Weeralarm VS: Ongewoon zwaar tornadoseizoen

Al 47 doden overigens.

Tsja, je kan wakker liggen van elke dode, maar laten we eerlijk zijn; elke seconde van de dag vallen er over de gehele wereld bosjes mensen neer. Dit is altijd zo geweest maar met de hedendaagse media wordt het elke dag nog even in je gezicht gesmeerd.
Neemt niet weg dat het niet vreselijk is voor de nabestaanden, maar zolang het een ver-van-mijn-bed-show is kan ik er helaas niet meer wakker van liggen. De wereld is een woeste beerput van bewegende natuur-ellende en af en toe zijn mensen op de verkeerde plek om de verkeerde tijd wanneer 'Gaia' weer eens een scheet laat.
Politici zouden er weken bij stil kunnen blijven staan maar dan zetten ze de wereld ook continu stil.
As marcb1974 put it: The show must go on!

Niet voor iedereen is een ver-van-mijn-bed-show. Zitten hier op fok bv al aardig wat leden die in amerika wonen.

52 doden inmiddels...

52 doden, man... het is net februari, zo vroeg in het seizoen al

quote:

Op woensdag 6 februari 2008 20:51 schreef maniack28 het volgende:
52 doden, man... het is net februari, zo vroeg in het seizoen al

Ik vrees dat dat een van de redenen is dat er zoveel doden zijn, niemand verwachtte het...

True, maar ik heb de kaarten gezien, die waren toch om te smullen man... jeetje... dus ik neem aan dat ze dat bij de weerdiensten ddaar ook wel gezien hadden. Stemlokalen waren ook al eerder dicht, dus het was bekend..

Ik vind dat de regering in de VS best wel eens de subsidie op SUV's in subsidie op schuilkelders mag omzetten. Volgens mij hebben daar een heleboel mensen iets aan.

Of subsidie op stenen huizen.

quote:

Op woensdag 6 februari 2008 21:13 schreef RetepV het volgende:
Ik vind dat de regering in de VS best wel eens de subsidie op SUV's in subsidie op schuilkelders mag omzetten. Volgens mij hebben daar een heleboel mensen iets aan.

Of subsidie op stenen huizen.

Een stenen huis overleeft een stevige orkaan ook niet, en is alleen maar duurder om te repareren of te herbouwen. Lijkt me trouwens dat er in de risico-gebieden misschien al zoiets bestaat als subsidie op stormkelders.

hier hadden we gister ook weer tornado warning
ik reed rustig achter de storm aan van werk naar huis, rustig op de weg, politie controleert nog minder dan gewoon, dus lekker cruisecontrol aan op 75 en naar huis
pas als er in het dorp hier touchdowns zouden zijn, ga ik misschien wel dekking zoeken

[ Bericht 12% gewijzigd door Frutsel op 08-02-2008 18:42:12 ]

LAFAYETTE, Tenn. — Residents in five Southern states tried to salvage what they could Wednesday from homes reduced to piles of debris, a day after the deadliest cluster of tornadoes in nearly a decade tore through the region, snapping trees and crumpling homes. At least 50 people were dead.

Rescue crews, some with the help of the National Guard, went door-to-door looking for more victims. Dozens of twisters were reported as the storms swept through Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas and Alabama.

Seavia Dixon, whose Atkins, Ark., home was shattered, stood Wednesday morning in her yard, holding muddy baby pictures of her son, who is now a 20-year-old soldier in Iraq. Only a concrete slab was left from the home.

The family's brand new white pickup truck was upside-down, about 150 yards from where it was parked before the storm. Another pickup truck the family owned sat crumpled about 50 feet from the slab.

"You know, it's just material things," Dixon said, her voice breaking. "We can replace them. We were just lucky to survive."



In many places, the storms struck as Super Tuesday primaries were ending. As the extent of the damage quickly became clear, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee paused in their victory speeches to remember the victims.

