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Moore, OK Tornado 5/20/2013


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Why were these kids in Moore not on buses headed straight south instead of just having them sit there and wait for it?  This is another one of those long-track tornados with loads of warning time and people just had schools full of kids just sit and wait on it.  I don't care what anyone says, this is about the dumbest idea I've ever heard.  I wouldn't care what the official "policy" was.

Would that be on buses heading into the afternoon gridlock where so many other vehicles were tossed? 

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It was crazy hearing the met from ch. 4 saying get in your car and drive away if you can't get under ground, you think about it that was the best option in this case. Just like someone said earlier, hind sight is 20/20; in this case I would have taken my chance of trying to get away after seeing the aftermath.

I still have mixed feelings on this. If you are one of "us" at least follow the weather and have a basic understanding of thunderstorms, motion and the basic road network around you then gtfo if you live on a slab with no shelter and this thing 15 minutes out. The general public though, you really just have a chance at having most of the public hitting the main road in town clogging it up and having hundred die in their cars. 

 

I mean sometimes it really is just about luck and taking cover. Imagine if most of Greensburg had hit the main road and driven right into the storm or clogged up main street, it would have been a disaster. I was at a conference and I was shocked and how lucky so many people were that hunkered down and had all four walls destroyed and somehow lived or had the entire house collapse and they were in the one spot that protected them. 

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Why were these kids in Moore not on buses headed straight south instead of just having them sit there and wait for it?  This is another one of those long-track tornados with loads of warning time and people just had schools full of kids just sit and wait on it.  I don't care what anyone says, this is about the dumbest idea I've ever heard.  I wouldn't care what the official "policy" was.

 

So even if they had managed to get an entire school full of kids on buses and accounted for in 20 minutes, and even if they avoided all traffic and were not hit by the tornado itself, what do you propose the school do with a dozen buses full of kids now, with all of the roads into Moore closed?

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Why were these kids in Moore not on buses headed straight south instead of just having them sit there and wait for it? This is another one of those long-track tornados with loads of warning time and people just had schools full of kids just sit and wait on it. I don't care what anyone says, this is about the dumbest idea I've ever heard. I wouldn't care what the official "policy" was.

SiP is much better idea than shoving them on buses... and the schools are much safer and better built than buses. Plus, tornadoes are notorius for changing tracks quickly. What if the tornado moved toward the buses? Then people would be clamoring why didn't the kids remain in school?

We had to do that up here back a few years ago in June... dismissal was 245 and storms were to hit at 3 with 80mph+ winds and poss tornado... we got off three buses and held the rest... 2 of the 3 came back when it was radioed to them that dangerous weather was approaching and they just made it back in time as the storm hit... the other bus made it to the Mixing Bowl and we were told later that the bus was buffeted back and forth by the strong winds while parked on the side of the road...

Its much safer at the school

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Why were these kids in Moore not on buses headed straight south instead of just having them sit there and wait for it?  This is another one of those long-track tornados with loads of warning time and people just had schools full of kids just sit and wait on it.  I don't care what anyone says, this is about the dumbest idea I've ever heard.  I wouldn't care what the official "policy" was.

If you had watched the live coverage the shot had an avenue (I think it was Santa Fe) but literally bumper to bumper traffic and they were saying on air they need to get those people out of there. We'll see how many people were killed on there but the tornado crossed right over the congestion. I mean in your situation you scream get the kids in the bus and drive south. What if they get on the road and its bumper to bumper and you just took 40 kids out into a bus instead of being in the middle of a cinder block building 

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I know Mike Morgan is not alone in his thoughts.  I tend to be a bigger fan of the old scale because it seems to more accurately reflect what it takes to destroy various structures...but again I'm no scientist and supposedly the EF scale is the "better" scale.

 

That's kinda the point of the new scale. That the old scale overestimated the amount of wind it takes to do certain amounts of damage, and the EF scale is supposed to be a more accurate representation of what kinds of winds lead to what kinds of damage. Backed up with plenty of evidence.

