The Ultimate Storm Survival Handbook

By Warren Faidley

Be prepared to survive weather disasters no matter where you live with this complete guide.
 
Year after year, dangerous weather become more intense—and more common. We all need to be ready for a potentially deadly storm to strike at any time. The Ultimate Storm Survival Handbook gives you all the information you need to prepare for hurricanes, tornados, blizzards, floods, hailstorms, and more.
Along with clear instructions on preparing before a storm, the book also contains survival kit guidelines, helpful Websites, and quick-reference emergency checklists for each type of weather event.
Get step-by-step instructions on:

• creating a plan for family survival
• securing your home and taking inventory
• caring for your pets
• familiarizing yourself with your area's storms and storm safety
• knowing what the warnings mean
• planning for the infirm and elderly

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Aug 20, 2006
• ISBN: 9781418554088

Book preview

THE ULTIMATE

STORM

SURVIVAL

HANDBOOK

THE ULTIMATE

STORM

SURVIVAL

HANDBOOK

WARREN FAIDLEY

storm_survival-TXT_0003_001

Copyright © 2006 by Warren Faidley

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

The publisher, author, references, and editors disclaim any liability from any injury, property damage, or death resulting from the use (proper or improper) of the suggestions or instructions contained in this book. The reader fully understands that the safety information is based on the same or similar data recommended by various government and state agencies. There may be other or better survival strategies for your unique location or situation. If you live in a storm-prone area, please consult with local safety officials to evaluate specific hazards and solutions. Common safety practices and survival instructions and options are always subject to change.

Published by Rutledge Hill Press, a division of Thomas Nelson, Inc., P.O. Box 141000, Nashville, Tennessee 37214.

Rutledge Hill Press books may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail [e-mail].

ISBN: 1-4016-0285-1

Printed in the United States of America

06 07 08 09 10—5 4 3 2 1

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

How To Use This Book

Introduction

Part One: The Storms

Chapter One: Before the Storm

Chapter Two: Land Storms

Chapter Three: Tropical Cyclones

Chapter Four: Winter Storms

Chapter Five: Other Weather-Related Hazards

Chapter Six: Post-Storm and Disaster Survival

Part Two: Storm Survival Checklists

Chapter Seven: Thunderstorm Survival

Chapter Eight: Tropical Cyclone Survival

Chapter Nine: Winter Storm Survival

Chapter Ten: Flood Survival

Chapter Eleven: Fog Survival

Chapter Twelve: Heat Survival

Appendices

A. Storm Chasing 101

B. Storm and Disaster Checklists

C. References and Web Directory

D. Tables and Conversions

E. Glossary

About the Author

Preface

In May 1987 I conducted my first TORNADO chase. I ended up spending the night carefully walking through piles of splintered devastation. Piles that were once a town called Saragosa. In the early evening, a powerful TORNADO had ripped through the small southwestern Texas farming town, killing thirty people, including children attending a school graduation ceremony.

I had seen my share of violence as a journalist. But this was different. Instead of car accidents and riots caused by mankind, this was chaos wrought from the sky.

One thought plagued my mind as I drove away from Saragosa: This tragedy should have never happened. I promised myself to never forget it.

I haven’t.

On at least twenty occasions since then, I have flirted with storm-related death by the very narrowest of margins. Although my adventures have rewarded me with views of neon orange sunsets and double rainbows, I have also witnessed scenes of terrifying destruction. My up-close-and-personal encounters have taught me how to deal with the wild side of Mother Nature.

Most recently, witnessing and surviving Hurricane Katrina rekindled my desire to see this handbook published. As the deadly EYE WALL of Katrina approached my location, a stranded, panic-faced family approached me seeking advice.

I did the best I could. I hope they survived.

This book is dedicated to the future survivors of wicked weather.

Acknowledgments

This book has been a collaboration of efforts. I would like to acknowledge the following individuals for their assistance:

Shannon Whitehead for her tireless editing efforts, even in the midst of several nearby tornado outbreaks. Geoffrey Stone, Pamela Clements, and the entire crew at Rutledge Hill Press for making this a priority project to get it out before the hurricane season. My agent Dave Robie for replying to my blind e-mail inquiry proposing this book. My friends Stephanie, Argyll, and the SCA gang. The Bennington family. My photog and chase buddies Joel, Doren, Phil, Kathy, Tom, and Jeff. The many loyal storm chasers, friends, family, fans, and clients. And last but not least, my Angels.

