedly or picked up and moved short distances. Large, healthy trees are entirely debarked and snapped off close to the ground or uprooted altogether and turned into flying projectiles. Passenger cars and similarly sized objects can be picked up and flung for considerable distances. EF4 damage can be expected to level even the most robustly built homes, making the common practice of sheltering in an interior room on the ground floor of a residence insufficient to ensure survival. A storm shelter, reinforced basement or other subterranean shelter is considered necessary to provide any reasonable expectation of safety against EF4 damage.

[callam_nffc]

I heard that most of the houses in the area do have "storm basements" but this tornado came from the middle of nowhere and gave people very little time to "baton down the hatches"

[Rob]

Do not underestimate the power of a storm like that. We have incredibly mild weather here. I've seen amazing and frightening storms in Asia that are still nothing compared to that type of Tornado.

An image from Oklahoma. I wouldn't have liked to have been in that brick building behind

[callam_nffc]

Yesterdays was apparently "only" around 200mph wind speed, they sometimes get up to 300mph!

Brings new meaning to "having a wind behind you" to make your top speed quicker lol

[seb421]

Do not underestimate the power of a storm like that. We have incredibly mild weather here. I've seen amazing and frightening storms in Asia that are still nothing compared to that type of Tornado.

An image from Oklahoma. I wouldn't have liked to have been in that brick building behind

yeh but if the built them in a circle with a dome roof would be a lot better, steel frame and all

look at lighthouses they put up with extremes and its rare one of them goes down

[Rob]

Personally I would rather have a wood house and an underground storm shelter than the illusion of safety in a brick structure.

[VTRDark]

We have incredibly mild weather here.

But interestingly enough we have more tornadoes than them. It's just that they are a hell of a lot smaller and we don't notice them. The reason they get so big in the states and turn into full on twisters is because of the open planes. With the Cold front coming down from Canada and the Hot front coming up from Mexicao they clash and then you have the open planes in the States caught in the middle. I suppose the Tornadoes could be compared to a Tsunami in the sense of a wave starts of small but as it travels it grows bigger and bigger. Tornadoes of those sort of scales will take out anything in it's path.

http://www.newscientist.com/blog/enviro ... alley.html

(:-})

[Jazzscot]

Do not underestimate the power of a storm like that. We have incredibly mild weather here. I've seen amazing and frightening storms in Asia that are still nothing compared to that type of Tornado.

An image from Oklahoma. I wouldn't have liked to have been in that brick building behind

Don't take this the wrong way folks but that picture has a lot of irony in it.

The woman to the right looks like the lion from the wizard of Oz.

I'll get my coat!

[Rob]

Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas any more.