Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Wabbit season, duck season...twister season

Yep, it's gettin' on to be that time of the year again.

Thunderstorms to rattle our 100-year old windows, lightning shows that would impress Nikolai Tesla, hail big enough to enable one to say, "Barkeep, a scotch on the ROCK, please," and tornadic activity that sends our local TV WeatherMuppets into multi-orgasmic hyperventilation...all the joys of nature's fury with half the calories of regular weather.

Noticed this in our small town's news rag this morning. Two twister seasons and I've yet to see this form published.


I'm wondering if New York Citian's that have Jodie-Fosterish "safe rooms" get to register them with the City, so the NYPD knows where to go looking for them after the Day After Tomorrow thaws out.

Or if my Los Angeleno brethren who live on the bottom floor of multi-storied apartment buildings can have signs printed up that spring from the front lawn of the complex, informing passing by Earthquake rescue workers that the building they are looking at used to have 8 stories, not 6.

Don-chya-no dat da good folk out and aboot in Minnesowda fer sure hafta get dem permits from da city to build really tall chimneys dat will reach over pretnear any amount of snowfall, you betcha (wow, that was hard to do...props to you folk up north...that's a hard way of talkin' - K)

We don't have a storm shelter. We have a full basement that will not afford much protection if the entire house is Wizard of Oz-Dorothy-lifted from it's foundation and spun through the air.

Maybe I should sink a pipe about 30-feet down and get enough leather straps for the family and I to strap ourselves down to. Be a good way to look up into the eye of the twister, wouldn't it. Or does that just happen in movies? Shucks.

3 comments:

Elizabeth said...

Hi. I'm sorry to barge in, but I just stumbled upon your blog today and got a good laugh about the Los Angeles earthquake thing.

I live in the OC, and don't particularly care for L.A., but i have lived through several earthquakes and I just have to ask:

is living through tornado season better than living with earthquakes year round?

OKDad said...

Ahh, a fellow So Cali-ite. Are you from OC or did you migrate there from points east?

You may be asking the wrong person about tornado vs. quake, since I was born and raised in LA, I kind of a quake freak. I missed the big Northridge quake in '94 and went through withdrawls from not being able to do my traditional quake routine -- sitting in front of the tv, listening to the reporters (some with no makeup, depending on the time of the quake) stammer and stutter their way through ad libbed news reports.

Waiting for the classy lesbian Dr. Kate from the Cal Tech Seismology center come on and get perturbed at the gathered reporters asking her repeatedly if we're going to have any aftershocks..and if so, when?

Talking and listening to folks at school/work/the grocery store, discussing what they were doing when the quake hit and how they reacted.

All of it. I miss all of it. Even the rockin' and rollin' of the ground. The movement of the earth beneath your feet touches on a basic animal fear that happens less often as we humans have become more civilized.

And, the chances of surviving a big quake are pretty astronomically in your favor -- relatively speaking.

Having not experienced a tornado first hand (knocking on wood), I have nothing to compare my quake experiences to.

Any tornadic activity in your past, Eliza?

Patience said...

Storm shelters. Sounds like great fun! Spiders, all sorts of bugs! And yeah, if the tornado blows your house blows away, won't the roof of the storm shelter pretty much disappear?!? Then what?!? OZ! THAT'S WHAT!!