Tornado Safety

“While other states may record more tornadoes per year than Illinois, Illinois still ranks as 9th in number of tornadoes. But even more significant is the severity of tornadoes. According to The Tornado Project, on the chart of the ten worst tornadoes, Illinois is the only state listed more than once - and it is listed 4 times!”  
~from  http://www.comportone.com/cpo/weather/tornado2.htm

I grew up there. I spent many hours in our basement during watches and warnings behind a mattress playing cards by the light of a camping lantern listening to my mother yell at Daddy for spending too much time watching the ___sky. My parents and aunts and uncles were all school age at the time of the 1967 tornado.  Many of the 24 who died that day were small school children. One website stated that over 500 were injured that day as well. The video is long and disturbing.  I don't recommend it for children to view.

This, however, is designed for school children:  Tornado Safety for Kids (pdf)

 (and here many other links recommended by NOAA)

Today we spent about an hour in the hallway due to Tornado Warnings.  It's the first time in my teaching career that I've experienced an actual Tornado Warning. (Remember warnings are only issued after a Tornado has been sighted in the area.)

Tornados are serious business.  Fingers should cover the neck and base of the skull – not the head.  This keeps flying debris from slashing your main arteries and protects the top of your spinal cord and brain stem. Your skull does quite an effective job protecting the rest of your brain.

Leg bones bent up protect what your ribs don’t – again, from flying debris.  This also makes you as small as possible.

I've seen straw (hay) driven into a telephone pole like it was a nail. I've seen photographs of sheets of notebook paper driven through solid walls and still in tact.  Tornados are destructive.  Tornados are surprising and quite unpredictable.

Don’t think that sending students away from the safety of the hallway into a classroom full of windows is a good idea, just because you don’t hear the telltale train sound and it’s not raining, just because they are bored, or just because you want to continue teaching them a lesson.

When we have a drill…stand and monitor your children – absolutely.  But when it’s the real thing – think about who is going to take care of the children when you injured or worse.