While Kommiecticut is no stranger to tornadoes, they typically occur in the heat of the day in late afternoon. Not in the dark of night or wee hours of the morning. They are also usually EF0 or EF1 and don't get very large or travel very far due to the terrain. At 03:50 this morning, my weather radio went off for a tornado warning. I grabbed my phone to check the radar and there was an emergency alert on the lock screen. It didn't go off with the sound because I keep my phone face down on the nightstand by my gun and silenced. I don't care to hear boops and beeps all night long from emails and such or see my screen lighting up either. It is there for me to call 911 only.
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| A screenshot of both warnings. First at 03:50 and updated at 04:13 |
I hit the bathroom and woke up my wife. We roused the dogs and all headed for the basement. I put the TV on (yes we have our satellite TV extended to the basement) for the Hartford news and sure enough, doppler radar indicated a severe thunderstorm with rotation, and we were in the warning area. The TV went out because of the storm and I grabbed a couple of flashlights in case power went out. We both had our phones on us in case it all went south we could call for help. Thankfully it was short lived, and the storm passed to the south of us and was a nothing burger. If nothing else, it was a good drill. At this time there have been no reports of damage from the area.
Glad you are safe. My family lives in E. Windsor. Always like to hear what is happening in the area since I've moved to Commieland New Jersey.
ReplyDeleteAn EF-0
ReplyDeleteNot even worth getting out of bed for, you city people need to get out more.
That motherfucker Bert
Hey That Motherfucker Bert,
ReplyDeleteWe do get concerned here with EF0's for two reasons; first they do happen but they are rare, so people aren't normally expecting them. Second, Kommiecticut is heavily forested. My house is surrounded by large mature trees, which if sent crashing down through my house could be deadly. An EF0 out on the prairies would be considered a gusty breeze. Here it causes a lot of damage, injuries, and occasional deaths. The telltale sign the National Weather Service uses to determine it was a tornado and not a micro/macro burst are trees twisted off halfway up the trunk and scattered. And an EF0 will do that. Straight line winds lay the trees down in one direction from the base. After a simple heavy windstorm back in October, I had two huge trees damaged that had to be professionally removed. It cost me $6000 and tons of labor on my part to move my chicken coop out of the way and back so they could be dropped. A crane to lift them out would have cost almost $8000 more.
I actually live in a pretty rural area. My back country road is 1 1/2 miles long and has 13 homes on it, of which 5 (mine included) could be considered farms.
Comment relative to Android, not sure if it holds for others.
ReplyDeleteYou have to dig around but you can use the Do Not Disturb to cut off the constant interruptions. You also have the option to allow exceptions to call or message. Can be manually set on/off or on a schedule. It will allow alerts to come through and you can set which level you will allow for that (eg you can exclude amber alerts).
Handy if you want certain alerts or specific family/friends to be able to call and/or message.
@Steve S: I can't use DND because I use the "I Am Responding" app to wake me up for overnight fire/EMS calls. On my phone there are only 3 or 4 apps that can override the DND, and IaR is not one of them. That may be different on newer phones. I always get wifey's hand me downs.
DeleteWe et lots of tornadoes, & maybe we're jaded. If I get out of bed for one, it'd be to go outside & look. If it's during waking hours, we're definitely on the porch with a drink.
ReplyDelete--Tennessee Budd