TonyVanDam said:

Timmy84 said:

Put it to you like this, if I still had to decide between a SNOWSTORM and a TORNADO, best believe the snow is looking good to me.

But what if the snow is stack so high that you can NOT get out of your own car OR your own house/apartment?!?

Now granted, a tornado is worse than a snowstorm. But dealing with snow & ice on the road isn't a freaking cakewalk neither. Believe me!

Tony...most of the time, snow barely covers the sidewalks. When we DO get major snowstorms (which isn't all the time) then we are LUCKY if we get 1 day off of work/school. We are very prepared with snowplows, salt-spreaders, etc. to get traffic moving again ASAP. And most homeowners nowadays have snowblowers and we stock up on salt beforehand (even CVS sells it before big storms!).

So yeah it's an inconvenience, but usually it's nothing major. Last December when we got hit with like 2 or 3 storms in a row, it finally turned into a MAJOR inconvenience (so much so that Mayor Bloomberg got lambasted for the messy city streets) but there was nothing in the way of damage and destruction like these recent tornados.

728huey said:

vainandy said:

Y'all didn't have tornado drills in school? We used to have several of them every year....as well as real ones.

People always say the safest place to be is in a basement. However, here in the South which is tornado alley, nobody has basements, which is kinda ass backwards if you ask me. But then again, the South has always been ass backwards. Hospitals have basements though and a lot of the office buildings in the downtown areas.

Since we don't have basements, the place to be is in a central location of the house with no windows such as a hallway or a small bathroom with no windows. Then you are supposed to get on the floor and crouch down with your hands above your head. A lot of people bring their mattresses out into the hallway and get underneath them. If you have more than one level, you should go to the ground level.

I'm not an anthropologist or a real estate developer, but I think one of the main reasons a lot of residential buildings in the South don't have basements is because most of them are built on what used to be swamps and marshland, and they would be prone to flooding due to drainiage issues. Not only would they have the usual high amount of heavy thunderstorms due to storm fronts and Gulf moisture, but they are subject to tropical storms/hurricanes too. I'm sure that if a lot of areas in the South had a deep tunnel drainage project like they do in Chicago, they would build more houses with basement foundations. I know that in the Great Plains states, they not only have basements, but they usually have a separate storm cellar built on larger lot properties that works a lot like the old nuclear fallout shelters that were built in the 1950's.

Ideally, when a tornado is about to strike, the best place to be is a storm cellar or basement, but if your house doesn't have one or you're in an apartment dwelling, the best place to be is a small interior room in the middle of your house away from windows and outside exit doors (the smaller the room the better).

[Edited 4/27/11 17:50pm]

True for maybe the other gulf states but the main reason there are no basements in Texas is different. The only place in Texas that you may see a basement is up in the panhandle and that is still going to be rare. Some houses have "walk out basements". This simply means the house was built on a small hill and the backside of the lot is lower than the front. But those are still few and far between more so in the Hill Country (Austin) than anywhere else.

As for not having them, in Dallas, NO WAY!!! The soil in the majority of the North Central Texas region is mostly clay. Clay shrinks and swells way too much with the varying weather/temp conditions. It also is very prone to cracks. In the few areas that do not have clay is white rock. This chalky rock, sometimes there are veins of a harder white rock (hence White Rock Lake in Dallas and the White Rock Creek) that run thru the area are not ideal to dig into. It is done for pools and such but not good for basements.

In East Texas you will find more sandy soil. And in West Texas you will run across more desert. Neither of these are "ideal" for basements.

We're a whole udder country down here.

[Edited 4/29/11 10:43am]

vainandy said:

SCNDLS said:

You can do that in the daytime too.

Maybe you can, but I can't. These damn men are with their women in the daytime. But after midnight when those women go to sleep, that's when those men sneak out and get with us. Why do you think gay clubs don't even open till damn near midnight? Straight clubs will open as soon as the sun goes down and around one or two o'clock in the morning, they're closing up. Hell, that's when we're just getting started.

