Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Six dead after tornadoes destroy Amazon warehouse near St Louis

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

271–280 of 367 posts

Re: Six dead after tornadoes destroy Amazon warehouse near St Louis

#271

Post by progman32 »

cbfrench wrote: post #253
1123581321 wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a reason, which is that the new criteria for warning trains people to not take them seriously as they don't necessarily mean acute danger from tornado anymore. As our radar technology has advanced, it's really a shame that warnings are less indicative of a tornado than they were a decade ago. A better solution would be three categories of warning (watch, new possibly fake warning, and the old real warning) a…

The general public can’t grasp the distinction between watches and warnings, and your solution is to divide warnings into subcategories?

I suspect the confusion is the specific but uncommon word choice. Perhaps if they were called something like "tornado likely" and "active tornado", respectively, it would be more widely understood.

Re: Six dead after tornadoes destroy Amazon warehouse near St Louis

#272

Post by JonathonW »

tzs wrote: post #209
sillysaurusx wrote: post #3

I slept through three tornado sirens last night. It was pretty wild. The first one, I thought it was a test. (We have tests every month on the 1st.) But it wasn't until a few minutes in that I realized it was for real. Then apparently I just... went to sleep? That wasn't the smartest decision I've ever made. It went off a couple more times. One strange thing was the realization that I had no idea where to turn for in…

As far as I know we don't have tornado sirens here (Western Washington across Puget Sound from Seattle), but we got a tornado warning here a month ago and officials issued some kind of alert by smart phone. It was amazingly loud on my iPhone. I don't think I've ever been so tired that I would have been able to sleep through it if it had happened when I was asleep. Tornadoes are rare here--before that one the last had…

If you're at home, get to a basement or an interior room; it's not a bad idea to bring along some blankets or pillows as well to protect yourself from flying debris.

Don't get in your car and go drive. You can't outrun a tornado, and you don't want to be outdoors in one. If you're already outside or in your car driving when a warning's issued for your area, the best course of action is to find the closest sturdy building to shelter in (a gas station, grocery store, whatever); if that's not possible, either get down in your car and cover your head, or abandon your car and shelter in a low-lying area.

See: https://www.weather.gov/safety/tornado-during

Re: Six dead after tornadoes destroy Amazon warehouse near St Louis

#273

Post by cbfrench »

1123581321 wrote: post #263
cbfrench wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The general public can’t grasp the distinction between watches and warnings, and your solution is to divide warnings into subcategories?

My proposed solution is to continue to reserve the word warning for its old use, to keep people safe by preventing the cry-wolf effect and to introduce an intermediate term to appease the people who want to ring the alarm more often and communicate with locals who want more information. I agree that the older, simpler watch and warning system was better, if that's what you're saying.

We agree that the existing watch/warning system as it stands is highly effective. Sure, there are more warnings than there used to be, but that is largely based on the fact that the radar data available to make warning decisions is much more reliable than it used to be. There are potentially more warnings issued that don’t verify, but they’re also based on data that is much likelier to verify. (As opposed to relying solely on spotters to make warning decisions.)

Adding complications to the existing watch/warning system just seems unnecessary. What people don’t grasp is that a tornado warning may not verify for their exact location, while it may (unfortunately) verify for a location two miles away. The fact that some warnings don’t verify doesn’t mean we should change our warning system. What we have in place remains highly accurate. It might be better if people understood how to interpret radar data and to evaluate warnings based on that.

Re: Six dead after tornadoes destroy Amazon warehouse near St Louis

#274

Post by bryans »

dave78 wrote: post #246
bryans wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There aren't hours and days of advanced notice. Only a few minutes. Every major weather and news organization was warning about "a very high likelihood of nocturnal tornadoes in the area" 12+ hours before they happened.

Are you aware though that those kinds of warnings are relatively common in the Midwest? We receive those kinds of advisories at least a few dozen times a year. It would be impractical for everyone to stay home from work every time the conditions are favorable for tornado formation. Plus, in this part of the country most people operate under the assumption that whatever building they're in at the time of a tornado war…

I never said anything about staying home, yet you've constructed a multi-paragraph argument in an attempt to "prove me wrong." I'd love to hear why you thought this was necessary.

Re: Six dead after tornadoes destroy Amazon warehouse near St Louis

#275

Post by JonathonW »

cbfrench wrote: post #257
throwawayboise wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, there is a reason, after so many times of dropping what you are doing and rushing to the basement, only to have nothing happen, it becomes an annoyance and is not taken seriously.