How To Use This Book

Most survival stories have one thing in common: The people involved had some prior knowledge of the threat and acted in a relatively conscious manner. Their shrewd actions usually (but not always) saved their lives.

I have written this handbook so you will have the best opportunity for survival when danger comes knocking. It is an educational tool that should be read and studied before any severe weather threat, not grabbed in the last eerie moment of silence preceding the voice of rage and ruin. Though there are no guarantees when battling the elements, one thing is certain: You want knowledge on your side.

This book is divided into two parts.

Part One: The Storms—The Before the Storm Chapter gives you the fundamental knowledge you will need to protect you and your family against severe weather. The four storm chapters tell the particular dangers of each category of storm and the actions you should take to survive them. The sixth chapter, Post-Storm and Disaster Survival, gives you the information you need to survive the pitfalls after a storm.

Part Two: Reminders—This section contains bullet point lists of storm-specific reminders for quick reference or review.

To get the most out of this survival guide, I strongly recommend that you first read the Introduction and Chapter One. Then, depending on where you live and travel, skip to the sections that pertain to the severe weather risks particular to those areas. Finally, when storm clouds threaten, grab this guide from your glove compartment or desk drawer, and flip back to the Storm-Specific Reminders section for a refresher course on survival.

Key

SMALL CAPS indicate a word or phrase further explained in the glossary or text.

02 Denotes an alert or interesting fact. !

01 A Web site for further information.

Note: All Web sites were verified at the time of this guide’s publication. If a link is no longer available, try connecting to the home site of the link and then searching for the information.

Introduction

Mankind’s existence with weather is truly a lovehate relationship. With an average of two thousand thunderstorms in progress somewhere on our planet at any given moment, our lives and livelihoods are at the sole discretion of a force over which we have little or no control.

For most of us, the day’s weather goes largely unnoticed. To others, it is a minor nuisance—an airport delay or a few sprinkles on a newly washed automobile. Some—farmers, baseball coaches, and outdoor wedding planners—endure major and minor headaches depending on what falls from the sky. And for the unfortunate few, the day’s weather will destroy their homes and lives.

Weather catastrophes have been a common theme in religion, mythology, philosophy, literature, and art throughout history. From Noah’s ark and the Great Flood to The Grapes of Wrath and Twister, weather has framed our days in dramatic ways. Even our political and sociological structure has been altered by weather. During World War II, severe winter storms halted Hitler’s plans to invade Russia, serving as a snowy ally to accelerate the downfall of Germany and probably spare thousands of lives.

Weather’s effects have wrought death, injury, financial ruin, suffering, and destruction to countless millions over the centuries. Many forget that the greatest natural disaster in this century was weather-related. In 1931, the Huang He (Yellow River) Flood in China killed about 3.5 million people from flooding and the ensuing disease and starvation.

Advances in flood control, engineering, communications, disease prevention, and forecasting technology have substantially lowered the death toll from weather disasters. Since the 1960 launch of the world’s first weather satellite, TIROS-1 (Television Infrared Observation Satellite Program), advances in weather forecasting have, for the most part, made severe weather forecasting relatively accurate and accessible. Super computer forecasting MODELS, DOPPLER RADAR technology, and sophisticated weather satellites offer fair warning, often days in advance. In the United States, the average advanced warning time for a TORNADO has more than tripled in the last twelve years, from six minutes of warning in 1993 to more than eighteen in 2005. HURRICANES can now be predicted days in advance, allowing millions to evacuate.

But man does not live by technology alone. No matter how accurately we can pinpoint a TORNADO or detect a FLASH FLOOD, WARNINGS are of little value if people do not heed them or know how to respond. The careless driver who ignores a FLASH FLOOD WARNING and attempts to cross a flooded highway, or the rural family with no nearby shelter when FUNNEL CLOUDS gather, may both become a statistic.

If the survival of localized events such as TORNADOES, LIGHTNING, FLASH FLOODS, and weather-related transportation hazards is somewhat dependent on individual decisions and actions, how are we as a nation doing? From 1940 to 2005 more than twenty-six thousand people in the United States were officially recorded as killed by the direct offspring of severe weather—including floods, LIGHTNING, TORNADOES, and HURRICANES.

Considering the number of people who die from the indirect effects of storms, actual fatalities are much higher. Around sixty-eight hundred people die every year in the United States from weather- and storm-related motor vehicle accidents. When weather-related marine and aviation accidents are added, figures climb to nearly seven thousand.