Why are you so crazy????

[Edited 4/29/11 10:58am]

vainandy said:

SCNDLS said:

You can do that in the daytime too.

Maybe you can, but I can't. These damn men are with their women in the daytime. But after midnight when those women go to sleep, that's when those men sneak out and get with us. Why do you think gay clubs don't even open till damn near midnight? Straight clubs will open as soon as the sun goes down and around one or two o'clock in the morning, they're closing up. Hell, that's when we're just getting started.

This muhhfucka herre . . .

http://news.yahoo.com/s/a...re_weather

Storm deaths hit 318; Obama sees damage up close

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Survivors of the deadliest tornado outbreak since the Great Depression struggled to begin rebuilding their lives in the wind-wrecked landscape Friday, enduring blackouts and waiting in long lines for gas as their remaining possessions lay hidden in the rubble. President Barack Obama came to devastated Alabama to console victims whose emergency services are so badly strained that at least one town was begging for body bags.

As Obama stepped off a plane at the airport in hard-hit Tuscaloosa, rescuers and survivors combed the remains of neighborhoods pulverized by Wednesday's outbreak that killed at least 318 across seven states. In one of its first official assessments of the tornadoes' strength, the National Weather Service gave the worst possible rating to one that raked Mississippi and said it was the strongest to hit the state since 1966.

With the confirmation of more deaths by state officials, Wednesday's outbreak surpassed a deadly series of tornadoes in 1974 to become the deadliest day for twisters since 332 people died in March 1932. The storm eight decades ago was also in Alabama.

The president's arrival drew a muted response from Tuscaloosa resident Derek Harris, who was pushing a grocery buggy down a street where virtually every home was heavily damaged. The 47-year-old and his wife hoped to use the cart to salvage a few belongings from his home.

"Hopefully he'll give us some money to start over," Harris said of Obama. "Is FEMA here? The only place I'm hearing anything is at the Red Cross center."

Some were more upbeat about the president's visit, including 21-year-old Turner Woods, who watched Obama's motorcade pass on its way to tour damaged areas. "It's just really special having the president come here," she said. "It will bring more attention to this disaster and help get more help here."

After witnessing the damage in storm-wracked neighborhoods, Obama promised help and remarked that he's "never seen devastation like this." Entire neighborhoods were obliterated in the city of more than 83,000 that's home to the University of Alabama.

"When we're confronted by the awesome power of nature and reminded that all we have is each other," said the president after spending time talking to the state's governor and Tuscaloosa's mayor.

The storms destroyed the city's emergency management center, so the University of Alabama's Bryant-Denny Stadium was turned into a makeshift one. Though there wasn't significant damage to campus, finals were canceled and commencement was postponed.

The situation was dire about 90 miles to the north in the demolished town of Hackleburg, Ala., where officials were keeping the dead in a refrigerated truck amid a body bag shortage. At least 27 were killed there, and the search for missing people continues.

The only grocery store, the fire and police departments and the school are destroyed. There's no power, communications, water or other services. Fire Chief Steve Hood said flashlights for the town's 1,500 residents are needed because he doesn't want them to use candles that could start fires.

"We don't have water to put out any fires," he said.

About three hours to the west, parts of Rainsville were also flattened. At Rainsville Funeral Home, Lisa Chandler and her husband have been working 6 a.m. to midnight to arrange services and prepare bodies.

The work is tough because they know most of the victims. But the couple keeps at it — they have five visitations planned for Friday night.

"How am I handling it?" Lisa Chandler said. "I cry a little and I pray a lot."

Just outside of town, residents picked through their scattered belongings on a road, with people in cars stopping to offer bread, water and crackers. An AM radio station transmitted offers of help. One store was giving away air mattresses. An Italian restaurant was serving free hot meals. A glass shop was offering to replace shattered windows for free.

Firefighter Jamie Armstrong blinked back tears as he recalled finding a 5-year-old girl lifeless in a field near Rainsville, far from any house. Her brother was alive, but Armstrong wasn't sure if he was going to make it.

