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Post by PhantomWolf on Jul 5, 2007 19:58:53 GMT -4
Well we have had a bit of excitement over here during the last few days. Normally we get about 1 tornado every couple of years. The last few days the weather has has a warm front to our north and a cold front to the south and as a result we have had 8 tornados within 15km of where I live in the past 48 hours. A little nerve racking, especially since they are predicting that more are possible this afternoon.
With the serious damage that they have caused about theplace, it seems that nearly everyone in Taranaki knows someone affected. In my case it is my boss, who had the roof of the home he bought just 2 months ago ripped off. We have also lost our home phone so I'll be out of touch for a bit until that is fixed, just on while I'm at work.
The first tornado slammed into the city centre doing over a million dollars worth of damage, now the bill is going up even further with the last 7.
It is certainly a nervous time over here, but what can you do, you can't exactly pick up your house and move it.
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Bob B.
Bob the Excel Guru?
Posts: 3,072
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Post by Bob B. on Jul 5, 2007 20:39:26 GMT -4
Good luck to you. If one comes your way, be sure to take cover in a basement or well fortified area (like a stairwell) and stay away from windows. We get quite a few tornadoes around my area, but the central plain states is where it's really bad. I think the USA gets more tornadoes than the rest of the world combined. One of the biggest tornadoes on record just about wiped out a Dayton suburb, Xenia, in 1974.
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Post by PhantomWolf on Jul 5, 2007 20:48:52 GMT -4
Unfortunately since they are usually rare, we don't have storm cellers, and with only a single story don't have a basement or stairs either. Still our house is concrete block, so can head into the hallway and be surrounded by concrete and away from all the windows if the worst happens.
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Bob B.
Bob the Excel Guru?
Posts: 3,072
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Post by Bob B. on Jul 5, 2007 20:51:48 GMT -4
Yes, a hallway or closet is probably your best choice.
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Post by etac on Jul 7, 2007 21:11:03 GMT -4
Good luck to you. If one comes your way, be sure to take cover in a basement or well fortified area (like a stairwell) and stay away from windows. We get quite a few tornadoes around my area, but the central plain states is where it's really bad. I think the USA gets more tornadoes than the rest of the world combined. One of the biggest tornadoes on record just about wiped out a Dayton suburb, Xenia, in 1974. Heck, Illinois, where I grew up, probably gets more tornadoes than the rest of the world combined. Every thunderstorm in the summer came with the attendent tornando watch. If you don't have a basement, PW, the best bet is an inside room of some sort on the lowest level of the building. Definitely keep clear of windows. Here's hoping the weather clears up for you soon. |
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Post by PhantomWolf on Jul 8, 2007 18:26:20 GMT -4
Well the good news is that the weather conditions that create tornados is gone for now. They revised the number in the swarm that hit us down to about 4, discovering that several reported ones were actually the same one. It cut a swath of destruction across the province. Just to give an idea of scale, you can fit all of New Zealand into Californa. Taranaki is about 1/12 of the country in size, so we're pretty small and getting hit that hard really is like a US county getting 4 tornados ripping through it. The current estimates are that in excess of 8 million dollars of damage has been done altogether. On other news, the phone line has been repaired, it was totally unrelated to the weather, but a contracting crew working on a bridge near us accidently damaged the line...  |
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Post by Data Cable on Jul 8, 2007 19:57:48 GMT -4
a contracting crew working on a bridge near us accidently damaged the line... "Yeah, Charlie, just leave that slab resting on the phone lines while we go to lunch... they'll hold." |
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