Probably a stupid question, but...

[joanna71985]

Please be safe. That sounds scary. :(

[EeyoresButterfly]

Thanks guys! After all of that hoopla, the storms never even hit us. Like I said, I'm used to living in tornado alley, but I've always had an easy to access basement or lower level to get to. This is the first time I've lived somewhere where I can't necessarily follow the traditional wisdom.

I totally hear ya about the sirens going off even when nothing touches down. In my hometown I've heard the sirens several times, normally it's just for a really bad storm. The joke is that the people who sound them get tired of never getting the chance, so they do it when it gets bad just for fun. The last they sounded there was a funnel cloud right over our house, but it never touched down. The hail however did a whole bunch of damage. I'm just glad I don't live in Sedalia, it's eems like they always get hit!

[joanna71985]

Whew! Glad to hear you didn't get any storms. :)

[EeyoresButterfly]

Woops! Spoke too soon. We are no under a watch and the stuff coming in isn't looking so pleasant. Little puppy and I have obedience class tonight. I feel bad leaving the other animals when the threat of severe weather is here. I'd hate for something to happen while I'm not home to protect them :( (You can see where my priorities are!) I'm very tempted to crate my cats before I go so if my windows get blown out they can't escape, plus it might protect them. Big puppy should be fine since he is confined to my bathroom when I am not home.

[hobie16]

The big potential disaster here is tsunamis. Civil Defense tests the sirens the first Monday of every month at 11:45. The tourists have no clue as to what's going on.

The rule of thumb is, if the ocean suddenly recedes, haul ass for high ground.

[joanna71985]

Woops! Spoke too soon. We are no under a watch and the stuff coming in isn't looking so pleasant. Little puppy and I have obedience class tonight. I feel bad leaving the other animals when the threat of severe weather is here. I'd hate for something to happen while I'm not home to protect them :( (You can see where my priorities are!) I'm very tempted to crate my cats before I go so if my windows get blown out they can't escape, plus it might protect them. Big puppy should be fine since he is confined to my bathroom when I am not home.

Oh no! Again...please be safe.

[EeyoresButterfly]

Hobie, that is a good rule of thumb. I was reading a fictional book based on two kids who get caught in a tsunami in Oregon. At the end of the book the author talks about her research, and there is one town in Oregon that decided to use a recording of cows mooing instead of siren figuring if out of towners heard a siren they wouldn't know what was going on and head for low ground thinking it was a tornado. (Not that "oh no! tsunami! is my first thought when I hear cows.)

[felinefan]

The reason they used to tell people to open a window was the belief that tornadoes create major suction when destroying the house; opening the window was supposed to prevent the house from imploding. But they now know that tornadoes destroy houses by sheer wind force. So opening a window makes no difference--though it would increase your chances of not only your stuff getting sucked out of your house, but of you getting cut to smithereens by broken glass.

Crating the kitties and putting them in the bathroom with the door closed sounds like a good idea.

Here in SoCal, we don't normally get tornadoes; if we do, they're more like strong downdrafts or microbursts. Occaisonally waterspouts form offshore. Though we're famous for our earthquakes, Alaska is actually a more seismically active state than California. Here's a link of interest: http://pasadena.wr.usgs.gov/step/

Make sure you explore the rest of the site by clicking home at the top of the page; it's really quite interesting.

I've had career interest testing done; one of my career possibilities is meteorologist. One of my oldest interests too. Too bad I never got the chance to get educated in that area....