Never Hide Here During a Tornado (It Feels Safe)

Where should you hide when a tornado is coming? One tiny tester tries every place people hide, from the worst to the best, and every hiding place gets tested by a real tornado. Probie gets sucked out of five of them (on purpose): under a highway overpass, in a car, in a ditch, in a mobile home and in a big store. Then come the three places that actually work, a myth-busting break, and the part that matters most. Chapters 0:00 Joplin, 2011: not one of them was in a basement 0:22 Every place people hide from a tornado 1:05 1. Under a highway overpass 1:58 2. In a car (El Reno, 2013) 2:48 3. In a ditch 3:33 4. In a mobile home (Rolling Fork, 2023) 4:26 5. In a big store (Joplin, Mayfield) 5:20 Three tornado myths and one weird truth 6:22 6. A small room on the lowest floor 7:20 7. The basement 8:05 8. A safe room (Moore, 2013) 9:00 The part that matters most The ladder, worst to best 1. Highway overpass: a trap that feels safe. 3 people died near or under overpasses on May 3, 1999. 2. Car: a last resort. Drive to real shelter early; don't ride it out. 3. Ditch: a last resort. Low is good, but ditches flood. 4. Mobile home: get out early. Almost half of US tornado deaths in the last ten years happened in mobile homes. 5. Big store or warehouse: find a small room in the middle (restroom, storage room, walk-in cooler). 6. Small interior room on the lowest floor: good. 7. Basement: better. Get under something sturdy. 8. Safe room or storm shelter built to FEMA / ICC 500 standards: safest. The rulebook: get to the lowest floor, get to the middle away from windows, get under something sturdy, cover your head. Have a weather alert that can wake you up at night. Sources NWS/SPC tornado safety and FAQ: https://www.spc.noaa.gov/faq/tornado/ · https://www.weather.gov/safety/tornad... Highway overpasses as tornado shelters (NWS Norman): https://www.weather.gov/oun/safety-ov... NWS + American Red Cross joint statement on tornado safety (2009): https://www.weather.gov/media/safety/... Vehicles in tornadoes (Schmidlin et al., BAMS 2002): https://ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/... May 2013 Oklahoma tornadoes, NWS Service Assessment: https://www.weather.gov/media/publica... Tornado winds near the ground (Kosiba & Wurman 2023, via Eos): https://eos.org/articles/tornadoes-fa... SPC killer-tornado statistics: https://www.spc.noaa.gov/climo/torn/f... Enhanced Fujita scale damage indicators: https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-... Joplin tornado investigation (NIST): https://www.nist.gov/node/1662051 Central Texas tornadoes of May 27, 1997 (NWS Service Assessment): https://www.weather.gov/media/publica... Injuries in the April 2011 Alabama tornadoes (PLoS ONE 2013): https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti... FEMA safe rooms and the Moore 2013 safe room report: https://www.fema.gov/emergency-manage... · https://www.fema.gov/sites/default/fi... Tornado warning lead time (Brooks & Correia 2018): https://repository.library.noaa.gov/v... Nocturnal tornadoes (Ashley et al. 2008): https://chubasco.niu.edu/pubs/ashley%... Probie is not a person. In memory of everyone lost to these tornadoes. Follow your local National Weather Service office and emergency managers; this video is general information, not a substitute for official warnings. #tornado #weather #science