Twenty-six people were killed in Tennessee, 13 killed in Arkansas, seven killed in Kentucky and four killed in Alabama, emergency officials said. Among the victims were Arkansas parents who died with their 11-year-old daughter in Atkins when they stayed behind to calm their horses. The community, one of the hardest hit, is a town of about 3,000 approximately 60 miles northwest of Little Rock.

Ray Story tried to get his 70-year-old uncle, Bill Clark, to a hospital after the storms leveled his mobile home in Macon County, about 60 miles northeast of Nashville. Clark died as Story and his wife tried to navigate debris-strewn roads in their pickup truck, they said.

"He never had a chance," Story's wife, Nova, said. "I looked him right in the eye and he died right there in front of me."

President Bush said he called the governors of Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee and assured them the administration was ready to help and to deal with any emergency requests.

"Loss of life, loss of property — prayers can help and so can the government," Bush said. "I do want the people in those states to know the American people are standing with them."

The system moved eastward to Alabama Wednesday, bringing heavy rain and gusty wind, causing several injuries in counties northwest of Birmingham. The National Weather Service posted tornado watches for parts of southern Alabama, the Florida Panhandle and western Georgia, but the storms appeared to weaken as they approached the coast. Weather service experts also investigated damage in Indiana to see if it was caused by tornadoes.

An apparent tornado damaged eight homes in Walker County, Ala., and a pregnant woman suffered a broken arm when a trailer home was tossed by the wind, said county emergency management director Johnny Burnette.

"I was there before daylight and it looked like a war zone," he said.

Northeast of Nashville, a spectacular fire erupted at a natural gas pumping station. The station took a direct hit from the storm, but no deaths connected to the fire were reported.

About 200 yards from the edge of the plant, Bonnie and Frank Brawner picked through the rubble of their home for photographs and other personal items. The storm sheared off the second story of the home.

"We had a beautiful neighborhood, now it's hell," said Bonnie Brawner, 80.

More than 20 students were stuck behind wreckage and jammed doors, mostly for short periods, in battered dormitories at Union University in Jackson, Tenn. Tornadoes had hit the campus in the past, and students knew the drill when they heard sirens, said Union University President David S. Dockery.

"When the sirens went off the entire process went into place quickly," Dockery said. Students "were ushered into rooms, into the bathrooms, interior spaces."

He said about 50 students were taken to a hospital and nine stayed through the night. But all would be fine, he said. The students "demonstrated who they are and I'm so proud of them."

In Memphis, high wind collapsed the roof of a Sears store at a mall. Debris that included bricks and air conditioning units was scattered on the parking lot, where about two dozen vehicles were damaged.

A few people north of the mall took shelter under a bridge and were washed away in the Wolf River, but they were pulled out with only scrapes, said Steve Cole of the Memphis Police Department.

Winter tornadoes are not uncommon. The peak tornado season is late winter through midsummer, but the storms can happen at any time of the year with the right conditions.

But this batch was the nation's worst in a 24-hour period since May 3, 1999, when some 50 people died in Oklahoma and Kansas. The death toll ranks among the top 15 from tornado outbreaks since 1950, said Greg Carbin, the warning coordination meteorologist at the center in Norman, Okla., just south of Oklahoma City.

The tornadoes could be due to La Nina, the cooling of the tropical Pacific Ocean that can cause changes in weather patterns around the world. It is the opposite of the better-known El Nino, a periodic warming of the same region.

Recent studies have found an increase in tornadoes in parts of the southern U.S. during the winter during a La Nina. On Jan. 8, tornadoes were reported in Arkansas, Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma and Wisconsin. Two died in the Missouri storms.

In this round of storms, there were 67 eyewitness accounts of tornadoes but the number of twisters likely won't be that high because some probably saw the same funnel cloud, said Carbin. He said a reasonable guess is that 30 to 40 tornadoes touched down.

