Tornado!! :eek:

Nirvana • May 23, 2011 3:19 pm
Yesterday afternoon my hub and I were feeding cows, he was driving the loader tractor, trees falling down behind him. I was walking Barney the foster calf back to his pen. I saw the rotation coming right for us. All I could think was we might be going for a ride Barney! :eek: My heart was pounding and then I got very calm.The "rotating cloud" lifted up off the ground higher and went over us.

The rain came pounding. After it slowed we went to count the cows and calves in the pasture. One had been picked up or blown into the acre pond we have. She was 4 days old and didn't have a chance, she drowned. :( We have lived here over 25 years and never had an animal drown in the pond.


Poor Suede the cattle dog it must have picked him up and dropped him too. He was sore today and will barely come out of his house. I checked him over when I finally found him last nite, he seemed all right except he acted extremely stressed.


One of the trees that was blown over in the pasture was a huge wild Cherry tree. Wilted Wild Cherry leaves are poisonous to cattle. We had to break out the chain saws and pull the leafy branches to the other side of the electric fencing plus pick up as much of the leaves as we could. We started feeding at 5:30pm by 6:15 this tornado hit, [the national weather service is calling it a "gustnado" but I saw it f that!] we got in the house at 10:30pm.

There are very few houses out here but it did take the neighbor's garage roof off.

The junction box for the phone lines in the area was hit by lightning no phones until now. Scary shit! Nothing like what happened in Joplin but I don't ever want to see that coming at us anytime soon! The only thing you can do is bend over and kiss your ass goodbye!

Those poor people in Joplin MO :( This was stressful enough!
Clodfobble • May 23, 2011 3:21 pm
Holy crap, Nirvana! I'm glad you're okay.
monster • May 23, 2011 3:31 pm
:bolt: :eek:

there is no swirly-whirly tonado smiley.

glad you're ok, sorry about your calf and dog.
BigV • May 23, 2011 3:32 pm
I'll get the rapture joke out of the way--are you sure the calf wasn't just the only innocent one suitable for being taken up?

Ok.

Nirvana, I'm so glad you're ok. No tornado rides for you! I've seen first hand the devastation heavy weather like this can wreak. You're very lucky. Very lucky.
glatt • May 23, 2011 3:39 pm
I'm glad you are OK Nirvana. That's really scary.
HungLikeJesus • May 23, 2011 3:40 pm
I think my next house will be a cave.
Nirvana • May 23, 2011 4:04 pm
The calf was only 4 days old! The most innocent! :(

It never went near my house, there would have been lots of flying dogs! If a tornado can suck you out of the basement what is a safe place?
Pete Zicato • May 23, 2011 4:31 pm
Glad you guys are ok. What do you do with the dead calf? (city boy)

Be sure to split and dry that cherry wood. Great for BBQ. (Might as well get some use out of it). I pay good money for cherry chunks.
Nirvana • May 23, 2011 4:50 pm
Cherry wood back up your pickup its yours :D

We have a front loading tractor and 40 acres, we buried her.
Pete Zicato • May 23, 2011 4:53 pm
Nirvana;736017 wrote:
Cherry wood back up your pickup its yours :D

Tempting. But unless you're close to Chicagoland, it probably wouldn't be worth it. I bet there are bbq-ers in the area that would take it off your hands.
Nirvana • May 23, 2011 4:58 pm
There are plenty of outdoor meth labs. :right: Someone will ask about it :eek:

I am roughly 80 miles from you, probably gas cost prohibitive :)
footfootfoot • May 23, 2011 5:03 pm
holy mackerel Nirvana. That is sad and impressive about the cow. Poor dog, too.

