Oklahoma Tornado

Post by **Shirley** » Mon May 20, 2013 9:14 pm

Holy shit.

51 confirmed dead, including a number of kids from a collapsed elementary school. From the sound of things, the death toll is going to rise, particularly from that school.

The thought of sending your kid off to elementary school and having them never come home ... It's just terrifying.

I feel awful for those people.

Post by **brian** » Mon May 20, 2013 9:28 pm

Countdown to the first conservative pundit comparison to Newtown saying that the government should ban tornadoes now in 3...2...1...

teeteebee · Post by **teeteebee** » Mon May 20, 2013 9:52 pm

I confess to not watching much on this. The devastation is crazy and it really is unsettling watching things like this unfold. Be it Newtown, the marathon, the fertilizer plant, etc.

However, hasn't there been tornadoes blowing through in recent days? And more were expected on the way. As a parent, I think I would have had the kids cool out at home for a couple days. And I don't mean this as a second guess because I don't live in a tornado area but I look back at the recent hurricanes that hit my region over the last two summers and couldn't imagine being apart from my kids while that whole ordeal was going on. Much less sending them to school while I went to work. Again, I am not nor have I ever been exposed to tornadoes.

Johnnie · Post by **Johnnie** » Mon May 20, 2013 9:56 pm

Already read that senators Inhofe and Coburn were extremely critical of Hurricane Sandy relief effort funds and eve voted to decrease funding to FEMA overall.

So the politics of this disaster will be fun. /sarcasm.

But wow. The destruction is astounding. The videos are just stunning. It's very sad.

Scottie · Post by **Scottie** » Mon May 20, 2013 10:57 pm

brian wrote:Countdown to the first conservative pundit comparison to Newtown saying that the government should ban tornadoes now in 3...2...1...

Was it an automatic tornado?

Rams Fanny · Post by **Rams Fanny** » Mon May 20, 2013 11:13 pm

brian wrote:Countdown to the first conservative pundit comparison to Newtown saying that the government should ban tornadoes now in 3...2...1...

Much safer bet is Alex Jones claiming this was a Government test with one of them weather controlling machines he's always known they had.

Johnnie · Post by **Johnnie** » Mon May 20, 2013 11:35 pm

Scottie wrote:
brian wrote:Countdown to the first conservative pundit comparison to Newtown saying that the government should ban tornadoes now in 3...2...1...
Was it an automatic tornado?

A fully automatic assault tornado. With a 30 round "magazine clip."

Scottie · Post by **Scottie** » Mon May 20, 2013 11:38 pm

Was this tornado registered?

Johnnie · Post by **Johnnie** » Mon May 20, 2013 11:59 pm

Scottie wrote:Was this tornado registered?

Nope. GOP members in the Senate filibustered tornado reform that included a provision for creating a tornado registry. They kept citing "a tornado's God-given right of self defense in the Constitution" as the main reason why. Michael Moore and Piers Morgan circle jerked themselves into unadulterated indignancy on CNN when it happened.

Scottie · Post by **Scottie** » Tue May 21, 2013 12:13 am

Johnnie wrote:
Scottie wrote:Was this tornado registered?
Nope. GOP members in the Senate filibustered tornado reform that included a provision for creating a tornado registry. They kept citing "a tornado's God-given right of self defense in the Constitution" as the main reason why. Michael Moore and Piers Morgan circle jerked themselves into unadulterated indignancy on CNN when it happened.

See? There you go. Our nation is confronted, once again, with another senselessly violent rogue attack by an unregistered automatic tornado. I wonder where this tornado was manufactured? Was it an American-made tornado? Because, if it was an American-made tornado, we should sue the snot out of that particular tornado manufacturer. Whether or not some lesser cyclone found superior fire-power in, say, its mother's twisted disaster rack, is immaterial. This clearly could have been prevented, should have been prevented, and would have been prevented but for those damn Republicans who love their damn tornados so much.

Typical of Republicans, this was not even an environmentally conscious natural disaster. The carbon footprint of this gigantic air blowing surely out-blows any gigantic blowing of America that is presently residing in a $9,000,000 mansion in the suave fashionably smiling hills of Montecito, California. Well, not really, that blows far more than the America's planet can blow and raises the question "How much more blowing?" And the answer is "None. None more blowing." Completely objective scienticians have multiply demonstrated that the Earth is one giant living, breathing, orgasm.

