How To Be Safe In A Hurricane

To be fair, there's nothing that will cause people to question your sanity more than a misdirected Candle in the Wind...
 
Of course, that is the "Hurricane Deck". There should also be a No Candles sign.
 
Okay, my first tip on surviving a hurricane would be to move to Kansas, very few hurricanes up there.

I have avoided hurricanes for many years but I still live in North Texas, the heart of Tornado Alley.

Once, my wife and I went out to make a house payment and came back to find the house was mostly gone.

It was not a trailer house, after the tornado, FEMA came in and offered to let us live in a trailer house.

They had to truck them in since all the trailer homes in town were now all over the southern part of town.

On birthday cakes and candles...avoid Silly String, no maytter how much Granny begs you DO NOT use Silly String around lit candles.
 
GregHouseMD said:
Okay, my first tip on surviving a hurricane would be to move to Kansas, very few hurricanes up there.
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Plus, there is filmed evidence that tornadoes in Kansas take you and your house to nicer, more colorful places than Kansas.
 
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Apart from the "no candles" thing, let's examine a few of the other myths about hurricane preparedness:

  • Leave some windows open during hurricanes to equalize pressure
Fact: The opposite is true — windows should be tightly shut to prevent any of the wind from entering the home. What does enter will seek to exit, in the process blowing out a roof or ceiling, collapsing a gable end or a garage door.
  • Taping your windows will protect them from breaking
Fact: Contrary to popular belief (and a frantic rise in the sales of these items before a hurricane hits), taping a home's windows with masking or duct tape does nothing to protect them. The windows will still break, with the tape doing nothing to impede the process. It's questionable that either sealant will even keep broken glass from dispersing, says the Federal Alliance for Safe Homes (FLASH).
  • Only the windows “facing the storm” need to be protected
[SIZE=+0]Fact: All windows and doors of a home need to be protected from hurricane winds, not just the ones facing the ocean. Wind can come from any direction or angle and may change direction quickly.[/SIZE]
  • [SIZE=+0] I need to buy a chainsaw to clean up after the hurricane[/SIZE]
[SIZE=+0]Fact: If you don't already know how to safely use a chain saw, hurricane cleanup is not the time to try to teach yourself. Recently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that more Americans kill or injure themselves after a storm during cleanup than as a direct result of hurricane winds and flooding.[/SIZE]
  • [SIZE=+0][/SIZE][SIZE=+0] The storm surge is only going to be 15 or 20 feet at worst. i’m on the upper floor so I can ride out the storm there.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=+0]Fact: Vertical evacuation, or escaping the rising storm surge by going to the upper stories of a building, is a very bad idea. Wind speeds increase the higher you go, so you will be evacuating into a more dangerous place. Plus, the high winds and water will make getting help to you nearly impossible after the storm passes.[/SIZE]
  • [SIZE=+0] Putting plywood on your windows will protect your home from damage.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=+0]Fact: Okay, this one's true.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=+0][/SIZE]
[SIZE=+0]
[/SIZE]
 
I've thought that some charity should have a stockpile of reusable plywood sheeting that they could quickly ship into areas in the storm's path. They could loan these out to homeowners and businesses for a donation that is about equal to the pre-storm markup for similar products and collect them afterwards so the home and business owners don't have to store them.
insert gratuitous comment to keep post on topic
The panels could be pre-painted and printed with useful store related tips like "Don't use candles during a hurricane, get a battery powered or hand cranked lantern instead".
 
There are differences between hurricanes and tornados however and one tip that is true of one but not the other involves closed windows and equalizing pressure.

In fact, the pressure thing is a factor in a tornado.

As the huge 1/2 mile wide tornado destroyed my home and about 20% of the residences in Wichita Falls on April 10th, 1979, I was (stupidly but successfully) trying to outrun it. I was about 100 feet south of the thing as it tore up our neighborhood. We, (wife, 31/2 week old daughter and myself,) were riding in a 1976 Pacer (please don't start on that I was in college with a wife and baby, money was tight).

The two door windows and the hatchback window all imploded at the same instant as we drove away from the thing.

The wind speeds in a tornado can be twice as fast as a hurricane or more, the speeds literally suck the air away from the surrounding area and pull it into the funnel leaving the air pressure much lower.