Most communities had ample warning that the storms were coming — forecasts had warned for days severe weather was possible. But in at least one rural community, there was no siren to alert residents the severe weather had arrived.

In Kentucky's Allen County, officials have requested funding for a siren at the fire station, but don't have one yet. Even if they did, officials wondered if it would have helped.

"It came in quick," Judge-Executive Bobby Young said. "Probably, warning devices wouldn't have helped any."

Voor meer foto's ---> http://www.foxnews.com/photoessay/0,4644,3261,00.html#8_0

Voor videomateriaal --> http://www.myfoxmemphis.com/myfox/pages/Home/Detail?contentId=5690348&version=2&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=VSTY&pageId=1.1.1

55 doden inmiddels

zwaarste tornado-outbreak in 20 jaar tijd

A major wintertime tornado outbreak ripped through Arkansas, western Tennessee, northern Mississippi, northern Alabama, and western Kentucky on February 5, 2008. By the afternoon of the next day, at least 52 fatalities had been reported, said news reports. At least 26 people were reported to have died in Tennessee alone. The tornadoes were spawned from a line of severe thunderstorms that moved eastward across the region.

The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite (TRMM) captured these unique images of the line of severe storms. The images were taken at 11:08 p.m. Central Daylight Time on February 5, (05:08 UTC on February 6) as the storms moved out of the lower Mississippi valley into the Ohio and Tennessee valleys. The first image shows the horizontal distribution of rain intensity as seen from above. A line of intense rainfall (darker reds) associated with the heavier thunderstorms stretches from northeastern Louisiana up through Mississippi, western Tennessee and Kentucky, and into southern Indiana. The northern part of the line contains a broader area of light to moderate rain (green and blue areas).

The rain rates shown in the center of this image are from the TRMM precipitation radar, the first and only space-borne precipitation radar. In addition to the precipitation radar, TRMM uses an array of passive and active sensors to measure rainfall from space. Rain rates in the outer swath are from the TRMM Microwave Imager. The rain rates are overlaid on infrared data from the TRMM Visible Infrared Scanner.

The powerful storms were fed by warm moist air from the Gulf of Mexico. La Niña, which brings cooler-than-normal ocean surface temperatures to the central East Pacific Ocean, may have played a role in the development of the rare winter thunderstorms by helping to shift the jet steam pattern and thereby allowing warmer, moister air into the region.

Miracle: Baby survives twister

CASTALIAN SPRINGS, Tenn. — The muddy field was littered with debris after a wave of violent storms: Living room couches, strollers, children's toys. So when two rescuers came upon a baby, they thought he was a doll.

Then he moved.

"We grabbed hold of his neck (to take a pulse) and he took a breath of air and started crying," said David Harmon, a firefighter from a nearby county who was combing the field for tornado victims.

The boy was found at least 100 yards away from where his family's house had been, possibly lifted by the storm's fierce winds, according to witnesses at the scene on Thursday. There was no trace of exactly where the house stood. His mother, who did not survive, was found in the same field.

In a region devastated by tornadoes that killed at least 57 people as they swept through five states, the infant was a sign of hope. The 11-month old boy, named Kyson, was surrounded by flattened homes, bricks from a blown-apart post office and snapped trees, a devastating scene similar to so many communities across the South.

The baby's mother, 24-year-old Kerri Stowell, was one of six people killed in the small community, said Sumner County Sheriff Bob Barker.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,329513,00.html

Verschrikkelijk voor die mensen

Jemig zeg, dat dat kindje het overleefd heeft
Wat enorm tragisch wat daar gebeurd is, en wat een kracht heeft zo'n tornado ook, verbluffend.

Tornado's in the south


_{Debris from several homes lies scattered in the neighborhood behind K-Mart on Cobbs Ford Road in Prattville}

Rescue crews searched door-to-door for people trapped in wreckage after a tornado crashed through town, part of a wild weekend of weather that also included rain, snow and flooding in the Midwest.

