Are these not the biggest pussies? They act like they're about to be blown over. One idiot this morning jams a yardstick in a pile of snow that a plow has made to act like he's taking an accurate measure of snow fallen when, in the background, it's clearly not the case. Then officials wonder why citizens don't heed warnings in advance. If they wouldn't always exaggerate.
They freak out pretty much here in DFW, too. I think it's one of the reasons my daughters get antsy during even a garden-variety thunderstorm. (Of course, many thunderstorms in DFW turn severe; it rarely just rains without strong winds and hail.) The freaking out is the main reason that, on the day after Christmas, even though our tornado sirens were going off, I didn't get everybody into the closet during a tornado warning. Turns out, we had an F-4 tornado touch down less than 15 miles from us. We were lucky. 13 or 14 people have died, with some still in critical condition in hospitals. Next time, I think I'll go get in the closet.
I much prefer her posting about being home alone, with a bottle of wine, doing her LSU pre-game warmups. And I stress the doing her part. Dam that was hot.
I know...I'm scared straight after getting complacent with too many false alarms. I was watching that night and knew the tornado was going east of us; however, I never believed that it was going to be an EF-4, turning hundreds of homes into splinters (one of the coaches at my school lost his home) and knocking cars off of I-30 and George Bush Tollway, where the majority of the fatalities took place. December tornadoes aren't supposed to be monsters like that. You would think EF-0 or EF-1 at the most.
You just need to pay attention to the temp. Tornadoes usually take place in the late spring/ early summer when lingering cold air meets with a warm front. It works the same way in reverse, if you have warm day in the winter with a cold front moving in then look the hell out, especially if the sky is clear. I have grown to hate 70° days in mid may with clear skies. The sirens, meh, watch your local weather, they will tell you where the danger is. Ours go off all the time and the threat is nowhere close to where we are, never really understood that. I don't have a fraidie hole so if it is close to me I load em up and move em out and pray that sumbitch leaves me with nothing but a foundation when I get back. So far I haven't been that lucky.