Extreme temperatures can also prove fatal. Winter-related weather HYPOTHERMIA claims an average of 754 lives in our country every year. The indirect results of cold temperatures, such as heart attacks from shoveling snow and injuries from slips and falls, claim around one hundred lives every year. Heat-related deaths average four hundred.

Using these figures, it can be roughly estimated that an average of more than eighty-six hundred people are killed in the United States every year by the direct or indirect result of extreme weather. There would have to be a major disaster every week, claiming 165 lives each time, to reach similar statistics.

The numbers are even worse in less modernized countries, where a single drought or flood can kill thousands. In October 1999, a CYCLONE in Orissa, India, caused ten thousand deaths and affected an estimated ten to fifteen million. In December 1999, floods in and around Caracas, Venezuela, killed approximately thirty thousand people. The World Health Organization estimates that, in the 1990s, approximately six hundred thousand people died worldwide as a result of weather-related natural disasters.

In addition to the human toll, the financial damages from severe weather are incredible. From 1980 through 2005, the United States sustained sixty-seven weather-related disasters whose damages and costs reached or exceeded $1 billion. The total damage estimates for that period total more than $500 billion.

In view of our past natural disasters, what is the forecast for America’s future?

First of all, you could not invent a more storm-prone mass of land than the United States of America. With our unique set of climatological conditions—storms moving west to east, contrasting AIR MASSES, and the HURRICANE vulnerable Gulf and East Coast— our nation is the absolute perfect setup for severe weather.

Furthermore, global temperatures are rising, elevated both by naturally occurring climatic fluctuations and mankind’s assistance of natural processes through pollution, and weather extremes are likely to increase in the near future. With our population growing and many migrating to the storm-prone and congested coastal areas, the complexities of surviving hazardous weather multiply.

Our varied climate and our transient lifestyles are important reasons a book discussing all types of storm safety is vital. A shifting population means that Californians well-versed in earthquakes have migrated to TORNADO ALLEY, and Southerners accustomed to thunderstorms now live among blizzards. Regions are packed with people who have little or no knowledge of local storm threats. As a result, two of the biggest concerns of emergency planners are apathy and lack of public education about severe weather.

Knowledge is life. What you know and apply right before disaster strikes may determine your survival. The best way to avoid danger and panic is to be prepared. When all heck breaks loose, there is often little time to think. Your survival instincts and actions must be seasoned with knowledge.

You also need plain common sense. During my many years of storm chasing, I have been amazed at the lack of common sense when it comes to extreme weather. Too many times someone has pulled up next to my chase vehicle and essentially asked, Should I drive through the evil-looking, pitch-black, roaring storm down the road? Fatality charts are filled with individuals who chose to try to drive through the evil-looking storm.

Even when you apply knowledge and common sense, no single survival method will work 100 percent of the time when it comes to severe weather. The physics of extreme weather are unpredictable, with a multitude of hazards and possible solutions for every emergency. Some people have been injured or killed while following the best possible course of action. But those instances of bad luck do not mean the rest of us should leave our chances of survival to fate.

For even storm clouds have a silver lining. The good news, and one reason I wrote this book, is this: We may not be able to control the weather, but we need not be its helpless victims.

We are often given a fighting chance to survive even the worst storm.

PART ONE

The Storms

CHAPTER ONE

Before the Storm

Before learning how to prepare for when severe weather strikes, one question must be addressed: With today’s advances in storm detection and communication, why are there still so many storm casualties?

Hurricane Katrina provides clues to that question. For example, although Katrina’s likely strike zone, flooding potential, extreme winds, and STORM SURGE dangers were known days in advance, many Gulf Coast inhabitants ignored evacuation orders and/or safety instructions. Some were unable to evacuate because of physical limitations or lack of transportation. During the height of the storm, others made failed attempts to survive by moving to safer locations.

Katrina resulted in the deaths of over thirteen hundred people. Possibly the most troubling aspect of the death toll was the number of victims who relied on someone else’s decisions. One New Orleans morgue posted that out of 824 fatalities, a disturbing 64 percent of these were adults over the age of sixty-one—a large number of whom were physically or mentally unable to move themselves.

Katrina is not the only example of imperfect responses to bad weather. The rubble from decades of devastated homes and lives challenges us to better protect ourselves in the future and avoid repeating fatal mistakes. Of course we acknowledge that humanity’s best efforts are no guarantee against nature’s forces. Even so, it is reasonable to say that death or injury from severe weather generally occurs because of one (or more) of the factors in the following chart.