I mean, frankly, how often are you under a legitimate TOR warning that you’re having to do this? I live in the Midwest—in tornado country, no less—and the number of TOR warnings that disrupt my life in a given year I can count on one hand (assuming there are any). Also this just misunderstands the threat of tornadoes. A warning is issued for a county-wide area, even though a tornado threatens (at most) a couple-mile…

Tornado and other storm warnings haven't been issued by county for several years now-- warnings are issued for a polygon where the storm may impact (plus some margin of error). If you're in a tornado warning polygon now, you'll want to take shelter. If you're not in the polygon, you don't need to (depending on how you get your storm alerts, you might still be alerted by county, though-- that's my big complaint about the current state of weather radio).

https://www.weather.gov/media/pah/WeatherEducation/stormbase...

Re: Six dead after tornadoes destroy Amazon warehouse near St Louis

#276

Post by cbfrench »

progman32 wrote: post #271
cbfrench wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The general public can’t grasp the distinction between watches and warnings, and your solution is to divide warnings into subcategories?

I suspect the confusion is the specific but uncommon word choice. Perhaps if they were called something like "tornado likely" and "active tornado", respectively, it would be more widely understood.

Now, that’s a reasonable solution. My only concern is that people won’t take “tornado likely” seriously. But I guess, based on OP, people don’t take “tornado warning” seriously, either.

Re: Six dead after tornadoes destroy Amazon warehouse near St Louis

#277

Post by jasonjayr »

mortenjorck wrote: post #255
Crosseye_Jack wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If getting a cheap TV is out of the question. Get a cheap USB TV Tuner (and prob a decent portable aerial, the ones that come with cheap USB TV Tuners are OK if you live in a strong signal area, but you might need something a bit better if not). It comes with the side effect of being a decent SDR for tuning into all sorts of things not just your local TV stations :-) Also get a cheap battery operated radio and a stoc…

> It comes with the side effect of being a decent SDR for tuning into all sorts of things not just your local TV stations :-) USB broadcast tuners can be repurposed as software-defined radios? That sounds like a few Amazon and GitHub links I’d be very curious to see!

https://www.adafruit.com/product/1497 But most of the cheap ones ($20 and less) are just DTV receivers that happen to be able to provide a signal that SDR tools can utilize.

More information about this: https://www.rtl-sdr.com/about-rtl-sdr/

Re: Six dead after tornadoes destroy Amazon warehouse near St Louis

#278

Post by jerry_tk »

mortenjorck wrote: post #255
Crosseye_Jack wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If getting a cheap TV is out of the question. Get a cheap USB TV Tuner (and prob a decent portable aerial, the ones that come with cheap USB TV Tuners are OK if you live in a strong signal area, but you might need something a bit better if not). It comes with the side effect of being a decent SDR for tuning into all sorts of things not just your local TV stations :-) Also get a cheap battery operated radio and a stoc…

> It comes with the side effect of being a decent SDR for tuning into all sorts of things not just your local TV stations :-) USB broadcast tuners can be repurposed as software-defined radios? That sounds like a few Amazon and GitHub links I’d be very curious to see!

I think https://www.rtl-sdr.com/ would be a good place to start learning about SDR USB sticks. But beware -'this rabbit hole goes deep!

Re: Six dead after tornadoes destroy Amazon warehouse near St Louis

#279

Post by bryans »

drusepth wrote: post #256
bryans wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There aren't hours and days of advanced notice. Only a few minutes. Every major weather and news organization was warning about "a very high likelihood of nocturnal tornadoes in the area" 12+ hours before they happened.

As someone who grew up in the midwest (specifically in Joplin, where we know a thing or two about tornados! [1]), I'll say those are largely ignored both in and out of work. I've never left work during a tornado. I've rarely even stopped working during a tornado -- the only time I even went to a basement was when we literally saw a tornado out the window from our desks. As soon as it passed, it was back to work. If y…

> I'll say those are largely ignored both in and out of work. I've never left work during a tornado. I've rarely even stopped working during a tornado ...

Which is exactly how dozens of people died in a candle factory and six more at an Amazon warehouse, all for the sake of holiday gifts. Just because you don't currently take something seriously, doesn't mean you shouldn't.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambler%27s_fallacy

Re: Six dead after tornadoes destroy Amazon warehouse near St Louis

#280

Post by camhart »

Sebguer wrote: post #265
camhart wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your article is over a month old...

Do you think Amazon has changed its labor practices in the last month? The OP's point is that warehouse employees don't have the option to not show up.

With tornados you don't have a long heads up. You normally know there's a bad storm coming and that's it. It's not until the sirens go off that everyone stops what they're doing. Everybody in that town most likely went to work that day.
Post reply on HN