Extra bacon rations for all the dogs I say!
kerosene • May 23, 2011 5:39 pm
Crazy, Nirvana! I think I would freak out in that situation. I cower in fear when I see a dark cloud nearby and my house has no basement!
Nirvana • May 23, 2011 5:46 pm
We have no basement. Nearest ditch is 1/2 mile. Its amazing how calm you get when you think your ass is grass! [ endorphins?] It was almost like watching the beginning of the Wizard of Oz in slo mo
Nirvana • May 23, 2011 6:21 pm
Just heard on the news what we had here was an EF1 whatever that means
HungLikeJesus • May 23, 2011 6:44 pm
Really? By your description it sounded more like an HS#2.
Nirvana • May 23, 2011 7:52 pm
When you see it coming right at you, OF comes to mind before HS ;)
footfootfoot • May 23, 2011 8:26 pm
kerosene;736033 wrote:
Crazy, Nirvana! I think I would freak out in that situation. I cower in fear when I see a dark cloud nearby and my house has no basement!

I see what you did thar.
wolf • May 23, 2011 8:37 pm
One's heading toward Allentown according to the emergency alert crawler.

Wonder if Billy Joel will have to do a new verse for the song.
Clodfobble • May 23, 2011 10:21 pm
Nirvana wrote:
Its amazing how calm you get when you think your ass is grass! [ endorphins?] It was almost like watching the beginning of the Wizard of Oz in slo mo


That's a good survival instinct. They've done studies revealing that people who are totally relaxed during car crashes (e.g., very drunk people) usually walk away with far less substantial injuries than people who are tense and scared shitless. If your muscles are tight, the force will tear them. Relaxed, and you'll just flop around until you stop.
Griff • May 24, 2011 6:37 am
Scarey freakin stuff, I'm glad you're okay.:eek:
infinite monkey • May 24, 2011 8:30 am
Yikes, 'vana! Me too glad you're OK. So sorry about the cow. :(

We had some more warnings last night. More this spring than I ever remember before. The last media-induced scare (well, the do exaggerate a bit) was funny in retrospect, because the sirens didn't go off in our town until well after the system had passed. I thought that was true, but since I live outside of town I thought maybe the alarm was drowned by rain and wind sounds. My friends in town said, no...about 15 minutes after it all had passed our alarms kicked in.

Nice. ;)
classicman • May 24, 2011 9:13 am
Holy Cow! Glad you are ok. Very scary stuff.

I saw one up close and in person - no thanks.

sorry bout the animals.
monster • May 24, 2011 10:31 am
How is the dog today, Nirvana?
BigV • May 24, 2011 12:55 pm
glatt and others--

some other thread discussed the uselessness of weather radios for alerts for dangerous weather/flood/etc. Here's something that I think will fill the bill for you. Coming soon: weather alerts to your cell phone.

The U.S. government and local authorities will soon be able to reach people directly on their cellphones to warn them of imminent danger or alert them about missing children — even in the middle of a widespread emergency that overloads communications systems as happened after the Sept. 11 attacks, officials said Tuesday.

The emergency alert system will be used only for critical national messages from the president, information in life-threatening situations and Amber Alerts meant to widen the search for missing or abducted youngsters, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced Tuesday. He was accompanied by Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski and Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Craig Fugate.

The system, set to launch by the end of the year in New York City and Washington, D.C., will spread to most if not all U.S. cellphones in the next few years as people replace their old phones with new devices containing a special chip that will enable them to receive the messages. They will receive the alerts free of charge.
glatt • May 24, 2011 1:13 pm
Sounds like a good idea, but I know how these things work. Soon, they will be texting us that using seat belts will save lives. Oh, and time to set the clocks back. Power corrupts.
monster • May 24, 2011 2:03 pm
There'd better be an optout.
BigV • May 24, 2011 3:02 pm
do you believe the current incarnation of the emergency broadcast system has been corrupted like you imagine the phone based one might be?

wrt optout==powerswitch.
monster • May 24, 2011 3:12 pm
BigV;736356 wrote:
wrt optout==powerswitch.


/=. I would still want to hear from my loved ones.
infinite monkey • May 24, 2011 3:34 pm
wrt==wtf?