No fatalities were immediately reported in Prattville, outside Montgomery, but two people were critically injured, said Fire Department official Dallis Johnson.

Twenty-seven people had minor injuries, officials said. About 200 homes were damaged or destroyed. A curfew began as darkness fell Sunday.

A 35-bed mobile hospital unit was set up outside a Kmart to treat victims with minor to moderate injuries so that hospitals could take those with serious injuries, Dr. Steve Allen said.

Toppled utility poles and storm debris littered the area. Shelters opened at churches, and school buses shuttled storm victims out of the stricken area to the city center.

David Shoupe, 18, assistant manager at Palm Beach Tan, said he and a co-worker barely made it into a laundry room before the roof fell in and the wind tossed shopping carts aloft.

"Soon as we turned the corner, the roof collapsed everywhere except the laundry room," Shoupe said, standing beside his car, which had its front windshield cracked by debris and the other windows shattered.

About 9,000 homes and businesses lost power in Prattville. The tornado was part of storms that swept across the South, damaging homes elsewhere in Alabama, Georgia and the Florida Panhandle.

A tornado destroyed four homes in Escambia County, Fla. About 60 other homes, businesses and storage buildings were damaged to varying degrees, county spokeswoman Sonya Daniel said. Inspectors were headed to survey the damage Monday.

Residents hustled to clear debris, cover broken windows and spread tarpaulins on roofs. "I expected to hear the roof blow off as bad as that wind was blowing," Willie Chastang, 58, told the Pensacola News Journal.

Across the border in Escambia County, Ala., two houses were destroyed by a possible tornado in rural Dixie, the Weather Service said.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=4304003

haha, die laatste, vrouw die het wil wil verwisselen, want daar zal wel aan liggen. (en naar de achtergrond kijkend heeft ze ook achter het stuur gezeten )

maar ff serieus, het blijft een heftig fenomeen..

Possible tornado in downtown Atlanta

ATLANTA — A possible tornado ripped through downtown Atlanta on Friday night, smashing skyscraper windows, sucking furniture and luggage out of hotel rooms, crumbling part of an apartment building and rattling the rafters of two major sports arenas filled with basketball fans. At least 20 people were hurt.

Streets around the Georgia Dome, the Phillips Arena, the CNN Center and Centennial Olympic Park were littered with broken glass, downed power lines, crumbled bricks, insulation and even the occasional office chair. Billboards collapsed onto parked cars. Stunned fans from the arenas and hotel guests wandered through the debris in disbelief.



"It was crazy. There was a lot of windows breaking and stuff falling," said Terrence Evans, a valet who was about to park a car at the Omni Hotel when the apparent twister hit.

At an early morning news conference, Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin called the storm "what we now know was a tornado." But National Weather Service officials continued to say only that a "possible tornado" hit around 9:40 p.m., accompanied by a storm packing 60 mph winds. A tornado warning had been issued for downtown a few minutes before.

There was no announcement of the approaching storm for the 18,000 fans inside the Georgia Dome for the Southeastern Conference basketball tournament. The first sign something was wrong was a rumbling from above and the rippling of the Fiberglas fabric roof. Catwalks swayed and insulation rained down on players during overtime of the Mississippi State-Alabama game, sending fans fleeing toward the exits and the teams to their locker rooms.

"I thought it was a tornado or a terrorist attack," said Mississippi State guard Ben Hansbrough, whose team won 69-67 after an hourlong delay under a roof with at least two visible tears. A later game between Georgia and Kentucky was postponed.

"Ironically, the guy behind me got a phone call saying there was a tornado warning," said fan Lisa Lynn, who was watching the game from the lower deck. "And in two seconds, we heard the noise and things started to shake. It was creepy."



A half-mile away, the sign of the Phillips Arena was left mangled by the storm but fans inside noticed little disruption during a game between the Atlanta Hawks and Los Angeles Clippers.



