If you know me, you know I have a lifelong fascination, fear, special interest -- whatever -- with severe weather and tornadoes.
I've thoroughly psychoanalyzed myself, and while it's possible the June 1990 Lower Ohio Valley tornado outbreak is why I am the way I am about this, it's also possible this is just my weird thing. Some people are obsessed with serial killers. I'm obsessed with tornadoes, thunderstorms, and severe weather safety.
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| One of the many, many pictures of clouds on my phone. Pictured: anvil clouds to the west of my location. From May 19, 2023, Greenfield, IN |
Something I've noticed with the advent of storm chasers and people I affectionately call "weather fretters" on social media is a pernicious myth around weather safety. No matter how many people seem to warn against it, Joe Public still seems to think overpasses are somewhere to go in the case of a tornado.
They are emphatically not safe. Do NOT try to shelter under an overpass in the path of a tornado.
TLDR: Overpasses are not safe refuge from a tornado. In fact, if the overpass you're hiding in takes a direct hit, it can take the tornadic winds and amplify them. Overpasses can turn into a wind tunnel and pummel the bodies of you and your loved ones with debris, turning pebbles into bullets and street signs into cleavers.
If you want the full explanation, keep reading:
In the 1990s, several images of people taking shelter under highway overpasses from tornadoes gained fame, the most famous being from the Andover, Kansas, tornado in 1991.
In the Andover video, people scramble up the embankment while a member of a news crew shouts “Get up under the girders!”
Millions of Americans saw this video on the news and internalized overpasses as a safe tornado shelter. Somehow, despite the tragic evidence to the contrary, people still hold this idea close.
In everyday thunderstorms and tornado warnings alike, cars congregate under overpasses, clogging roadways and endangering people trying to get to safety.
But there's even stronger evidence of just how tragically dangerous it is to put yourself under an overpass directly in the path of a tornado.
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| An overpass that sustained a direct hit from the 1999 Moore F5 tornado. Photo credit: Johnn Jarboe, National Weather Service. (Wikimedia Commons, public domain) |
The catastrophic F5 Bridge Creek-Moore tornado on May 3, 1999, sticks in many minds as one of the worst and strongest tornadoes of all time.
It killed 35 people directly and injured 583 as it tore through the Oklahoma City metro area. People hunkered down in bathtubs, closets, hallways, and storm shelters, but those who were caught off guard had fewer options.
Motorists on I-44 caught in the path of the monster desperately climbed up the slanted concrete of overpasses.
Those in the direct path of the tornado were hit with incomprehensibly high winds and pelted with debris.
Several people were ripped from their hiding places by the already whirling winds, the underpasses turning into wind tunnels. Many received gruesome injuries. Two women died.
Despite these tragic truths, many people still believe an overpass will protect you from a tornado. Recently, I saw a comment on a local meteorologist's Facebook page to the effect of "I don't care what y'all say, I still think an overpass is a better shelter than a dang ditch."
The truth is, you should never use an overpass as shelter. If you’re caught outdoors, you should try to find a low-lying ditch that's not filled with water. But if that option doesn't appeal to you, there's another choice.
The best bet is to stay informed about severe weather by the National Weather Service, your local news, and set up text alerts on your smartphone. It doesn't cost you any money.
If you have an iPhone, go to your settings, go to notifications, and turn on Emergency Alerts.
If you're an Android user, Go to Settings > Safety & emergency > Wireless Emergency Alerts and turn on Allow alerts.
There are even an increasing number of services that will personally call your phone in the case of a tornado warning in your area. These do cost money, however. You could also spend the one-time cost of about $40 to get yourself a Midland weather radio, which you can set to go off quite loudly in the case of severe weather in your area.
You don't have to be a full-fledged weather fretter like me, but in this case, an ounce of prevention really is worth a pound of cure.
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