Shelbyville StormSafe

Here’s a nice article written in the Shelbyville Times-Gazette about my STORMSAFE visit there this week.   Special thanks to the First Baptist Church on Depot Street and to the Bedford County EMA for helping with the event.  Also, a special thanks to John Carney for the article.  It was great seeing everyone…

Click here for the Shelbyville Times-Gazette Story

I’ll be visiting Pleasant Heights Baptist Church in Columbia next Wednesday, May 6th.

Why are Tornado Deaths on the Rise?

Tornadoes can have winds of more than 300 mph

The statistics tell a troubling story:  Tornado deaths are on the rise.  Since 1994, the number of people killed during tornadoes has nearly quadrupled from around 36 in 2004 to 126 in 2008.   While 2008 was a banner year for tornadoes, 2004-2007 did not see a signicant rise in the number of twisters, only deaths.  What’s the cause of this?

With better warnings than ever before (nearly every tornado that touches down in the U.S. has a warning before it moves through a community) and more ways to get the word out via television, radio, weather radio, internet, text messages, etc., the clues point to three potential answers:

1. People no longer take warnings seriously.

2. People don’t know what to do when tornadoes are imminent.

3.  People don’t have a safe place to seek shelter inside their homes.

The purpose of StormSafe is to help people:

1.  Understand the importance of Warnings.

2.  Find ways of getting needed weather information 24 hours a day.

3.  Figure out the safest place to be in their homes during storms and tornadoes.

In future posts, I’ll be tackling these issues one by one.