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u/Choice-Bike-1607 3d ago
Put a book over your head and pray
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u/Practical-Suit-6798 3d ago
I was a wildland firefighter. The little bake potato aluminum fire shelter they give you has instructions. It tells you to repeat something comforting. It's the only example that I know of where the government tells you to pray and kiss your ass goodbye.
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u/Kana515 2d ago
I'm curious to learn more about this fire shelter and instructions, I've never heard of a fire shelter before
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u/Practical-Suit-6798 2d ago
It's basicly high tech aluminum foil with handles inside. All firefighters carry one. They are trained and tested in how to use it yearly, most will never actually need to deploy it in their career, it's considered a last ditch option.
Looks like it just the old instructions. But. Page 26. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.fs.usda.gov/eng/lessons/documents/Your_Fire_Shelter/fireshelter2001.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwil3vzaiL-MAxXKGDQIHaJ9ArMQFnoECCYQAQ&usg=AOvVaw1JyOz2BIkVGAwEX-gfZM7F
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u/Ironking503333 3d ago
Those never made sense, like yeah let me cover my head and not my spine, mf I'd rather be dead not paralyzed
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u/thepwnydanza 3d ago
You’re supposed to be protecting both your head and neck in the position. Also, how the fuck are you gonna cover your whole ass spine?
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u/Ironking503333 3d ago edited 3d ago
Idfk, the whole face down ass up is already weird enough, they wouldn't ever let me use my backpack that had like 10 books of various kinds at any given time, that would probably have protected my spine
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u/macman26 3d ago
They knew early on they had a kid who wasn't going to go into the medical field
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u/Ironking503333 3d ago
They knew that before I even enrolled, focus was nonexistent, intelligence at an all-time low
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u/thepwnydanza 3d ago
That’s because you wouldn’t have time to get your backpack and put it on during an actual tornado nor would the teachers risk giving students that time. Plus, the protection from a backpack would be minimal at best and it could be more dangerous in the event of a collapse by getting tangled on things making rescue more difficult.
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u/Jamaican_Dynamite 3d ago
If debris is flying, you can take a hit to the back way better than a hit to the skull or neck. You wanna make yourself a smaller target.
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u/pitb0ss343 2d ago
Your spine is a lot more resilient than your brain, because even if your skull stays intact you could get a serious concussion or worse and be literally helpless.
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u/liverdawg 3d ago
That and your face inevitably inched up against the nasty ass floor.
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u/thepwnydanza 2d ago
My guy, it’s a tornado. You really gonna give a fuck about the floor being nasty?
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u/Itsprobablysarcasm Candace Owens Baby shower attendee 👶🏼 3d ago
they had us in the hallway face down and ass up
I'm pretty sure there's a joke in there about catholic school priests...
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u/Trix_Are_4_90Kids ☑️ 3d ago
They cancel school for toranaders? What? Like the title says, we had drills. If a toranader was headed our way, we went to the gymnasium and assumed the position and in the Midwest, you did this at least 2x a year. hell our parents didn't even call the school to check on you. 🤣 You was gon be aight.
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u/11229988B 3d ago
My school went from under the desk to in the hall cross legs, back against the wall, book on the head.
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u/_paaronormal ☑️ 2d ago
I can understand this if it’s the practice for a normal tornado warning, but they were (and are today) expecting an outbreak of possibly violent, long track tornadoes. Maybe school officials got smart after the Briarwood situation
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u/roosta_da_ape ☑️ 3d ago
How does this work do they close school due to upcoming forecasts. Or do they close the school as soon as they get a tornado warning and kick the kids out 🥾🦶🏾??
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u/the_ecdysiast ☑️ 3d ago
Its based on forecast. If the storm is gonna roll in around dismissal time, they’ll end early to stop folks being out in the worst of it.
Saved my kid’s life once because a tornado went right down the street their daycare was on 😭
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u/big_z_0725 3d ago edited 3d ago
When I was a kid in the 90's I remember 2 different tornado warnings around dismissal time, once when I was in elementary school, once in middle school. Where I live, late afternoon/early evening in the spring is prime tornado time. They held us in the shelters beyond the end of the school day until the all clear sounded. I think they released students to their parents if the parents came, but I don't remember for sure. If you walked or rode the bus, you couldn't leave.
