North Balti Zen

Re: big box stores, there were seven bodies found under a cement slab at the Home Depot that was hit. Read that in one of the stories, I think on msnbc, in the same story that noted they managed to find one person alive in that store's rubble.

yeah. Just amazing. And a nice reminder for non-mets and non-weather geeks that a storm with a funnel cloud properly warned has to be taken seriously. Not sure from some of the discussion in this thread what more people want. This was a warned storm, and while there wasn't time to add "large and dangerous tornado on ground" to the warning, there was still a warning that a cell capable of producing a tornado was on the way. That's enough, if people were near a TV or radio to hear that bit of information, to seek some sort of shelter. If folks wait to hear "tornado emergency" before acting, that is too late (and always has been) in my opinion. I grew up in Ohio in the 70s not far from Xenia, and was always pretty clear that if a storm was bearing down on your area that was funnel cloud warned, you took shelter, whether a tornado was reported on ground or not.

Sounds like, anecdotally, this one caught a lot of folks there off guard. Makes sense, Sunday night, people maybe less likely to be near a TV or the internet, family stuff going on, just not clued in to the approaching danger. Sounded like that from at least a few of the interviews I caught this morning while flipping around the dial. Saw one mention that this cell kind of "blew up" from not much to that over a short time period. If so, maybe that added to the surprise factor. Have not had a chance to go back and look at the maps of it as it developed yet and god knows how reliable the reports are on the major news stations, but that was some of the soundbites I caught.

Just glancing at headlines on msnbc and they are noting the current death toll at 89. Which is, obviously, horrifying. Not a religious person, but will hold a thought for JoMo and all others there.

The pictures coming out of Cullman, Alabama are stomach-churning. More of a population there in that small city than I thought, just under 14,000 people.

This. Even with warnings, and even if people heeded them, if there was no basement to go to, and if that was an EF-5 storm, there's only so much protection you are going to get in an interior room.