No, today's rogue automatic tornado is mere marginal blowing. A blow with braces. There is only one place at which America should focus its social media umbrage: that is to entirely blame Conservative pundits. And tornado owners. The utterly staggering arrogance of tornado owners is an impenetrable hymen in the vagina of American progressive progressiveness progress.

howard · Post by **howard** » Tue May 21, 2013 6:03 am

No reasonable person needs to own an EF-4 tornado for personal defense or hunting.

rass · Post by **rass** » Tue May 21, 2013 6:40 am

teeteebee wrote:However, hasn't there been tornadoes blowing through in recent days? And more were expected on the way. As a parent, I think I would have had the kids cool out at home for a couple days. And I don't mean this as a second guess because I don't live in a tornado area but I look back at the recent hurricanes that hit my region over the last two summers and couldn't imagine being apart from my kids while that whole ordeal was going on. Much less sending them to school while I went to work. Again, I am not nor have I ever been exposed to tornadoes.

Me neither, but it seems that tornado threats are just handled differently in general. Almost the entire East coast was pretty much battened down at least a day in advance of Sandy. I assume a place like Moore can't shut down every time there might be a bad storm, and while you have to be prepared, you probably just have to make a fatalistic compromise (whether you acknowledge it or not) with the tornado threats to live there.

The pictures and videos are just stunning.

kranepool · Post by **kranepool** » Tue May 21, 2013 6:50 am

Link.

Brontoburglar · Post by **Brontoburglar** » Tue May 21, 2013 7:10 am

rass wrote:
teeteebee wrote:However, hasn't there been tornadoes blowing through in recent days? And more were expected on the way. As a parent, I think I would have had the kids cool out at home for a couple days. And I don't mean this as a second guess because I don't live in a tornado area but I look back at the recent hurricanes that hit my region over the last two summers and couldn't imagine being apart from my kids while that whole ordeal was going on. Much less sending them to school while I went to work. Again, I am not nor have I ever been exposed to tornadoes.
Me neither, but it seems that tornado threats are just handled differently in general. Almost the entire East coast was pretty much battened down at least a day in advance of Sandy. I assume a place like Moore can't shut down every time there might be a bad storm, and while you have to be prepared, you probably just have to make a fatalistic compromise (whether you acknowledge it or not) with the tornado threats to live there.

The pictures and videos are just stunning.

Because of the proliferation of media, we've become much more tornado-aware and tornado-panicked over the last 10-15 years. It also isn't helping that local news outlets are focusing more on weather and other items (there was a study about this a few months ago) because they know it drives ratings vs. other news stories. Also, with the better radar and prediction, I think the NWS has a beeter idea of the risks and would rather be safe than sorry when it comes to watches -- so they'll issue a tornado watch where they previously may have issued a severe thunderstorm watch.

So thanks to this coverage, we've come to associate tornadoes with every single thunderstorm. I know that sounds crazy, but it's been striking over the last couple years that every time there is a thunderstorm or thunderstorm threat, we have to talk about a tornado. For example, Sunday night, we had the severe thunderstorm line from the storms -- something that's happened hundreds of times before in my life.

Yet we had to always deny the existence of a tornado. It was always "THERE IS NO TORNADO," not simply mentioning that there is a tornado threat or there is a tornado if there actually is one. And then the cycle repeats itself over and over again until the opportunity to say "THERE IS A TORNADO" rather than "THERE IS NO TORNADO." It's horrible -- especially on a night like Sunday night when the tornado threat was very minimal and we were just going to get a thunderstorm. (Another factor, at least locally, is that for all the devastation in Oklahoma Monday and in Joplin two years ago, it's been a pretty quiet last couple of years in KC all things considered. There haven't been too many opportunities for the hype to get ramped up around here.)

It also helps that we love disaster porn so much. Hell, I was watching yesterday's tornado from work and it was just riveting.

bfj · Post by **bfj** » Tue May 21, 2013 7:17 am

Woman finds her dog buried alive in the rubble during an interview.

kranepool · Post by **kranepool** » Tue May 21, 2013 7:29 am

Put that in the 'Dusty' thread, fella.

Steve of phpBB · Post by **Steve of phpBB** » Tue May 21, 2013 8:00 am

howard wrote:No reasonable person needs to own an EF-4 tornado for personal defense or hunting.

Howard, your insistence on a personal right to own tornados means that others will die.

Think of the children!

Seriously, though, I think the politics-playing from this is more likely to come from the left. Me, I thought schools were supposed to be built to withstand tornados. So were these deaths the result of not building strong enough, or is there just no such thing as "strong enough" when you have a direct hit from a storm that powerful?

sancarlos · Post by **sancarlos** » Tue May 21, 2013 8:08 am

Steve of phpBB wrote:is there just no such thing as "strong enough" when you have a direct hit from a storm that powerful?