Kicking kids out of school with an active tornado warning is unconscionable. Even if the tornado is not in your vicinity, it's still almost certainly a really violent thunderstorm, with lots of lightning, wind, rain, and usually hail. You can't send kids out in that.
I think I like the idea of pre-emptive dismissal better, but I don't have kids so I don't know for sure. If I had kids, with my job it'd be pretty easy for me to pick them up; others aren't so lucky.
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u/DlVlDED_BY_ZERO 3d ago
I remember during one of the worst tornadoes (during school hours, at least), they kept us in the school, parents were outside in the line up, waiting to get their kids to get them to safety. It was like 6:30 before they allowed us out. It was a really bad storm, but it was not even in the town we were in.
But, parents were just sitting in cars trying to get to their kids, the absolute carnage that could have ensued if the tornado had been nearby. And panic was crazy inside the school. They wouldn't let us turn on the radio and were taking our phones when we tried to talk to our parents.
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u/ButtBread98 3d ago
I live in the Midwest, and I don’t remember ever having a day off from school due to tornadoes. I wish we did though.
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u/French_Taylor ☑️ 3d ago
Thank goodness I wasn’t born in the tornado alley.
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u/metagawd ☑️ 2d ago
It's not as bad as you envision. I grew up watching waterspouts constantly. Tornadoes rarely formed over the city/area I grew up in, but out on the Great Lakes I could watch them from the top floor of my school building.
As an adult once I relocated to a part of my state that has had horrific historical tornadoes, it's a bit different. I've stood under rotation and filmed it, crazy as that sounds but you respect that they can touch down and tear it up. Would I trade it for earthquakes, hurricanes or the potential for nuclear disaster? Probably not as those all sound infinitely worse, but it's perception. Tornadoes I know, Hurricanes (which also spawn tornadoes at landfall) and earthquakes I do not (even though we've had them).
It does weird me out that there are parts of the country where having a basement/storm cellar does not happen sometimes due to hard rock. Not places on my list to relocate. :)
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u/MrLavender26 ☑️ 3d ago
Damn was the tornado Drake?
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u/class-action-now 3d ago
You mean Aubrey? We are going back to Aubrey bc he’s not a rapper anymore, if he ever was at all.
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u/Bunnnnii ☑️ Meme Thief 3d ago
I’ve never experienced this to know what they’re even talking about. My school in Brooklyn didn’t close down for shit. I used to be glued to the TV on the news to see if my school’s name would scroll past on the bottom, knowing it never would. At some point my mother said “don’t even waste your time, you’re gonna be late, get out.” 😔
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2d ago
They send them home because of tornados because of that one time the kids drowned in the storm cellar of that one school.
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u/Aaaandiiii ☑️ 3d ago
Every now and then they did an early release, but yep, in those hallways just chilling and being told to be quiet.
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u/Bubbly_Satisfaction2 ☑️ 3d ago
I am a New Yorker. When people ask me if I would ever move out of NYC, I say “No” and I give reasons.
Truth of the matter is… I am terrified of natural disasters. Tornadoes. Earthquakes. And I am thassalophobic, so I’m also terrified of the flooding that comes with hurricanes.
I think the notion of being woken up by a tornado warning siren at 3am is enough for me to say “I prefer to live in a shoe box for $2800 a month, slap-boxing with a rat in my kitchen, in NYC”.
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u/jayroc1023 2d ago
We barely got snow days here in Nashville. Davidson county was notorious for holding us hostage every night when snow was predicted.
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u/Conscious-Pin-4381 2d ago
Girl, they told us to keep our hands down and said “Good luck!” LMAO ✋🏿😭😂
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u/beepbopbeepboopydoop 1d ago
I always asked why the teachers could get up and we couldn’t. We was all lined up huddled in the gym by the walls and everyone was pulling their shirts down over their butts again and again 😭 Coldest my lower back has ever been
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u/Dr_Johnnie_Fever 2d ago
We was in the hall way, siting down holding a book over our heads.
What TF school you went to??😂😂
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u/Lawboithegreat 1d ago
Now we’re starting to see more cluster tornadoes, where one storm will spawn as many as 7 dangerous cells and you could have two or three touch down at once
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u/FistPunch_Vol_7 ☑️ 3d ago
They like cancel cancel school or do they make them do virtual classes? Lmfao, because over here in NYC, I feel bad for the kids who won’t get any snow days due to virtual classes lmao