Don’t wait until it’s too late—learn how to survive a tornado with these essential safety tips. From preparation steps before a storm to life-saving actions during, this guide covers everything you need to protect yourself and your loved ones. Stay safe and be ready!
I would say that tornado season is right around the corner, but it has already begun in the US and it began by kicking in the door and announcing its presence loudly. In fact, as I sit here and write this, my weather app has just gone off announcing possible twisters for my area of Ohio tonight.
If you’re in the same situation or suspect you will be at some point in the future, knowing how to survive a tornado before one hits is absolutely imperative to keeping yourself and your family safe. Like any good emergency prep, preparing to survive a twister starts before the storm even forms and the tornado warning is issued.
How Likely Is It to Survive a Tornado?
With the right preparation, it’s very likely to survive a tornado. In fact, the percentage of tornado victims that survive is somewhere around 99% even for the most violent twisters. Even if you suddenly find yourself facing down a disaster, your chances of survival are still pretty well the same. However, preparing is always best if you have the time to do so.
What is the difference between a tornado warning and tornado watches?
The first step to learning how to survive a tornado is knowing the difference between a tornado watch and a tornado warning. Typically, you will know which is going to be issued by the time that the wind or thunderstorm begins to move into your area.
To break it down simply for you, a tornado watch simply means that weather conditions are favorable for creating a tornado. If a watch is issued, you’ll want to keep an eye on weather conditions for signs of a tornado forming.
A tornado warnings means that a tornado – or a suspected one – has been spotted in your area. These may also be followed by tornado sirens going off in your area if you live in an area that has them. At this point, it’s best to follow your tornado survival steps to ensure you and your family stay safe.
How to Prepare for a Tornado Before the Storm Hits
Educate Yourself – The first tornado preparation you should do is to educate yourself about the area you live in, what the tornado risk is, and what your options are should one hit your area. If you don’t know when, where, how often and where to go, you could find yourself in a dangerous situation once things get hectic.
If you have kids, this is an especially important step. Children who don’t know what is happening are more scared than kids who do. While they will still be scared, teaching them about what may happen could make the difference between a meltdown and a child who listens better. In the case of younger school age kids, I recommend using kids books about tornadoes like these to help.
Find Safe Shelter – Next, you’ll need to identify a safe place you and yours can go during the extreme winds of a tornado. The safest place is the interior part of a basement or root cellar, but what if your home doesn’t have a basement? In that case, the next best protection would be the lowest level of a sturdy building and a safe room.
This could be a closet with no exterior walls or just an interior room in your home. Interior means a room with no exterior walls. If all else fails, a hallways that does not have an exterior wall can provide a little protection. The last home I lived in down in Texas had no interior rooms. For us, it meant our safe option was using the hallway with a mattress to provide as much protection from tornadoes as we could.
Make Your Safety Plan – Secondly, you’ll need a safety plan for your family. This should include things like where your emergency shelter is, a secondary location, how to communicate and where you will meet if you get separated and so on.
For communication, I highly recommend either using hand radios like THESE or satellite phones such as this one. Sat phones will require a monthly charge though as they are actual phone service. Another important part of communication is making sure all emergency contacts are written down in multiple places and put into everyone’s phones.
You will also need to include plans for your pets or livestock. They can’t protect themselves so you will need to do it.
Create Your Emergency Kit and Bug Out Bags – Next, make sure you have both an emergency kit and bug out bags made up. The emergency kit is important for during the storm. The bug out bags are important for after.
Each one should have things like a sleeping bag or blanket for each person, spare copies of your identifying documents, bottled water, flashlight and spare batteries (or LED battery operated lanterns), a storm whistle, non-perishable food and a change of clothes for each family member with spare socks. A proper storm whistle is especially important for each family member to have. If you are trapped under debris or trying to find your family, these whistles are made to be heard over high winds and storms and make it easier.
For kids, make them their own bag that has all of the above and a few games, books or toys to help keep them occupied. If you have littles, it can be helpful to have spare blankets and stuffies if they use them. For infants, make sure to add extra equipment such as bottles and formula if you formula feed or baby food and diapers/wipes.
For pets, store extra food, leashes and water. 1 gallon per animal (and person) per day. These 7-gallon water storage containers can be a great help and can stay waiting in your safe area once they’re filled.