Despite the devastation, he said the storm had strengthened his belief in God.

"The truth is, God could take any one of us right now. But he spared me and you," he said.

In other areas, those who sheltered away from home trickled back to reclaim their belongings, ducking police roadblocks, fallen limbs and power lines. Survivors struggled with no electricity and little help from stretched-thin law enforcement.

As many as a million homes and businesses in Alabama were without power, and Alabama Gov. Bentley said 2,000 National Guard troops had been activated to help. The governors of Mississippi and Georgia also issued emergency declarations for parts of their states.

Alabama emergency management officials said Friday that the state had 228 confirmed deaths. There were 33 deaths in Mississippi, 34 in Tennessee, 15 in Georgia, five in Virginia, two in Louisiana and one in Kentucky. Hundreds if not thousands of people were injured — 900 in Tuscaloosa alone.

Concord, a small town outside Birmingham, was devastated. Derrick Keef undertook a heartbreaking scavenger hunt for his most priceless possessions strewn across his heavily damaged neighborhood.

"I've been going from lot to lot finding stuff," he said as he rifled through debris in search of a family photo album. "It's like CSI."

In many places, drivers searched for the rare gas station that wasn't shuttered by power outages. In rural northeast Alabama's Crossville, 25 to 30 vehicles lined up at the Fuel-Z Friday morning. The station had been the only one open for many miles until a generator part failed Thursday night.

An employee said the repair might take until Saturday, but Natasha Brazil and her boyfriend weren't going anywhere in their Dodge Durango SUV. She lives about 10 miles away but said she only has enough gas for another mile or two.

"We've been sleeping here all night. Well, I wouldn't call it sleeping, crammed in the back of an SUV," she said.

Some Alabama newspapers were pooling resources. The Cullman Times and The News-Courier in nearby Athens printed their Thursday and Friday editions at the TimesDaily in Florence, which was also serving as the temporary newsroom for another paper — The Decatur Daily. Cullman Times publisher Bill Morgan said a generator was being trucked to restore power to his newspaper's presses.

Officials said at least 13 died in Smithville, Miss., where devastating winds ripped open the police station, post office, city hall and an industrial park with several furniture factories. Pieces of tin were twined high around the legs of a blue water tower, and the Piggly Wiggly grocery store was gutted.

At Smithville Cemetery, even the dead were not spared: Tombstones dating to the 1800s, including some of Civil War soldiers, lay broken on the ground. Brothers Kenny and Paul Long dragged their youngest brother's headstone back to its proper place.

The National Weather Service said the tornado that hit Smithville was a devastating EF-5 storm, with top winds of 205 mph. Meteorologist Jim LaDue said he expects "many more" of Wednesday's tornadoes to receive the worst rating in the tornado measurement system.

Tornadoes struck with unexpected speed in several states, and the difference between life and death was hard to fathom. Four people died in Bledsoe County, Tenn., but Mayor Bobby Collier also had good news to report after a twister swept through.

"There was a modular home that was actually picked up and thrown across the road," Collier said. "The family was in it. It was totally destroyed."

And the family?

"They were OK."

Bluestein reported from Concord, Ala. Also contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Holbrook Mohr in Hackleburg, Ala.; Jeffrey Collins and Chris Hawley in Rainsville, Ala.; Jay Reeves in Tuscaloosa; Phillip Rawls in Montgomery; Vicki Smith in Morgantown, W.Va.; Kristi Eaton in Norman, Okla.; Ray Henry in Ringgold, Ga.; Meg Kinnard in Columbia, S.C.; Maryann Mrowca in Atlanta; Erik Schelzig in Apison, Tenn.; and Bill Poovey in Chattanooga, Tenn.

Why is this not a sticky????

very sad news, can't imagine living this threat. those poor people

This is getting scary. I'm sorry for those who have suffered losses and I hope our orgers stay safe.

vainandy said:

Timmy84 said:

Move to New York.

