Severe Weather Janurary 2013
 

Hope everyone stays safe tonight.

www.weather.com

It was 60 degrees and storming today in Columbia, and tomorrow it's supposed to be in the thirties. Midwest weather...

Ditto. It's going up to 62 this morning and then the temperatures are dropping to 20 tonight. Crazy.

As long as we don't get large snow accumulations, I'm cool.

OK, so the temperature extremes aren't just here in NEPA. :-)

Seriously, listening to the weather forecast this morning was so bizarre. Rain, wind, maybe thunderstorms, high of 60 today... then 36 and snow tomorrow, 28 and snow Friday?! This after near-zero temps late last week? SO strange.

Please keep watch for freezing/leaking/bursting home pipes and leaf blocks/ice forming in outdoor drainpipes, especially in your Greek campus homes.

Help your neighbors (and yourself) by clearing street drains of debris.

And on windy garbage pickup days, refuse can blow down the street and block water drains.

Thank You :)

One of my chapter sisters was on the highway and had slowed down to answer her phone call from her dad.

If she had been going faster, she would have gotten tornado damage!:eek:

Seriously--I was woken up by tornado sirens at 1 AM yesterday (in freakin' January) after it had been in the 60s all day. I thought I'd be spending the evening in my bathtub, but other than a lot of rain and some wind, we didn't really get hit (but supposedly they had a touchdown just south of me). It's now in the 20s and snowing. ffffffffffffffff

Twenty degrees while walking to class today. That's a new level of cold.

There was a 20+ car/truck accident today on I-75 in Southwest Detroit. Two children and one adult were killed and 20 others were taken to hospitals for treatment. The freeway was shut down for hours. A big snow squall just blew in causing white out conditions and then was gone. Weather was like that all day. We went from almost 60 degrees to 20. This weather is crazy.

It ended up being 30+ cars and the mother of the children passed away in the hospital. So sad :( I can't believe we travel that every day. Could've been us. Tomorrow morning is bringing more crappy weather.

I hadn't heard about the mom...can't find anything on the news sites about it. Be careful tomorrow though. We're under a winter weather advisory for 6 am- 2 pm. I'd much rather have a repeat of the winter of 2012.

Another bad weather alert...as we all already know, Winter Storm Nemo is hitting the New England area hardcore. To all Greeks and their families, stay safe everyone and keep watch on each other.

Snowquestration
 

Typical overreaction in the DC area considering the amount of snow that is falling. Once again, everything is shut down. I'm not complaining as I am enjoying the midweek holiday. Our director made the decision to close yesterday by early afternoon well before ANY cancellations were made from any entity. He's from MN, surely he can handle the snow!

My agency made the call at 4 am, I think because at that time they were still in ZOMG WE'RE GOING TO GET BURIED mode. We haven't even gotten an inch, this is pathetic. I'm from Chicago, so I'm still not used to this 'lava is falling from the sky' mentality here in the District/MD/NoVA

Take cover Texas! Stay safe!

http://tvnweather.com/live

For all you GC'ers living in the area of Dallas and Ft. Worth, please be safe. It sounds ugle out there.

It doesn't seem so bad right now, but I can hear it raining. Hopefully, we don't get too much more.

Massive tornado hit south of OKC, in Moore. Hoping Kevin checks in to let us know all is ok.

I'm fine. I live in NW OKC, but they're saying this one is worse than the F5 that hit back in '99 and wiped out a good part of the same town! I will not be moving to Moore ever.

I'm currently working on rustling up actives to volunteer in cleanup efforts and do some fundraising for the Red Cross and get clothing and water and such to the first responders. If any of you want to help, please text REDCROSS to 90999. It's only $10, but from what I've seen today on the news, it'll be greatly needed.

It looks like two schools (with children inside) were hit and damaged pretty badly. Just heard a local reporter lose it (man crying) when he was hearing about first responders pulling children out of the rubble. No word on their condition.

I'm trying to get in touch with the actives to set up our house as a collection point for supplies. We're also trying to round up some men to go help with the storm cleanup. If they give me the go ahead, if anyone wants to ship anything, I'll post our house address and we'll make sure it goes to the right folks. I'm sure clothes, blankets and water would be appreciated.