Keep Aware of the Weather – Make sure you’ve got both a NOAA weather radio and your local weather app downloaded. Both will come in handy. If a tornado were to hit – or even severe thunderstorms – cell signals and towers could go down and no longer work, the emergency weather radio will keep you aware if that happens.
Secure Loose Belongings– Things that you have outdoors will need to be secured as best as possible. This includes things like trampolines (unless you want your neighbors to get a free one , lol), patio furniture, tree limbs and even dog houses. Anything left loose could be picked up or thrown around by a tornado and could potentially hurt you or someone else.
What to Do During a Tornado
Once the tornado warning is issued or the tornado is on the ground, it’s too late to do any prep work. Instead, you only have a couple of things to do with a couple more things to remember.
Seek Shelter Immediately – If a tornado warning has been issued or the sirens are going off, take shelter immediately. It is not worth the risk to your safety to put off going to shelter. Because tornadoes can be unpredictable, get to your shelter as soon as possible.
Avoid Large Open Rooms – You may want to run to the nearest place, but near doesn’t always mean safest. Large open rooms like office buildings, gymnasiums or auditoriums can often be more dangerous. These buildings are often not built to withstand the kind of winds that come with tornados and can often suffer a collapsed roof and other damage.
Do Not Open The Windows – This is only one of a few tornado myths that can cause you to get hurt. I can remember my Mama doing this when I was a kid for bad storms with possible tornadoes and it can actually be dangerous to do. The idea is to open the windows to depressurize the home. However, doing so leaves the home open to the might of the wind more than it would if the windows were closed.
Ride It Out – If you want to survive a tornado, the only other thing to do for you and your family is to ride the storm out. Don’t leave your shelter until either the all-clear siren has sounded or you are absolutely certain the storm has passed. This is where your emergency weather radio will really come in handy. Try to keep your kids and pets calm and say a prayer or two.
Beware of Aftermath Hazards – After the storm has passed, you’ll still need to be aware and on guard about potential hazards. Debris, flooding from heavy rain, unstable buildings, downed power lines and utility lines, animals running loose and more all present hazards that in the worst case scenario could be fatal.
What Should You Do If You Are Stuck Outside in a Tornado?
Unfortunately, sometimes, you can’t avoid getting literally caught during the storm. So if you’re really taking learning how to survive a tornado seriously, you’ll want to review those tips too.
Get Low – If you are caught outside in a tornado, get as low and flat on the ground as you can. Doing so will offer you the most protection from the winds of the funnel cloud itself, but also help to protect you from flying debris and hail that may come with the twister. Wind speeds are lowest as the wind meets the earth’s surface and it changes direction.
Cover Up – Use whatever you have handy to help cover your body while you’re on the ground. Helmets, blankets, a mattress, outdoor cushions and so on. Basically, try to put as much between you and the columns of air that the tornado pushes out.
Get Out of Your Vehicle If You’re In One – If you are in your car or truck and a twister hits, immediately pull your car out of the traffic lanes and away from dangerous traffic and get out. Do NOT try to ride the storm out in your car if at all possible.
Once you’ve gotten out of the car, lay down as flat as you can in a ditch or as low to the level of the roadway as you can, using whatever is handy to try and shield your body from the storm.
Do NOT take shelter under an underpass or bridge. Despite what was taught in schools when I was a kid, wind speeds are higher under bridges and overpasses making it a much more dangerous shelter than simply lying flat.
If you can not get out of your car – There are times where getting out of your car isn’t going to be feasible. If you find yourself in this situation, you still need to do what you can to stay safe. In this case, strap each person into the car with a seatbelt. Then, get as low onto the floorboard as possible while staying belted in. Finally, cover your head and body as best as you can using what you have in your car.
How Do You Survive a Tornado in a Mobile Home?
I wanted to include this as its own section in this post for a reason. I grew up in mobile homes and trailers.
The simple answer to how to survive a tornado in a mobile home is this; you don’t.
Mobile homes are simply not built to withstand a storm that produces a tornado. Aside from the fact that there is no safe storm shelter in one due to no basement or interior room, the materials used are just not strong enough to survive.
Instead, leave your mobile home and find the lowest floor of a solid, sturdy tornado shelter as soon as you know one may become your problem. If you live in a mobile home, you must be proactive during tornado season in order to keep yourself and your family safe.
Tornadoes are incredibly scary. If I were to be honest, I would tell you they are one of my biggest fears. With the proper planning though, you can survive tornado season and live to tell the tale. Do you have any other tornado preparation tips I may have missed?
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