Honey, I couldn't afford a cardboard box in New York, let alone an apartment.

You need to hook up with one of these rich muscle-bound gay mfers at my gym.

uPtoWnNY said:

vainandy said:

Honey, I couldn't afford a cardboard box in New York, let alone an apartment.

You need to hook up with one of these rich muscle-bound gay mfers at my gym.

Me first!

Closer to my type.

Vainandy knows these gym types all shave everything anyway. (Sometimes in the shower at the gym . . . )

SCNDLS said:

vainandy said:

Maybe you can, but I can't. These damn men are with their women in the daytime. But after midnight when those women go to sleep, that's when those men sneak out and get with us. Why do you think gay clubs don't even open till damn near midnight? Straight clubs will open as soon as the sun goes down and around one or two o'clock in the morning, they're closing up. Hell, that's when we're just getting started.

This muhhfucka herre . . .

We've had so many tornadoes lately. When I heard the sirens go off a few minutes ago, I went searching all the TV stations and internet sites and didn't see anything about any tornadoes in my area. I couldn't figure out why those sirens were going off. Then, I finally realized today is the first of the month and it was noon time.

uPtoWnNY said:

vainandy said:

Honey, I couldn't afford a cardboard box in New York, let alone an apartment.

You need to hook up with one of these rich muscle-bound gay mfers at my gym.

They seem to like carbon copies of themselves and I don't have the body to attract one of them. I like a man to be a little toned but I don't like those that have so many muscles that they don't look human. And like Suprman says, they shave all their body hair off which is the biggest turnoff.

SUPRMAN said:

uPtoWnNY said:

You need to hook up with one of these rich muscle-bound gay mfers at my gym.

Me first!

Closer to my type.

Vainandy knows these gym types all shave everything anyway. (Sometimes in the shower at the gym . . . )

I sure do. I accidently walked into a room with several naked bodybuilders and I had to hold the vomit from coming out of my throat. There wasn't one hair in the room and the dicks had drawn up so tiny from all those muscles taking over. Combine that with them being shaved, I felt like I was looking at little boys from another planet.

ZombieKitten said:

Why is this not a sticky????

I was wondering this myself.

i haven't heard one public request YET

for donations to help those whom have

been caught in these desasters.

but still they ask for help for elsewhere.

how strange...

shouldn't charity begin at home?

or are we to be guilted as greedy

for helpin our own?

this is a very STICKY subject

PISGAH, Ala. – The tornadoes followed each other as if guided by rails, three times over 10 terrifying hours, straight at the little cluster of homes where Joseph Wayne Haney and his relatives lived.

The first crushed Haney's wife to death under a piano. The second twisted menacingly overhead but didn't touch down. And the third, a true monster, blew the neighborhood to pieces, killing two more of his kin.

On a day that sowed heartbreak throughout the South, this close-knit family received more than its share of the sky's rage.

"It came back," Haney said, blinking back tears outside a funeral home on Saturday. "It came back the same path, and it killed more."

In Pisgah, like elsewhere, it happened with blinding speed.

Haney was asleep in the living room recliner when his wife, Kathy Gray Haney, woke him.

"She said, 'I think there's a tornado,'" Haney said. "And just as she said the word 'tornado,' it hit us."

Their mobile home heaved into the air and slammed into a line of trees. Their piano landed on the couple, and the rest of the house collapsed on top of it. The family Bible landed next to them.

As the wind screamed, Haney said, he wrapped his arms around his wife's legs and tried to pull her to him.

"She said 'Honey, I love you, and I'm hurting,'" Haney said.

This week was supposed to be a joyous one for the Haneys and their extended family. Their niece, Whitney Lawhorn, was getting married on Monday, and the whole family was invited.

The Haneys themselves had been married 23 years. They met at a dance at the VFW hall and tied the knot just six months later.

Haney, now 45 and known to everyone as just Wayne, was something of a ne'er-do-well back then, he said. But with her smile and her twinkling brown eyes, Kathy had straightened him out.