From my twitter feed...

UPDATE: Of the approximately 75 students trapped in Plaza Hills Elementary, 30 have been confirmed rescued.

Not good.

Thanks for checking in and I'm glad you're alright and not in the immediate area. I'm watching the Weather Channel and seeing all you described. This one is just horrifying. The devastation is unreal. They are saying 75 students and teachers seeking shelter were in the one elementary school- Plaza Tower School. They did show other students running to parents from the other school, but that school was not as damaged.

Someone told news folks that they saw about 30 children pulled from the rubble but they didn't say what their condition was.

CNN is reporting the 30 found are alive.

I had to put the tv on mute. I couldn't listen to the reports. The newscasters keep breaking down.

Weather Channel is reporting through KFOR that around 30 kids were sheltered at a church instead of this school and that church was not hit. They were older students, from the sounds of it.

If anyone wants to send anything we can bring to the rescue workers and cleanup crew or for families who have lost their homes, send it to:

Sigma Nu Fraternity
Tornado Relief
301 E. Edwards
Edmond, OK 73034

Feel free to put that on Facebook or in you Twitter feeds.

Thankful that you are alright Kevin, and thankful that you are coordinating your brothers to help. Continued prayers for Oklahoma.

I just talked to an OU Sigma Nu who has friends who lost their homes and pets. One of my wife's coworkers lost everything as well.

Prayers.

OU Student Congress ‏@OU_SGACongress 13m

The University of Oklahoma is opening up spaces in Housing for the displaced families in OKC! (405) 325-2511

It's good to know that you are okay and helping others, Kevin. Like Mr. Rogers said, "Always look for the helpers."

If any of y'all are inclined to tweet our chapter's address and list of stuff we want, please add: Gloves (heavy duty)
Large black trash bags (contractor grade)
Shovels
Toiletries
Sunscreen
Dust Masks
Boots

Moore has been hit hard so many times - 1999, 2003, 2010, and now this. The meteorologists here in Tulsa are reporting that if you live in Moore, you just have to build a storm shelter. Nothing above ground will do.

Question - Why don't these Midwestern schools build basements?

I grew up in rural Illinois, where we have a lot of tornado warnings every year. My high school didn't have anywhere safe for us to go during tornado warnings - we all lined up in the hallway, where of course there were lots of windows, etc. I was always shocked at the procedures.

Glad to hear you're alright, Kevin. Prayers to everyone involved.

I can't speak for the entire mid-west, but having grown up in Texas our soil was not conducive to having basements. My guess is that may play a role elsewhere.

That is the case here as well. Basements mean that you're going to likely have leaks and mold and other things you wouldn't want if you're already running your school district on a shoestring budget.

We do have storm shelters for houses which are prefab concrete structures which are buried or partially buried.

Interesting, thank you for the info.

I wonder if they could build storm shelters for schools, especially after what happened today. How heartbreaking.

Unfortunately, this school did everything right. Protocol is to go to a central room with strong walls and make sure the students are covered up to shield from falling debris. This tornado was an F5, maybe setting some serious wind speed records.

Blaming the school for inadequate preparation or being built insufficiently is somewhat on the level of blaming a school for not being prepared for a meteorite. (although admittedly, this town has had some bad luck with storms!)

Oh, I completely agree. I was just wondering if there was a way that could prevent these tragedies in the future. I'm sure everyone involved did everything they could do, considering the circumstances. :(

We don't get tornadoes in the PacNW, so they terrify me. It just seems there's no real way to protect yourself or your possessions from one if you just happen to have bad luck. If this town, Moore, has been devastated so many times in recent years by tornadoes, why do people continue to build there? Shelters are good - life isn't replaceable, after all - but who would want to place their home and family at risk?

It's usually not that bad. Most of the time, you'll be sitting on your front porch watching the thing yelling "look at that!"

I don't know why Moore keeps getting hit. There's no good reason for it. We're getting very good at warning people about these things. We always now know exactly where we need to take cover and where to evacuate--and these storms form in an hour or so and proceed in a general direction with very little warning.

Most of us in OK will never be hit by one of these storms and we're pretty good at taking appropriate precautions. Every once in awhile though, there's one of these.