My advice, if you see a tornado coming, find a hole to get in, outrunning it was a foolish thing to do. As I looked at the thing spinning away 30 to 40 yards from me, I saw headlights from at least one car go by. Half the people killed that day (44) died in automobiles.

We were as close to the thing as we were because we had left the house to go down town but we heard the thing was just a couple of miles away, I went back to get the cats. all three where asleep in the living room which was the most gone part of the place when it was all over.

We all survived, we had good insurance, and everything was replaced. The cats never showed any appreciation for the risk we took to save them but then we never expected them to either, they're cats.
 
GregHouseMD said:
I went back to get the cats. all three where asleep in the living room which was the most gone part of the place when it was all over.


We all survived, we had good insurance, and everything was replaced. The cats never showed any appreciation for the risk we took to save them but then we never expected them to either, they're cats.
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Well, why should they be grateful?
  1. You woke them up.
  2. You didn't feed them when you woke them up.
  3. You put them in the car. A cat is not a dog; dogs love cars ("Oboy oboy oboy we're going in the car, my favorite! Roll the window down!"). A cat knows that when you put it in the car, there's dirty work afoot ("Oh noes! He's taking me to the Bad Man in the White Coat who's going to pry my mouth open and stick a thermometer up my behind and stick needles in me!")
Your cats would have preferred the tornado. Cats love to bat at things flying through the air near them.
 
GregHouseMD:

Actually, even for tornadoes it's a myth.

Think about your story for a second. You talk about the high wind speeds of a tornado creating low pressure, right?

But your car windows imploded.

Low pressure outside would have caused them to explode. It's more likely a piece of debris (or, even more likely, hail which is common around tornadic storms) hit and busted your car windows.

From the NOAA's Tornado Safety page. From the first paragraph:
Forget about the old notion of opening windows to equalize pressure; the tornado will blast open the windows for you!
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From the Red Cross (about 1/4 of the way down the page):
Damage happens when wind gets inside a home through a broken window, door, or damaged roof. Keep windows closed. Houses do not explode due to air pressure differences. Stay away from windows during severe storms. Flying debris could shatter the glass and cause injury.
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From USA Today:
Several years ago, theory held that the low pressure inside a tornado made buildings "explode" as the tornado passed over them. When the pressure outside the building suddenly dropped, the higher air pressure inside the building would push out the walls. The idea was that opening a window would equalize the pressure and prevent this. Since then, researchers have found that tornado winds destroy buildings, often by first lifting the roof off. When this happens, the walls might fall outward. The sudden drop in outside air pressure wasn't "exploding" buildings. The current advice is don't waste time opening windows, get into a safe shelter such as a bathroom with no windows.​
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There are several more links. I googled Tornado safety pressure for these.​
 
Hellbound said:
GregHouseMD:

Actually, even for tornadoes it's a myth.

Think about your story for a second. You talk about the high wind speeds of a tornado creating low pressure, right?

But your car windows imploded.

Low pressure outside would have caused them to explode. It's more likely a piece of debris (or, even more likely, hail which is common around tornadic storms) hit and busted your car windows.

From the NOAA's Tornado Safety page. From the first paragraph:

From the Red Cross (about 1/4 of the way down the page):

From USA Today:

There are several more links. I googled Tornado safety pressure for these.[/LEFT]
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You would have to be there, they all three went at once, exactly the same time.

Implode, explode, they all shattered at the same time. Who knows why?
 
GregHouseMD said:
You would have to be there, they all three went at once, exactly the same time.

Implode, explode, they all shattered at the same time. Who knows why?
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Probably because a tornado hit the house.

Think of it. The wind essentially "bends" the house. Since glass is much less flexible than wood, the changing of the shape of the windows would cause the glass to shatter, even if the wood was able to rebound from the strain. It would have done no good to have the windows open. They still would have shattered.
 
Tricky said:
Probably because a tornado hit the house.

Think of it. The wind essentially "bends" the house. Since glass is much less flexible than wood, the changing of the shape of the windows would cause the glass to shatter, even if the wood was able to rebound from the strain. It would have done no good to have the windows open. They still would have shattered.
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GregHouseMD was talking about what happened in his car.
 
Stupid poster dounble posted so he deleted this one.
 
