April Showers Bring…Tornadoes

Tornadoes are the number one weather related killer in Georgia and historically April is the month when they are most likely to occur. As I write this on a beautiful spring day with the sun shining in the sky and just enough of a breeze to keep the gnats away, I remember reading one woman’s recent comment about her experience with a tornado. She said she had no warning and no time to think about getting to a safe place. She literally ran for a closet in her home. Her home was in the direct path of this tornado and it was lifted from its foundation (I can’t help but picture the scene from the Wizard of Oz here) and moved some distance away. She was fortunately a survivor rather than a statistic in the fatalities column. In the past 30 years I recall 3 incidences where tornadoes have come through and touched down here in St. Marys, especially the one in 1995 when some portable classrooms at Crooked River Elementary school were heavily damaged. This one hit close to home so it definitely made an impression on me.

Until recently there hasn't been any consistent way to get warnings out about these storms unless you happened to be watching the weather channel or have a weather radio on. I remember as a child in Illinois the sound of sirens used as a warning and on Andros in the Bahamas there’s a light (on a tower) that indicates the presence of lightning with different colors representing different distances, useful for the helicopters, boaters, and other aircraft in the area. Now there are weather apps for your smartphones that can alert you to all types of weather and in Camden County (via the Sheriff’s Office) there is a program called CodeRED for the rest of us. It’s an emergency notification network that that sends either a voice message to your land line phone or a text to your cell phone about any threats from a rash of burglaries to severe weather. The key thing is that you have to register for this free service. They guarantee that your registration information will remain private and only be used to notify you in situations you sign up for.

My point here is, with all the ways to stay safe during this approaching severe weather season, what are you waiting for if you haven’t already signed up? During a tornado minutes count and none of us want to be a statistic.