I think you hit on it, here. Very sad.

A_B · Post by **A_B** » Tue May 21, 2013 8:10 am

Steve of phpBB wrote:
Me, I thought schools were supposed to be built to withstand tornados. So were these deaths the result of not building strong enough, or is there just no such thing as "strong enough" when you have a direct hit from a storm that powerful?

This is my thing. Especially in tornado-prone areas, there seems like there should be some concerted effort to make certain public places stronger than required to offer a place of refuge for citizens who may not have appropriate housing, which in this case meant any housing.

Of course, it's possible this school was older and not up to current standards of constructions, if any.

Jerloma · Post by **Jerloma** » Tue May 21, 2013 8:33 am

bfj wrote:Woman finds her dog buried alive in the rubble during an interview.

Of course, God gets the credit. How about stop sending tornadoes of doom, big fella?

howard · Post by **howard** » Tue May 21, 2013 8:43 am

Steve of phpBB wrote: Howard, your insistence on a personal right to own tornados means that others will die.

Think of the children!

Warm, wet, wind-chafed hands. Bitches.

Post by **Shirley** » Tue May 21, 2013 9:39 am

testuser2 · Post by **testuser2** » Tue May 21, 2013 10:03 am

brian wrote:Countdown to the first conservative pundit comparison to Newtown saying that the government should ban tornadoes now in 3...2...1...

What a dumb argument. I fully expect that it will be made. If the government had the ability to prevent tornadoes through some controlling method are they saying that it shouldn't be done because it would infringe on it's constitutional rights? or are they saying that tornadoes like gun violence can not be prevented?

testy boxcar · Post by **testy boxcar** » Tue May 21, 2013 10:10 am

i refuse to live in a basementless home. enjoy your death trap, ladies!

sancarlos · Post by **sancarlos** » Tue May 21, 2013 10:18 am

testy boxcar wrote:i refuse to live in a basementless home. enjoy your death trap, ladies!

A basement (or root cellar) is pretty important out in tornado country, where you live. Here, where I live, the water table is really high, so a basement is problematic. We don't get tornadoes anyway, and a basement won't help you in an earthquake.

A_B · Post by **A_B** » Tue May 21, 2013 10:20 am

sancarlos wrote:
testy boxcar wrote:i refuse to live in a basementless home. enjoy your death trap, ladies!
A basement (or root cellar) is pretty important out in tornado country, where you live. Here, where I live, the water table is really high, so a basement is problematic. We don't get tornadoes anyway, and a basement won't help you in an earthquake.

Sure it does. Your home collapses into a single convenient area!

testy boxcar · Post by **testy boxcar** » Tue May 21, 2013 10:24 am

sancarlos wrote:
testy boxcar wrote:i refuse to live in a basementless home. enjoy your death trap, ladies!
A basement (or root cellar) is pretty important out in tornado country, where you live. Here, where I live, the water table is really high, so a basement is problematic. We don't get tornadoes anyway, and a basement won't help you in an earthquake.

That is part of the problem in OKC (and Texas and some of the south). In the places that need basements the most, it's too cost prohibitive to build them (in most homes) because of the water table/soil problems.

Not here in good ol' limestone country, though!

bfj · Post by **bfj** » Tue May 21, 2013 10:26 am

kranepool wrote:Put that in the 'Dusty' thread, fella.

He was covered with debris. What did you expect?

ZMan · Post by **ZMan** » Tue May 21, 2013 11:11 am

I must be getting soft, because I see all those jokey "tornado control" tweets and it kinda makes me sick. Maybe it's a bias, but us throwing them around in here doesn't bother me so much. For some reason though tweeting about it seems classless, at least this early on.

BSF21 · Post by **BSF21** » Tue May 21, 2013 11:14 am

bfj wrote:Woman finds her dog buried alive in the rubble during an interview.

Saw this on reddit. Crying like a little bitch over here.

sancarlos · Post by **sancarlos** » Tue May 21, 2013 11:17 am

ZMan wrote:I must be getting soft, because I see all those jokey "tornado control" tweets and it kinda makes me sick. Maybe it's a bias, but us throwing them around in here doesn't bother me so much. For some reason though tweeting about it seems classless, at least this early on.

Ditto.

Post by **brian** » Tue May 21, 2013 11:20 am

ZMan wrote:I must be getting soft, because I see all those jokey "tornado control" tweets and it kinda makes me sick. Maybe it's a bias, but us throwing them around in here doesn't bother me so much. For some reason though tweeting about it seems classless, at least this early on.

