Question Please about Tornadoes

Nightcleaner

Nightcleaner

Super Member
When we See on our TV the devastation caused by some. If its your house that's been lost. What happens after. Has anyone lost their Home through one. Can you guide us through please What happens after the event? We never get to hear or read about how you get your lives back

Thanks
 
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A couple of years ago, a tornado ripped through my neighborhood. The house across the street, the one next to that, and several others on both sides of me and behind me, were damaged. One huge pine tree split one of the houses in half. I suffered no damage. Some people were without power for close to three weeks. Mine never went out. Homes were fixed. Life went on.
 
Also, I rented out my home here, and left for Texas hill country after the devastating Guadalupe River floods in 2002. I went to New Orleans in 2005 after hurricane Katrina went through. That was devastation on a large scale. When I finally returned home in 2007, there was still a considerable amount of devastation that hadn't been returned to normal. I think there is still a lot of property in the ninth ward that is uninhabited. There was a five year waiting list for contractors, when I left.
 
Nightcleaner said:
What happens after. Has anyone lost their Home through one.
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You pick up the mess after the insurance adjuster surveys the damage. Start rebuilding.

Fort Dodge --04May1977 F4 tornado severely damaged my fathers house and the house I'm presently living in.
My dads house is right next door.

Distance (miles) Date Magnitude Start Lat/Log End Lat/Log Length Width Fatalities Injuries Property Damage Crop Damage Affected County

2.1 ---------1977-05-04 ----- F4 ------42°32'N / 94°09'W -----------2.00 Miles -- 70 Yards-- 0 -----14 ----------250K --------- 0 ----------------- Webster
 
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Just like when you get into a car accident, call the insurance company. But more importantly, what you do to survive the ordeal in the first place.

Do you have a basement with a cellar ???

If only a basement, is the floor of the house above the basement cement with rebar ???

No basement, what’s the elevation of your home because twisters love low elevation. If your house is close to sea level, do like the good lord did and get the flock out of there !! Sell the house before you loose more than you will ever get back and buy a house in the hills with a basement for emergency supplies in case of strong winds. Turn the basement into emergency living quarters.

MRE’s

Water containers with purification tablets

Cots

Personal hygiene articles

At a minimum because storms are getting stronger and next year just might be the year. Don’t just think about the money that you have spent, think about your lives.
 
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We lost our home, vehicles and place of employment in the Joplin, MO EF5 that killed 161 people and injured thousands.

We went to live with our son and his family. After a couple of weeks some friends let us move into a trailer on their property for a couple of months for free until we could find another house.

It helped that Joplin was declared a National Disaster which made FEMA grants available and low interest govt loans. FEMA moved in a BUNCH of trailers for temporary living quarters for those who had no other option.

It took months before things got back to anything that resembled normal. I made daily lists of things I needed to do and did as many as I could and that evening would make a list for the next day. This went on for a month.

If you have specific questions I wil try to answer. I can tell you it's hard to start over at 57 years old with only the clothes on our backs. The first thing we went to buy were toothbrushes.

We were home when it hit and somehow were uninjured. Which is the only really important thing. Everything else was stuff.
 
www.records said:
View attachment 1636897

We lost our home, vehicles and place of employment in the Joplin, MO EF5 that killed 161 people and injured thousands.

We went to live with our son and his family. After a couple of weeks some friends let us move into a trailer on their property for a couple of months for free until we could find another house.

It helped that Joplin was declared a National Disaster which made FEMA grants available and low interest govt loans. FEMA moved in a BUNCH of trailers for temporary living quarters for those who had no other option.

It took months before things got back to anything that resembled normal. I made daily lists of things I needed to do and did as many as I could and that evening would make a list for the next day. This went on for a month.

If you have specific questions I wil try to answer. I can tell you it's hard to start over at 57 years old with only the clothes on our backs. The first thing we went to buy were toothbrushes.

We were home when it hit and somehow were uninjured. Which is the only really important thing. Everything else was stuff.
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Sorry to hear that and your home is just destroyed amazing you two got out of that.
Looks like a vintage speaker landed on the lawn in your photo.
 
4-2-7 said:
Sorry to hear that and your home is just destroyed amazing you two got out of that.
Looks like a vintage speaker landed on the lawn in your photo.
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Yeah, there was a bunch of audio stuff and music that were destroyed. We did find our Royal vac cleaner and my main stereo system. Audio lost was an EV Georgian, about 15 vintage tube amps that all needed work and approx 20.000 albums that I had collected since 1991.
 
www.records said:
View attachment 1636897

We lost our home, vehicles and place of employment in the Joplin, MO EF5 that killed 161 people and injured thousands.