Kathy, 46, liked to take walks in the woods, dig for wild ginseng and collect Indian arrowheads, said her sister, Peggy Lawhorn. She played piano at the New Hermon Baptist Church until a stroke last year paralyzed her left arm.

"She'd do anything for you anytime she could," Whitney Lawhorn said. "She didn't care who you were, she wanted to talk to you."

The family was close, Peggy Lawhorn said, with a half-dozen Grays and their spouses all living in a cluster of homes within a half-mile of each other on the verdant northern edge of a plateau known as Sand Mountain.

The mountain itself bears much of the blame for what happened Wednesday, said Richard Lawhorn, Haney's brother-in-law. Jutting 900 feet above the Tennessee River, the flat-topped mountain practically scrapes the bottom clouds of eastward-moving storms.

"It all gets swirled up and comes tearing over the bluff," Richard Lawhorn said.

Of the 342 dead from Wednesday's storms, 33 were in Alabama's DeKalb County, much of which is perched on Sand Mountain.

Richard Lawhorn was the first to get to Haney's collapsed mobile home. As he neared the wreckage, he could hear Haney shouting for help. But there was no sound from Kathy.

The family used a tractor with a front-loader attachment to lift the debris. It took 90 minutes for an ambulance crew to pick its way through the fallen trees, and another 90 minutes to get Haney back to the hospital.

Suddenly a second twister materialized, coiling like a snake in the turbulent sky. But it didn't touch down, passing a little to the north of Pisgah.

Then, at 4:30 p.m., another monstrous funnel appeared. It crashed through the trees and obliterated the house of Kathy's 90-year-old great-uncle, Herbert Satterfield, and his wife, Ann, who was in her 70s.

When the wind settled down, there was nothing left of the house but a few cracked cinder blocks and some shattered pieces of floor.

On Saturday, the family buried Kathy in the cemetery of the Friendship Baptist Church. Chainsaws buzzed in the distance. Smoke from burning debris wafted over the graves.

Herbert and Ann would be buried in the coming days.

The wedding was postponed. The judge who was supposed to have performed the marriage lost his own son in a tornado in Tuscaloosa.

The last flowers were piled on Kathy's grave. Family members embraced, then climbed into their pickup trucks and headed home to resume the cleanup.

"It doesn't seem right that one family should get hit twice," Richard Lawhorn said. "But at least we've got each other to get through it."

KingBAD said:

i haven't heard one public request YET

for donations to help those whom have

been caught in these desasters.

but still they ask for help for elsewhere.

how strange...

shouldn't charity begin at home?

or are we to be guilted as greedy

for helpin our own?

this is a very STICKY subject

I don't know about the other networks, but NBC and MSNBC have both posted text numbers to the American Red Cross and posted links on MSNBC for other charitable organizations to donate to. Maybe other other networks have done the same but you haven't seen them yet. Then again, the networks have been distracted by some nuptuials between a prince and his lady friend in Great Britain.

Was this a terrorist response to Osama's death?

SUPRMAN said:

Was this a terrorist response to Osama's death?

You.stoopid.

So...has Pat Robertson issued a statement yet, as to what evil it was that God punished Alabama for?

More tornadoes batter the USA midsection today.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/...s/weather/

This time, the most damaged area was Joplin, Missouri, where it was reported that 75% of the city was leveled or damaged, and a nearby hospital; had to be evacuated due to oxygen tanks being exposed for possible explosions. 24 people are reported to have died so far in Joplin in this latest round of storms. However, a couple of tornado-related deaths were reported in Minneapolis, and even in my hometown of Rockford, IL, there was some serious damage.

I've never heard of a hurricane is Massachusetts DAMN!

Multiple tornadoes slammed western...sachusetts, destroying buildings, flipping vehicles and leaving four people dead and dozens injured.

At least three tornadoes struck the city of Springfield, Mass., alone, with a fourth unconfirmed twister possibly touching down in the city, Mayor Dominic J. Sarno said. Many of those storms also blasted the areas surrounding the city of more than 150,000 residents 90 miles west of Boston.

