I'm not sure if you're from Oklahoma or not. If not, I may be able to shed some light on the warning times.
We knew on Wednesday and Thursday that Friday, Saturday and Sunday were primed for severe weather including large tornadoes. The weather forecasters here did a tremendous job forecasting these conditions days in advance. They made sure everyone with a TV knew that this weekend, the weather conditions were going to identical to May 3rd, 1999. Everyone here knows exactly what that means.
The 16 minute warning was basically the time the tornado formed and touched down til the time it hit Moore, OK. Unfortunately, many people were in their cars and were not watching the news.
I watched the entire coverage as this tornado hit a few miles from my house and my family was home. We have a cellar so I wasn't entirely worried but I was still glued to the TV. The storm chasers did one hell of a job following and covering this tornado. And they repeatedly said that the only way to survive was to get underground or get in your car and head East. YES! They actually told people to leave their houses. This is something we learned after the May 3rd tornado, that if you're in the path of a massive tornado like this one, being in an inner closet or your bathtub isn't good enough. You must go underground or get in your car and get out of the way.
We will learn from this as well.
And while we'll learn and it will make us safer going forward, it doesn't replace what was lost.
Huck, if you're from OK, I apologize as you likely know this already. Just trying to shine some light on it from someone that was there.
We knew on Wednesday and Thursday that Friday, Saturday and Sunday were primed for severe weather including large tornadoes. The weather forecasters here did a tremendous job forecasting these conditions days in advance. They made sure everyone with a TV knew that this weekend, the weather conditions were going to identical to May 3rd, 1999. Everyone here knows exactly what that means.
The 16 minute warning was basically the time the tornado formed and touched down til the time it hit Moore, OK. Unfortunately, many people were in their cars and were not watching the news.
I watched the entire coverage as this tornado hit a few miles from my house and my family was home. We have a cellar so I wasn't entirely worried but I was still glued to the TV. The storm chasers did one hell of a job following and covering this tornado. And they repeatedly said that the only way to survive was to get underground or get in your car and head East. YES! They actually told people to leave their houses. This is something we learned after the May 3rd tornado, that if you're in the path of a massive tornado like this one, being in an inner closet or your bathtub isn't good enough. You must go underground or get in your car and get out of the way.
We will learn from this as well.
And while we'll learn and it will make us safer going forward, it doesn't replace what was lost.
Huck, if you're from OK, I apologize as you likely know this already. Just trying to shine some light on it from someone that was there.