Why People Become Statistics—

The Six Deadly Factors

A person becomes a storm victim most likely because he or she . . .

• is unaware of the threat, due to negligence or lack of communication.

• is aware of the threat, but chooses to ignore it.

• does not know what to do and takes inappropriate action.

• realizes the threat, but takes action too late.

• has little or no control over his or her own safety (this may apply to disabled or hospitalized individuals, children, and the elderly).

• takes appropriate and timely actions, but the physics of the threat prevail (otherwise known as bad luck).

Cruel experience has taught us certain steps you can take to keep you and your family from joining the statistics. You are taking the first one by reading this guide. By arming yourself with the latest information, you can curb the chaotic panic that so often accompanies the critical moments before and during a storm.

To familiarize yourself with standard protocols and safety strategies, study the basic safety guidelines in this chapter. Then read pertinent and seasonal weather-threat chapters before active weather. Keep the book handy so you can glance through the checklists at the back when forecasts are grim.

Do you know which storm claims the greatest number of lives?

United States Average Weather-Related Deaths

Table 1. Average number of fatalities per year due to weather phenomena over a 30-year period. The heat figure, 350, covers the period from 1979 to 1995. www.crh.noaa.gov/lsx/vortex/summer_safety.php

Keeping Informed

We must always respect the awesome power of nature. But today’s technology provides the knowledge we need to be able to wait out the storm—or flee from it—with confidence.

Stay Alert: Storm Warning Systems

To be able to make wise decisions for your family and loved ones during severe weather, you must make sure you will know when and where a situation is developing. The EMERGENCY ALERT SYSTEM (EAS, formerly the Emergency Broadcast System) gives you that knowledge with its capacity to send targeted emergency information to every area of the country. Although EAS was originally designed as a national WARNING system to allow the U.S. President to address the nation in the event of a major crisis, its primary use is for the NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE (NWS) and other emergency operation centers to relay critical weather information.

When an agency issues an EAS alert (weather WATCHES, WARNINGS, evacuation instructions, and homeland security threats), the media are required under federal mandates to immediately pass the information to the public. The United States has several sources for relaying severe weather information. It is best that you have access to least two independent WARNING systems to monitor potential alerts.

FM/AM radio

The radio has been WARNING us of the skies’ coming wrath since the first weather and farm report in the 1920s. Even with today’s technology, this tried-and-true system is often the most accessible.

Television

When activated, the EAS interrupts television programming with a series of tones to signal the alert. The information will be relayed as a crawl message, usually displayed in a RED BOX at the bottom of the screen. In severe weather prone areas, many TV stations provide valuable help by broadcasting live to give you up-tothe-minute information.

02 Radio and television services that do not pass through a local provider may not include local warnings. This includes many satellite feeds. Always use a reliable local source for emergency information.

Weather Radios and All-Hazards Alert Receivers

NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION (NOAA) WEATHER RADIO is a nationwide network of radio broadcasts, providing weather information directly from NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE offices twenty-four hours a day on specially designated frequencies. Weather radios are pretuned to access these frequencies, transmitting all weather, all the time. (Most AM/FM radios will not be able to access the frequencies.) Many come with an alarm option that will sound if a WATCH, WARNING, or other emergency notice is sent out, and some even include SPECIFIC AREA MESSAGE ENCODING (SAME) technology, allowing the listener to specify a particular county, parish, or city for localized information. That way, Louisiana citizens do not receive WARNINGS for Vermont. Generally, weather radios are small units that sit quietly on your desk until you press a button to access the audio transcripts of weather conditions and forecasts.

You can also buy special weather alert or all-hazards receivers that pick up EAS alerts and messages, usually transmitted in the 162.000 MHz range. In the reception mode, receivers can be used to obtain everyday NOAA weather forecasts and conditions.

Otherwise, receivers can be set on standby, serving as a pager that is silent until activated. When a WARNING or alert is issued, the receiver sounds an audible alarm and then broadcasts the text of the message. (Many scanners, automotive AM/FM radios, citizen band, and specialty radios cover Weather Service frequencies, but not all of them offer the standby alert feature.)

Absolutely every home should have one of these lifesaving devices! Alert radio receivers are available in a variety of sizes, with multiple features, and prices ranging from thirty to nearly two hundred dollars. Most modern alert receivers allow you to enter your location code through SAME technology, and a properly programmed SAME receiver will only activate your alarm if an alert affects your region. The NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE tests the EAS alert system weekly so you can check