The Massachusetts twisters hit as unstable weather threatened the entire Northeast, bringing tornado watches to Philadelphia, New York and Boston.

The situation in Massachusetts was so bad that Gov. Deval Patrick declared a statewide state of emergency, calling up 1,000 members of the National Guard.

Two of the four fatalities in Massachusetts occurred in West Springfield, and there was one each in Springfield and Brimfield, a state official said, correcting earlier official statements.

Sources also disagreed on the number and location of confirmed tornado touch-downs in the state.

Patrick said early Wednesday evening that at least 19 Massachusetts communities were affected by rough weather and an unspecified number of twisters.

"Motorists should be off the roads," Patrick said. "There are downed limbs, downed wires."

Tens of thousands of the state's residents were without power, officials said.

Springfield officials were doing house-to-house checks on residents. Local and state officials hoped to do a fuller damage assessment on the affected regions in the morning daylight.

SCNDLS said:

I've never heard of a hurricane is Massachusetts DAMN!

Multiple tornadoes slammed western...sachusetts, destroying buildings, flipping vehicles and leaving four people dead and dozens injured.

At least three tornadoes struck the city of Springfield, Mass., alone, with a fourth unconfirmed twister possibly touching down in the city, Mayor Dominic J. Sarno said. Many of those storms also blasted the areas surrounding the city of more than 150,000 residents 90 miles west of Boston.

The Massachusetts twisters hit as unstable weather threatened the entire Northeast, bringing tornado watches to Philadelphia, New York and Boston.

The situation in Massachusetts was so bad that Gov. Deval Patrick declared a statewide state of emergency, calling up 1,000 members of the National Guard.

Two of the four fatalities in Massachusetts occurred in West Springfield, and there was one each in Springfield and Brimfield, a state official said, correcting earlier official statements.

Sources also disagreed on the number and location of confirmed tornado touch-downs in the state.

Patrick said early Wednesday evening that at least 19 Massachusetts communities were affected by rough weather and an unspecified number of twisters.

"Motorists should be off the roads," Patrick said. "There are downed limbs, downed wires."

Tens of thousands of the state's residents were without power, officials said.

Springfield officials were doing house-to-house checks on residents. Local and state officials hoped to do a fuller damage assessment on the affected regions in the morning daylight.

Monson, Brimfield and Springfeild got SLAMMED! 4 folks were killed, and all the news stations are only reporting the chaos after...

lightning storms were off the chain in Boston last night. We got hit over 400 times with lightning last night... the thunder kept car alarms going non-stop for over an hour. It was actually funny seeing my neighbor hanging out his window continuously shutting off his alarm.

But those poor families!!! The footage caught was amazing! HUGE houses were shredded! Thank God people here have basements.

Prepping 4 2012?

Graycap23 said:

Prepping 4 2012?

I'm of the belief of fewer trees, less stable air masses...

we need our forests back.

It is crazy to see 3&4 story brick homes ripped off foundations... these houses are those older well built.. can withstand hurricane type houses that were lifted up and flipped over off their foundations.

One mom (39 years) was covering her daughter in a bathtub and she gave her life sheilding her baby. She was crushed but she saved her daughter. Heartbreaking. What a brave soul.

paintedlady said:

It is crazy to see 3&4 story brick homes ripped off foundations... these houses are those older well built.. can withstand hurricane type houses that were lifted up and flipped over off their foundations.

One mom (39 years) was covering her daughter in a bathtub and she gave her life sheilding her baby. She was crushed but she saved her daughter. Heartbreaking. What a brave soul.

Here's some more footage/pics on the tornadoes in Massachusetts.

http://www.dailymail.co.u...setts.html

Shorty said:

crazy! very uncommon for tornados in this part of the country.

I worried for you and Deadflower... she's in Springfield I believe.

How are you? Did you guys make it through OK? I was on FB making sure my friends were ok to the west.

Isn't Fenwick in your area also?