We went to live with our son and his family. After a couple of weeks some friends let us move into a trailer on their property for a couple of months for free until we could find another house.

It helped that Joplin was declared a National Disaster which made FEMA grants available and low interest govt loans. FEMA moved in a BUNCH of trailers for temporary living quarters for those who had no other option.

It took months before things got back to anything that resembled normal. I made daily lists of things I needed to do and did as many as I could and that evening would make a list for the next day. This went on for a month.

If you have specific questions I wil try to answer. I can tell you it's hard to start over at 57 years old with only the clothes on our backs. The first thing we went to buy were toothbrushes.

We were home when it hit and somehow were uninjured. Which is the only really important thing. Everything else was stuff.
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Thank you so much for that. No specific questions. I did not want to say anything at all that my be inappropriate as you had a terrible time. Just really interested in reading What happens immediately after beyond. To make it more shocking for someone it must have happened more than once. I shall sit quite and read all the comments I hope that will come in which I enjoy THANKS. Hit the like button as I read to show i read them.
 
Nightcleaner said:
Thank you so much for that. No specific questions. I did not want to say anything at all that my be inappropriate as you had a terrible time. Just really interested in reading What happens immediately after beyond. To make it more shocking for someone it must have happened more than once..
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What happened right after was pure pandemonium. I don't really know what your looking for or what peaked your interest to start your query.

I will say the outpouring of people coming to help from all over the country was mind blowing and continued for over a year. It's been a little over 8 years and there are very few things left from what happened here (a few vacant lots still remain). But Joplin is growing quickly and those lots will quickly fill in. A new state of the art Regional Medical Center, about 10 new and modern schools, beautiful parks and memorials, 1,000's of new homes and dozens of apartment buildings, a new modern library, etc. Every school now has a community storm shelter built to withstand future severe storms that open when severe storms are approaching.
 
Most of my life, I've had chainsaws in my arsenal of lawn maintenance tools. When we had severe weather capable of producing damaging straight line winds, or tornadoes in my area, I would have them ready to be used to help clear roadways. Immediately after the storms passed I would be out clearing trees. There are countless other folks with the same mindset who do the same thing. It is our community, our friends, people who need to get through to help those in need, need those roads open.

There is always the possibility of downed power lines, so the utility companies mobilize to the area to get those downed power lines across roadways, de-energized, so first responders can get through to access the damage, and get necessary medical equipment and care to those affected. At the same time, the area becomes "quarantined" with roadways blocked going into the affected area. If there are ruptured gas lines, those have to be shut off, and a complete assessment of damage begins.

Restricting access into the affected community curbs a lot of theft of property. It's sad that folks do that crap after another's property has been destroyed. Once the perimeter has been established, and all urgent medical care needs fulfilled, the cleanup begins. Debris is hauled off, valuables collected including everything down to stuffed toys to pictures. Those items are brought to a central area where the owners can reclaim them. If the valuables are centralized as in the pictures above, and are readily identifiable as the homeowner's possessions, they will allow them to collect their things. Centralized collection only happens when there is no way to identify what went where.

It is a huge undertaking in a very tramatic scene, sometimes compounded with tragic loss of life.
 
The worst thing about a tornado is that you have little or no warning. If a hurricane hits there is a lot of time for people to evacuate if they want to. We do have tornado watches when conditions exist that could form a tornado. I think people don't pay much attention to these because they happen so often and the most of the time there isn't a tornado.

I think tornadoes are fascinating but I still wouldn't want to be lined up in the crosshairs of one.
 
We pay particular attention to them in OK.
Our side of town was hit by an F-3 in 2010 and did substantial damage on our side of town. We were without power for about 10 days and experienced substantial roof damage, numerous trees lost and my stockade fence took off like a jet liner (before taking cover in the hallway I was frozen at the back door watching all this). We lived with camp lanterns for lighting, kept perishables in ice chests, wife cooked on a Coleman stove and had to come and go thru check points set up by law enforcement placed a various ins and outs around town.
I've been insured since living here starting in 1979 but after the insurance co factored in depreciation, deductibles etc what they paid out barely covered our roof.
There was a declaration of a disaster area and FEMA and SBA thankfully was available although since we were not displaced FEMA referred the application to SBA and
SBA was only made available to those who had insurance. We were able to materially recover with an SBA loan plus what insurance paid out.
Although there was worse damage about 3 blocks north of where we live, I don't want to relive it.
 
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