night time tornado question

beachgirl1977

It is so scary to see all the damage from the storms. I live in nj so we don't get them often but was wondering what would happen if there was one at night. How would people know to get to safety?

belle204

Warnings on tv, weather radios, sirens. You would only be able to see one if it were lightening ... and you don't want to see it.

beachgirl1977

I was wondering how people who were sleeping knew

 

ghm

Most people in tornado-prone areas have weather radios--these come on and alert you whenever there is any kind of watch/warning for your area.

We don't get the big tornadoes like the midwest does, but we do get them and unfortunately do not have a weather radio (this is on our list of things to get--should be a priority!). I generally know to keep an eye on the weather if I know there's a storm warning. I'll check a few times to see what's going on in the storm system. If we're under tornado watch/warning, I usually stay up. DH works nights nearby so can call me if there's anything going on. We had a tornado hit about 4 one morning on the weekend. DH and I were asleep in bed, the kids upstairs. We woke up to the crazy thunder/lightning/wind and went running up the stairs to get the kids to bring them downstairs to the bathroom to wait it out. 

Unfortunately, we slept through one pre-kids (obviously didn't do any damage to our house but was close-by). I really like to sleep during storms so it scares me that I might not wake up--shortly after the incident where we brought the kids downstairs there was another one and I completely slept through it, at 8 in the morning. In fact, I remember hearing the sirens but thought it was a dream. That scares me to death. DH had stayed up that night to make sure things weren't going to get crazy and came to bed after we thought it was over and we totally slept through sirens/wind (there was no tornado that time, though).

Anyway, you can't get a response from me that's not a novel, so there's the answer that you probably weren't looking for!

Disneygeek77

We are thinking of getting a weather radio because of this.

skippy2310

I think the majority of tornadoes happen between 3-9 pm, but can occur at night. I would think that the conditions would be bad and you would hear about the possibility of bad weather on the news. A weather radio and possibly sirens would warn you, though the sirens aren't designed to be heard in homes and buildings which I don't understand.

r9stedt

Weather radio, phone call from the news to my cell, sirens...

Internet (obviously that isn't while sleeping), but I stay up if i know it is going to be bad.

DandelionMom

The tornado sirens are definitely loud enough to wake me up but I've stayed up watching for weather updates when there's a sketchy storm.  I'm more than a little crazy though. 

Ciarrai

We have tornado sirens, but we can't hear them unless we're awake.  Or at least, they don't seem to wake us up.  They've only gone off twice since we moved to the house and seemed to get progressively louder but it took a bit for us to hear them and know what they were even when we were awake.  At the old house, we were in the country and just had the weather radio.  We also have a weather radio.  The damn thing goes off for every watch and warning so a Flash Flood watch goes off just as much as a Tornado Warning.  It's also not as exact because there can be a warning in your county but not for your area so it's confusing.  Still, we keep that in our room on nights when it's supposed to be bad and at least it wakes us up enough to go find more information.  Also, apparently, our new town calls everyone (no idea how they have our phone number - must be from our water bill or something) if the sirens are going off to tell them they're going off.  Found that out last night at about 10:30 when the sirens were going off and we got a call from a weird number.  It was an automated message, but still, at least we know they call and we would hear the phone. 

belle204

Trust me, if you know it's supposed to be bad you won't sleep. I had to make myself go after the ones last month.

Smurphette

Ditto all of the girls who stay up in bad weather.  I grew up in Oklahoma and we never had a weather radio, my parents always just stayed up and kept an eye on things although the sirens there were loud enough that they would typically wake us up.  Now I'm the one who stays up watching the radar and making sure we're in the clear.  The sirens in TN aren't that loud at all and have never woken me up, I can barely hear them in the middle of the day when it's not raining yet (because they actually set them off then which is a bit silly).

mikeandmonica

We bought the weather radio that auto alerts when a storm is coming, and it has gone off more times in the middle of the night than I can count!  But realistically, they don't just come out of nowhere -- they come up when the weather people know that it is unstable, etc. or there are storms somewhere nearby, etc. -- so we know to be on the lookout and keep an eye out for things, etc.  We've had to bring the boys downstairs in the middle of the night when they (and we) were sleeping - it isn't fun!

patty78

I am in the st louis area, early this morning we got a very bad storm, I woke up just enough to think how would I know if a tornado was coming, then I fell back to sleep. We do have sirens, I am not sure I would hear them if I were sleeping, though. I think people around here had gotten so used to the sirens they stopped paying attention to them, I know I had.  But this past couple weeks of bad weather has me taking this much more seriously.