Wednesday, May 7, 1997

Season to talk about tornado sirens

By Jeff Wolf/Abilene Reporter-News

City Manager Lanny Lambert dropped by the other day with tornados on his mind.

It's that time of year when tornados are most likely to hit, and every spring, somebody resurrects the subject of our long-lost warning sirens and laments that we ought to resurrect them.

Back in the days when we feared such things, those old sirens were installed as warning systems for a nuclear attack, not bad weather. When we tried to switch them to alert us of tornados instead of Soviet bombs, they never quite worked right. They went off helter-skelter, and you had to go outside to see if you could spy any reason for their bleating - exactly the wrong action to take if there ever had been a tornado.

At any rate, the city is not thinking about reactivating that pitifully outdated and inadequate system, thank goodness. But it is considering installing a newer, high-tech set-up that's supposed to be somewhat more accurate in responding to fearsome weather. Then when you dash outside to see why the sirens are going off, you'd have a better chance of running into a real twister.

Personally, if my house is about to be demolished by a tornado, I'd just as soon not spend the last 15 seconds of my life in sheer terror, but I know a lot of other people feel differently. That's why I'm passing along the information Lambert provided me from Eddie Chrane, the city's emergency management coordinator. Chrane compiled these tips from guides published by the U.S. Department of Commerce, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Weather Service.

Peak tornado season in Texas is from April-June. From 1961-1990, an average of 137 tornados were reported in Texas each year. Tornados are most likely to occur between 3-9 p.m., but have been known to occur any time.

There's a myth that areas near rivers, lakes and mountains are safe from tornados. Not true. No place is safe. There's another myth that windows should be opened before a tornado approaches to equalize pressure and minimize damage. That's also not true. Opening windows only allows damaging winds to enter. Leave the windows alone and get away from them.

Another myth says the low pressure with a tornado causes buildings to "explode" as the tornado passes overhead. That's not true, either. Violent winds and debris slamming into buildings causes most structural damage.

The vast majority of tornados - 69 percent of them - are weak and last less than 10 minutes with winds below 110 mph. At the other end of the tornado scale, only 2 percent are classified as violent. These, which are responsible for 70 percent of all tornado deaths, can last more than an hour and have winds of more than 205 mph.

The best way to stay informed about a storm is to purchase your own NOAA weather radio, which will give you warnings and direct broadcasts from the National Weather Service Office. Aside from that, your next best options are local television and radio stations and, if you have cable TV, the Weather Channel.

If a tornado warning - not just a watch, but a warning - is issued or if threatening weather approaches:

-- Move to a predesigned shelter, such as a basement.

-- If an underground shelter is not available, move to an interior hallway on the lowest floor and get under a sturdy piece of furniture.

-- Stay away from windows.

-- Do not try to outrun a tornado in your car. Instead, get out of the automobile immediately.

-- If caught outside, lie flat in a ditch or depression.

-- Mobile homes, even if tied down, offer little protection from tornados and should be abandoned.

For more information, call the Emergency Management office at 676-6683 or 676-6689.

I know sirens would make some people feel safe from tornados, but I'm still skeptical that even a more sophisticated siren system will actually make us safer enough to justify the expense. It's not in the nature of tornados to gradually build up, as thunderstorms do, in a way that allows much time to get prepared. Tornados zap down suddenly, wreak havoc for a few wild minutes and then vanish. By the time you get warned, you've been creamed.

Now, if we could build a retractable tornado shield over the city, sort of like the roof at Texas Stadium ...