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thanks Irish... no I'm looking for the Vis Sat images over OK, showed huge supercells as they blossomed...

 

Baro posted it earlier but it's time sensitive (http://rammb.cira.colostate.edu/templates/loop_directory.asp?data_folder=dev/lindsey/loops/goes15_vis_srso_s2&image_width=1020&image_height=720&number_of_images_to_display=50) so no longer shows the supercells developing

 

 

is that what you're looking for?

y6e7e8y2.jpg

 

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If you had watched the live coverage the shot had an avenue (I think it was Santa Fe) but literally bumper to bumper traffic and they were saying on air they need to get those people out of there. We'll see how many people were killed on there but the tornado crossed right over the congestion.

Videos from the cellphones of survivors of the traffic jam are going to be something to see, when they come out.

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That's kinda the point of the new scale. That the old scale overestimated the amount of wind it takes to do certain amounts of damage, and the EF scale is supposed to be a more accurate representation of what kinds of winds lead to what kinds of damage. Backed up with plenty of evidence.

 

Another factor in these tornados that hit major population centers is that they fill up with large debris and while a brick house might be able to withstand X amount of wind for a certain period of time you start mixing cars and trucks and god knows what else into the wind and I cant imagine many walls are gonna stand up to that for long regardless of how well it is built.

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Sobering interview from a cleary distraught parent who said a car was thrown into the front office area of Plaza Towers and apparently was either near or on top of a teacher who had covered 3 students beneath her... did not specify if the teacher or 3 kids survived... but the parent was praising th teacher through his tears

Saw it on NBC4 news up here around 11:03

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Would that be on buses heading into the afternoon gridlock where so many other vehicles were tossed? 

 

So, I can assume if it was headed toward your house, you'd just sit at your pad and chill while waiting for the wind to pick up?

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Did no one see the possibility of this happening today, especially after the tornadoes yesterday? I would hope they would have kept the kids at home from school if they did. Have to wonder if someone dropped the ball on this.

 

The potential for a violent tornado was there, but the same can be said of many days. To use one benchmark, the SPC tornado risk was 10% hatched. If our schools closed for every instance of that outlook, we'd have to build two extra weeks into the year. Whether keeping kids home is even safer is another issue that I'm not going to get into right now.

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Did no one see the possibility of this happening today, especially after the tornadoes yesterday? I would hope they would have kept the kids at home from school if they did. Have to wonder if someone dropped the ball on this.

If schools in OK, TX, etc closed every time there was a threat of tornadic activity, the school year would go all year.
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I still have mixed feelings on this. If you are one of "us" at least follow the weather and have a basic understanding of thunderstorms, motion and the basic road network around you then gtfo if you live on a slab with no shelter and this thing 15 minutes out. The general public though, you really just have a chance at having most of the public hitting the main road in town clogging it up and having hundred die in their cars. 

 

I mean sometimes it really is just about luck and taking cover. Imagine if most of Greensburg had hit the main road and driven right into the storm or clogged up main street, it would have been a disaster. I was at a conference and I was shocked and how lucky so many people were that hunkered down and had all four walls destroyed and somehow lived or had the entire house collapse and they were in the one spot that protected them. 

Seeing the traffic jam demolished by the tornado would rule that option out in my book, if I lived in any kind of populated area. Just too much risk there. The whole problem is that in a situation like this, you don't have the benefit of hindsight and have to make a decision with maybe moments to spare. There really are no clear choices when you don't have a reinforced basement to go into. There do seem to have been survivors who hunkered down in a closet or bathtub. It really seemed to have been just luck-there was one account of a bookcase being slammed through a house and just happened to have rested on top of a guy who hid in a bathtub, likely saving his life as the rest of the house collapsed around him. Something I couldn't imagine ever happening to me.

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