mempho

Well, I told my boss this afternoon and he got on the phone with one of our largest clients and we got people out of town and I think they are still alive. I told my boss to take a hard look at the live footage pouring in and he looked at it and knew there was very little chance of survival by staying there. We were looking at the live coverage and the radar presentation. He was on the phone and those people were not in the path when it came through and won't be counted in the death toll. I didn't here anyone broadcasting that, though. That's the only advice I was comfortable giving at the time. We were pulling up google maps for navigation. I think that was just the right thing to do today.

I understand what you're saying. I do. I'm not trying to nitpick. I can tell you that I would not be found anywhere near the north side of Birmingham today if I had lived/worked in that area. I would've found a way out. There just has to be something better. I mean, we can pretty well narrow down the potential path of a tornado down to the individual homes with several minutes to go on one of these. Our technology is great. We had the path narrowed down in Birmingham within a few miles with 40 minutes of lead time today. Yet, we're telling people to just sit there? It doesn't seem right and I understand the logistical problems but I think people deserve to know that there is a very good chance if that they will be dead in 20 minutes if they just sit there. I just believe that they deserve a chance to figure out how to get to safety. People are uncanny at surviving. I think lives would've been saved if they just said "get out of this path any way you can." I have no doubt most people would've figured out some way to do just that.

Just telling you that there's not any cultural indifference or anything. Most of the people I know are scared to death when one of these things is close by. Everyone I know finds out where the polygon is when the warning comes out. They all take shelter when it's prudent. It's just the way it is here that we don't have anywhere to go and, in some storms, the only safe thing is attempting to leave. People are pretty smart in this area of the country. They know about hook echos, rotation, etc. We are probably subjected to 20 hours or so of tornado education via wall-to-wall primetime coverage every year via our local news people. Seriously, though, people don't really understand that some of these just kill everyone in their path. I don't know what you exactly do about the situation, but it doesn't feel right to just tell people to "stay put and get in the bathroom" while they're in the path of such a tornado. I don't think that's saving as many people as you can. I don't know what the solution is but there has to be something better than me sitting at a computer and thinking about all those people between Tuscaloosa and Birmingham that are just huddled in a bathroom and awaiting their death. It doesn't seem right to me. That thing was a monster and we're going to let people just sit in front of it when we have a very good idea of where it's going and it is very apparent that we have a long-track on our hands. There are a lot of people who did what they were told and waited on it to hit them and now they're dead. I don't know how to work the solution just yet, but it's food for thought.

The warning system is not designed to help people in tornadoes as strong as we witnessed today. The advice is go to the basement (we don't have basements in the southeast b/c of the water table) or go to an interior room on the lowest floor. That's great advice for most situations. It's terrible advice for a long-track EF-4 or EF-5. The vast majority of the people took the "standard advice" and those in the path died. People are not standing outside and ignoring these things. Almost everyone I know pays close attention. The old advice..."get in your car and get the heck outta the way"....it contradicts the new advice that has been well engrained. Go back and look at some of the footage today. Today, the best advice was the old advice. Get in the car and take your chances. It's easy in the Midwest...I've lived there. Everyone has basements and storm cellars. What sort of irks me a little bit is that we have so, so many people who trust the authorities and follow the standard advice against their own gut feeling and that standard advice is just horrible if you're in the path of a storm that will clean the foundation of the home. Someone said it earlier...the modern warning system saves many lives in the smaller tornadoes but it is costing lives in these big ones. People think they'll be OK in their bathtub on the first floor of their home when they're in the path of an EF-5. Personally, I think you should run like hell if you don't have an underground shelter. Run and don't look back. There's nowhere you can reasonably be safe in "riding out" tornadoes like this. If you look at most of the damage photos, you're going to see that the places where most people were killed were places that have no business being used as shelter from a powerful, long-track wedge tornado. The conventional wisdom is usually right but it is occasionally horribly, horribly wrong. It bothers me to see educated mets go on TV and repeat the mantra to stay in an interior room of their wood-frame home while looking at something that powerful. It's time to panic. It's time to run like hell. People did what they were told and huddled in their homes and died when they could've literally run to relative safety. They had time, but doing what they were told cost them their lives.

That's what I'm saying. If you have a long-track heading towards you and you have both the time and a clear path out of harm's way, you should definitely take it if you know what you're doing. I remember reading the 1974 superoutbreak transcripts and read about the Guin tornado which tracked all the way to HSV where it hit the airport. The transcript from BMX reads something like HSV WFO ABANDONED or something like that when BMX took operational control for the HSV CWA. It is stupid to just sit there if you can clearly get out. If I had been in Tuscaloosa today, there's probably not much I could have done since it's formation was so close, but if I'd been in Birmingham and I had a clear path out (checking traffic cams), I'm definately leaving. If worse comes to worse and I get unexpectedly stuck, I would leave myself enough time to be able to pick a building to shelter in and I guarantee the building I pick is going to be better than the wood-frame house I just left.

Evacuate!

It is difficult to survive a direct hit from an EF4 or EF5 even with a warning. When you have these storms rolling through densely populated areas like they did today, there's nowhere to go. There are very few basements in the southeast due to the water table. You get in an interior room and try to protect yourself from a roof collapse but your wood-frame building is going to get blown to smithereens. The only warning good enough to avoid this is one that comes early enough for evacuation. Personally, if I had been in the path in Birmingham and seen what happened in Tuscaloosa, I would have checked the traffic cams for congestion and gotten out of town. There's no way I'm going to try riding out an EF-4 or EF-5 in a wood-frame house if I had 40 minutes to evacuate. There are a lot more things that could be done with regard to these monster long-track tornadoes to avoid loss of life. I think the advice to stay in your bathtub and wait for an EF-5 to hit you is just insane. I use the bathroom for smaller events and quick spin-ups but that is not usually the case in these massive events.

This is scary.

That....puts some perspective on this. Brings me close to tears.

Wow...I just really realized what kind of dire situation this is in Tuscaloosa.

Thanks for the tip...exactly what I was looking for. Looks like it's at least in the process of passing.

Does anyone know the exact location of the front itself?

This is definitely what we've been seeing here and throughout our portion of the High Risk zone today. There has simply been too much convection for us to have a lot of tornadoes. We've had plenty of warnings, but the most prolific production in our CWA has been south and east of the high risk zone. I'm starting to think tomorrow's highest risk might be well south of where everyone thinks it will be and might be like south and central parts of AL and MS because there will be less interference with the convection that does develop.

It's just really hard for me to believe that this is going to pan out like this. I have a difficult time believing this, but that's what the guidance keeps showing.

This is a reasonable assessment and is very much in concurrence with my thoughts on it for tommorrow. It is highly unlikely yet it is eerily similar. I wouldn't exactly laugh at a 1974 comparison as my first thought when looking at guidance for Day 2 was "1974" but everyone needs to remember that nothing can be compared to 1974 until it's actually occurred. It's very rare..somewhere along the lines of predicting a hurricane season that will rival/surpass 2005. So, it's just not something we can ever expect to happen, but the similarities are there and are difficult for almost any wx aficionado to ignore.