WRT With Regard To
WRT With Respect To
WRT World Rally Team
WRT With Reference To
WRT Web Runtime (cell phone application)
WRT Wrought
WRT Walter Reade Theater
WRT Westchester Reform Temple
WRT Wallace Roberts & Todd
WRT Workforce Review Team (National Health Service body responsible for workforce planning in England)
WRT Water Restoration Technician (Institute of Inspection, Cleaning and Restoration Certification)
WRT Wealth Replacement Trust
WRT Workshop on Refactoring Tools
WRT Water Round Torpedo
WRT Wildlife Rehabilitation Today (magazine)
WRT Welcome Real Time (Aix-en-Provence, France)
WRT Windowed Radon Transform
WRT Wireless Receiver/Transmitter
WRT World Roofing Technologies (South Africa)
WRT Writer's Round Table
WRT Warrior River Terminal Company
WRT Wastewater Retention Tank
BigV • May 24, 2011 3:34 pm
actually, the story does indicate that some alerts are optoutable, but "presidential" (wtf?) alerts would still come through.
BigV • May 24, 2011 3:35 pm
wrt == with respect to
infinite monkey • May 24, 2011 3:36 pm
Why does it equal it twice?
Nirvana • May 24, 2011 3:37 pm
And so those of us who are "Amish" [no cell phone] would be SOL?
BigV • May 24, 2011 3:43 pm
infinite monkey;736370 wrote:
Why does it equal it twice?


I use it in this way:

In some programming languages such as PHP a double equals sign ("==") denotes equivalence, meaning that the variables may not be of the same data type, but their values can be reduced to the same value.
infinite monkey • May 24, 2011 3:58 pm
Ahhh...gotcha.
glatt • May 24, 2011 3:59 pm
BigV;736356 wrote:
do you believe the current incarnation of the emergency broadcast system has been corrupted like you imagine the phone based one might be?


No I suppose not, but the local emergency text alert system is used to announce flyovers and street closures as well as real emergencies. So most people who signed up for it initially after September 11th have now opted out.
monster • May 24, 2011 5:51 pm
infinite monkey;736377 wrote:
Ahhh...gotcha.


It's the modern day equivalent of a pocket protector.
BigV • May 24, 2011 6:19 pm
I'm flattered monster. Thanks. :)
morethanpretty • May 24, 2011 9:46 pm
Tornado supposed to hit my area in a few minutes. I'm hanging out in the bathroom for now.
Griff • May 24, 2011 9:50 pm
morethanpretty;736449 wrote:
Tornado supposed to hit my area in a few minutes. I'm hanging out in the bathroom for now.


Stay there kid!
classicman • May 24, 2011 9:52 pm
JFC!!!! Keep your head down! Post when you get out if you can!
morethanpretty • May 24, 2011 9:54 pm
Warning has been cancelled. Time to go look outside!
morethanpretty • May 24, 2011 10:01 pm
classicman;736455 wrote:
JFC!!!! Keep your head down! Post when you get out if you can!


I honestly don't feel like if my house gets hit directly that even in the bathroom, I'll be safe. So why spend my last moments bored or cowering in fear? Plus I need my comp to check the weather.
morethanpretty • May 24, 2011 10:03 pm
Wish I'd used my camera instead of my phone :(. Well here is a pic I got. Kinda caught some lighting. I love bad weather...I know I'm crazy.

Image
glatt • May 25, 2011 8:42 am
That one that went through Joplin, I doubt even being in the basement would help you.
BigV • May 25, 2011 11:58 am
Another spring day, another swarm of tornadoes.

I have people near OKC. They called this morning and they're ok. My Aunt told me that there was circulation in the area the entire time, but no touchdowns. They live just a few miles from El Reno where several people died. They said they had hail and rain and wind, and it was scary as hell.
infinite monkey • May 25, 2011 12:04 pm
TORNADOES: the new tsunami!
HungLikeJesus • May 25, 2011 12:33 pm
Tornadoes: the new rapture transport vehicles!
skysidhe • May 25, 2011 12:42 pm
funny :)
Spexxvet • May 25, 2011 3:02 pm
Tornadoes: For those missed by the flood
Griff • May 26, 2011 8:23 pm
Our turn tonight. Baseball sized hail down in Schuykill county. So far the tornado stuff has moved just West but we have quite a front bearing down on us.