Most of the damage from Friday's storm was concentrated in downtown Atlanta and the storm knocked out power to about 10,000 people. Authorities blocked off roads around the CNN Center, where heavy debris filled the streets. A chair from the skyscraper's lobby sat in the middle of the street, flanked by cars crushed by fallen debris.

Insulation, metal siding and other debris hung from trees. The streets were covered in shattered glass, chunks of concrete from buildings and downed power lines.

Atlanta Fire Department Capt. Bill May said the department was working "multiple incidents" and that part of a loft apartment building collapsed, but he did not know if there were any injuries.

The loft apartment building, built in an old cotton mill -- had severe damage to one corner, and appeared to have major roof damage. Fire officials said it "pancaked," and they were uncertain whether all the occupants had escaped.



Georgia Emergency Management Agency spokesman Buzz Weiss said at least 20 people were transported to area hospitals from damaged areas across the city. He did not know the severity of the injuries or the condition of the victims. Grady Memorial Hospital, the city's large public hospital where many of the injured were taken, had broken windows but was operating as usual. (Bron: FOX)

F2 Tornado struck Atlanta, more to come?

ATLANTA — Crews hauled broken glass and furniture out of downtown streets Saturday and homeowners surveyed damage caused by a tornado that caught residents and basketball fans by surprise.

More thunderstorms headed across northern Alabama toward the city Saturday. "We're bracing for another round of whatever mother nature throws at us," said Lisa Janak of the state emergency management agency.

The National Weather Service posted a tornado watch for a large area of Georgia, including the Atlanta area, plus portions of South Carolina and Alabama, and a warning was issued for parts of northern Alabama and northwestern Georgia.

At least 27 people were hurt Friday night, though no injuries were believed to be life-threatening.

All downtown events scheduled for Saturday were canceled, including the St. Patrick's Day parade.

"It's a mess," Janak said.

Weather service officials confirmed Saturday that a tornado hit around 9:40 p.m. as a thunderstorm roared through with wind up to 60 mph, just 10 minutes after the weather service issued a tornado warning.

The tornado itself moved through downtown packing wind up to 110 mph, then grew into a twister with wind up to 135 mph, weather service meteorologist Barry Gooden said.

There had been only a "light risk" in the area Friday for thunderstorms capable of producing strong tornadoes and very large hail, said Trisha Palmer, a weather service meteorologist in nearby Peachtree City. In contrast, the risk was rated as moderate Saturday north Georgia and upstate South Carolina.

The storm smashed hundreds of skyscraper windows, blew furniture and luggage out of hotel rooms, crumbled part of an apartment building and rattled a packed sports arena.

Streets around the Georgia Dome, Phillips Arena, the CNN Center and Centennial Olympic Park were littered with broken glass, downed power lines, crumbled bricks, insulation and the occasional office chair. Billboards collapsed onto parked cars.

CNN said its headquarters building suffered ceiling damage that allowed water to pour into the atrium, and windows were shattered in the CNN.com newsroom and the company's library. A water line inside the building broke, turning a staircase into a waterfall.

"It was crazy. There was a lot of windows breaking and stuff falling," said Terrence Evans, a valet who was about to park a car at the Omni Hotel when the storm twister hit.

Guests and staff were quickly moved to the exhibit hall and ballroom, and the only injuries were "some cuts and scrapes and no major issues as far as we know," hotel spokesman Mike Sullivan said.

The 1,000-room hotel was fully booked, though many guests were out at sporting events at nearby neighboring venues when the storm hit.

Power was knocked out to about 19,000 customers.









[ Bericht 0% gewijzigd door Frutsel op 15-03-2008 19:22:19 ]

Tering, wat een schade .

Da's niet mis. Ook nog een behoorlijke stad, dat Atlanta.

En ze waarschuwen voor meer.... er is zwaar weer op komst voor Atlanta zondag en maandag. De storm van vanochtend gaat nu noord-Georgia en Tennessee treffen.