I think it's because I assume most of those people actually believe that shit (not that you can actually control tornadoes of course), but that gun control is just as pointless as "tornado control").

tennbengal · Post by **tennbengal** » Wed May 22, 2013 5:06 am

Shirley wrote:

That's absolutely stunning video. I assume that was a stormchaser on that cell who got the birth of that particular tornado. Watching it go from dropping down, to the initial rope, to expansion as it moves toward the wedge phase (where it would eventually grow to its mile wide mature phase), you don't see that very often.

On a side note...whoever took that video has balls of steel or is stupid. Or both. That is really really close, especially given how quickly it grew from its initial cone to the wedge.

Rams Fanny · Post by **Rams Fanny** » Wed May 22, 2013 2:35 pm

Predictably, Alex Jones weighs in

BSF21 · Post by **BSF21** » Wed May 22, 2013 2:58 pm

Rams Fanny wrote:Predictably, Alex Jones weighs in

This stuff is gold every time.

"I firmly believe this is a government weather control..." There are actually people like this. That's scary.

ZMan · Post by **ZMan** » Wed May 22, 2013 3:22 pm

BSF21 wrote:
Rams Fanny wrote:Predictably, Alex Jones weighs in
This stuff is gold every time.

"I firmly believe this is a government weather control..." There are actually people like this. That's scary.

At least he acknowledges the existence of naturally occurring tornadoes...

While he explained that "natural tornadoes" do exist and that he's not sure if a government "weather weapon" was involved in the Oklahoma disaster, Jones warned nonetheless that the government "can create and steer groups of tornadoes."

Post by **Shirley** » Wed May 22, 2013 5:22 pm

So I heard on NPR, and I saw a brief mention in one other place, but nobody else has mentioned this - apparently most of those kids who were killed were trapped in a room in the schooland there were burst water pipes. The kids weren't killed by the walls - they drowned.

If true, that's mind bendingly awful. That's some Saw type awfulness right there.

Anyone else hear this?

Steve of phpBB · Post by **Steve of phpBB** » Wed May 22, 2013 8:01 pm

Shirley wrote:So I heard on NPR, and I saw a brief mention in one other place, but nobody else has mentioned this - apparently most of those kids who were killed were trapped in a room in the schooland there were burst water pipes. The kids weren't killed by the walls - they drowned.

If true, that's mind bendingly awful. That's some Saw type awfulness right there.

Anyone else hear this?

God, that's horrible to think about. I guess that would be a risk of a solid underground tornado shelter.

The Sybian · Post by **The Sybian** » Wed May 22, 2013 8:07 pm

BSF21 wrote:
Rams Fanny wrote:Predictably, Alex Jones weighs in
This stuff is gold every time.

"I firmly believe this is a government weather control..." There are actually people like this. That's scary.

Immediately after the tornado I saw a bunch of Alex Jones False Flag Tornado jokes go up. Then I saw a bunch of posts that I couldn;t tell if they were jokes, or if the idiot actually made a reference. WTF?

Scottie · Post by **Scottie** » Wed May 22, 2013 10:17 pm

BSF21 wrote:
Rams Fanny wrote:Predictably, Alex Jones weighs in
This stuff is gold every time.

"I firmly believe this is a government weather control..." There are actually people like this. That's scary.

Why the hell don't I do this for a living? Y'know all that Rick Santorum and Howard Dean parody ranting I did years ago . . . emoticon theatre . . . never occurred to me that I could make money from people that actually believed any of it. Sure, everyone on the Swamp knew it was me just kidding around. And the "Who is doing this?" didn't last long. Yet I see this on Twitter all the time. People posting the most bizarre claims possible, usually involving the Presidency. And I make the mistake of assuming that they are just kidding around; rarely thinking that they actually believe this stuff. But they're dead serious, aren't they?

I suppose one needs a certain level of arrogance that stretches beyond shame. I can't even haggle over nickels and dimes at a yard sale; scamming people the way Jones does, I don't have it in me.

Yet I'm far more creative than Alex Jones. Everyone on The Swamp is. Far more. Intellectually, Jones is a minor leaguer. If that. I could go on Piers Moron and, as an actor, completely flip my lid while looking like I believe my own insanity; yammering Joycean incomprehensibilities. When I'm bored clicking through the channels and hear "ancient alien theorists believe . . . " I immediately get the fuck rid of that. In order to do that, to sell snake oil conspiracies, you have to decide that you are going to go through life as a sleaze bag and don't care that you are making money off of fuckwitted faith; the senseless need to believe in something anything. Although, now that I think about it, that's life in the business world.

This merits further consideration.