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BPSCG said:
Well, why should they be grateful?
  1. You woke them up.
  2. You didn't feed them when you woke them up.
  3. You put them in the car. A cat is not a dog; dogs love cars ("Oboy oboy oboy we're going in the car, my favorite! Roll the window down!"). A cat knows that when you put it in the car, there's dirty work afoot ("Oh noes! He's taking me to the Bad Man in the White Coat who's going to pry my mouth open and stick a thermometer up my behind and stick needles in me!")
Your cats would have preferred the tornado. Cats love to bat at things flying through the air near them.
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Good points, all of them.

I was stupid to go back from them considering what I risked, I don't regret saving them though.
 
Wel, just for fun (not trying to be contrary, but becuase I thought it would be interesting) let's check the pressure on your car window!

For the sake of this, let's assume the tornado lowers the pressure outside to zero. Complete vacuum.

Inside your car the pressure is still 1atm, which is 101325 Pa. A Pascal is a N/m2.

The formula for pressure is p=F/A, where p is the pressure, F the force, and A the area. Since we know the pressure and area, let's rewrite that as:

F=Ap

Now, a typical car window might be 2 feet by 3 feet? We'll go with an even square meter, just for calculations sake.

So, F = 100cm2 * 101325 N/m2
or

F = 101325 N. That's roughly 22,780 pounds. That's a lot. But, if we then spread that over the area (say 3ft by 3ft or 1,296 in2, close enough to a meter) that works out to 17.5 lbs/in2
All auto glass must meet the ANSI/SEA Z 26.1 standard, laminated glass for the windshield and tempered or laminate for the sides and back.

Sadly, I'm having a heck of a time trying to find the breaking strength of tempered or laminate glass, or getting a copy of the relevent standard (although you can download one for $59).

Oh well. Perhaps someone with more knowledge can carry out the calculation (and maybe even figure out exactly the pressure difference, instead of assuming vacuum like I did).
 
BPSCG, if you want I can send you a few LED-fitted flashlights (those mini-MAG-lite ones). Solves your problem of tripping over your cat and seriously lowers the unreliability of normal flashlights with regard to batteries running dry. ;)
 
Hellbound said:
Wel, just for fun (not trying to be contrary, but becuase I thought it would be interesting) let's check the pressure on your car window!

For the sake of this, let's assume the tornado lowers the pressure outside to zero. Complete vacuum.

Inside your car the pressure is still 1atm, which is 101325 Pa. A Pascal is a N/m2.

The formula for pressure is p=F/A, where p is the pressure, F the force, and A the area. Since we know the pressure and area, let's rewrite that as:

F=Ap

Now, a typical car window might be 2 feet by 3 feet? We'll go with an even square meter, just for calculations sake.

So, F = 100cm2 * 101325 N/m2
or

F = 101325 N. That's roughly 22,780 pounds. That's a lot. But, if we then spread that over the area (say 3ft by 3ft or 1,296 in2, close enough to a meter) that works out to 17.5 lbs/in2
All auto glass must meet the ANSI/SEA Z 26.1 standard, laminated glass for the windshield and tempered or laminate for the sides and back.

Sadly, I'm having a heck of a time trying to find the breaking strength of tempered or laminate glass, or getting a copy of the relevent standard (although you can download one for $59).

Oh well. Perhaps someone with more knowledge can carry out the calculation (and maybe even figure out exactly the pressure difference, instead of assuming vacuum like I did).
Click to expand...
Thanks for that. I was wondering something similar earlier today. What's the difference between normal air pressure (about 14 pounds/square inch) and the pressure iside a tornado, and is that pressure sufficient to cause a car's windows to blow out?
 
BPSCG said:
Thanks for that. I was wondering something similar earlier today. What's the difference between normal air pressure (about 14 pounds/square inch) and the pressure iside a tornado, and is that pressure sufficient to cause a car's windows to blow out?
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The main difference is that the pressure isn't even inside a tornado and it's fluctuating. With normal air pressure, the pressure is pretty evenly spread out and it stays within a relative tolerance. In a tornado the opposite is the case.
 
Hmmm. That lends itself to another line of thought.

Do fast cars have to have specially desinged glass? There are some vehicles that travel at 200mph, or close to it. That's the equivalent of an F3 tornado (158mph to 206mph). A car is generally designed so that the side and rear windows would have wind going across them, rather than, say, directly at them, so I would assume we could count this as a maximum pressure loss situation.

Do car windows every blow out from driving too fast (barring an impact of some sort)?
 
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