Given the number of people who died during three days and the fact that May is typically the month with the most tornadoes, I thought I would share some of my experiences. I was fortunate to have a father who grew up in Kansas long before NOAA or weather broadcasts or even radar. Surviving there meant learning how to “read” the sky and what to do with the information it provided.
I have been traveling recently and I was heading home last Monday during the huge tornado outbreak across the southern states. Unfortunately, this gave me the opportunity to use many of the tornado survival skills I have honed while living most of my life in “Tornado Alley.” By Monday evening, I saw three tornadoes touch down, including one that turned out to me more than one-half-mile wide and literally pulled the pavement up from the ground along its path.
So what do you do when you are driving down the highway and tornadoes start dropping in your path?