Severe Weather Awareness Week: Tornado safety

LINCOLN, Neb. (KLKN) – Severe Weather Awareness Week continues Tuesday with the topic of tornado safety.

Nebraska’s statewide tornado drill will happen on Wednesday, March 27th at 10 a.m.

But now is the time to go over with family and co-workers what to do in the event of a Tornado Warning for your area – day or night.

Outdoor sirens will be heard, but there’s an important limitation to these sirens: They’re really only good when you are outdoors.

You should have multiple ways to get weather alerts, including:

• NOAA weather radio
• Channel 8 Storm Alert Team
• Radio
• Friends and family
• Apps on your phone (radar, mobile NWS, etc.)
• Wireless emergency alerts

Tornado safety drills at school and work are a great idea now, knowing where to shelter when a tornado – or conditions supporting the development of a tornado – is imminent.

Putting the most interior walls between you and the outside of the house is important, as well as moving away from door and windows. If you can, move to the lowest level of the building when seeking shelter.

This is also a good time to think about where you would go at various locations. The obvious locales are school, home and work. What about the mall? What about at your kid’s soccer practice? What about if you are in a parking lot? What if you are at a baseball game, at a golf course, or on a lake? Check out this website to learn more about where you should go in the event a Tornado Warning is issued.

Things to discuss:

• What county do we live in?
• Where should we shelter during the warning?
• What supplies should we have in the shelter?
• Where is the gas shutoff in the event you need to turn it off?
• Where should we meet after the storm in the event a tornado hits?

Be sure to go over these things with children so you can help alleviate fear.

“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” is very true when it comes to severe weather preparedness. Plus, taking a few minutes to talk about it now can make the situation MUCH less stressful when you need to act.

There are several locations where you should NOT shelter during a tornado or severe weather. Cars offer little protection and can easily get swept away; instead, ditch it and head for a ravine or a lower-lying area away from overpasses.

Tornadoes can happen at any hour of the day, but in Nebraska, they’re more frequently witnessed in the late afternoon and early evening.

You may remember how active May of 2023 was. Last year, Nebraska set a new single-day record for the most tornado warnings: 50 were issued on May 12. Nebraska recorded the most tornadoes that month than any other month of the entire year (31).