Several weeks ago when multiple tornadoes roared across Alabama with at least one touching down in Troy the question came up about giving people warning and wondering if people in the tornadoes' paths were given a heads up.
With hurricanes we have days to watch their tracts, tornadoes can pop up at any time. We were under watches and warnings in this area during that day. It wasn't until the next morning I found out one had not only hit Troy but had hit Hunter's Mountain trailer park where I own a mobile home.
A lot of fingers were pointed about warning, but I learned something that shocked me. James Spann, a meteorologist and TV weatherman in Birmingham, said one of the problems is that the overwhelming majority of people can't find themselves on a map. I had to read his comments again because I wasn't sure I read it right.
What TV and radio meteorologists do is give us the latest up-to-date information from the National Weather Service about severe weather. That information is no good if you don't know where you live.
I thought it was crazy until I heard Spann on a radio talk show talking about the problem of people not being able to read a map and not knowing where they live.
“We have learned that a large percentage of people in our state and in many states cannot find themselves on a map,” Spann is quoted as saying in an Al.com story. “If I were to give you a blank map with no labels, no highways, just county lines and state lines, could you draw a dot within 50 miles of your house? We've seen some studies which show about 85 percent of the population cannot.”
That 85 percent figure blew my mind.
We don't have a designated tornado season like we do a hurricane season, but if we did we'd be right dab in the middle of it.
Spann said meteorologists use maps to tell people which direction a storm is traveling but obviously those maps don't mean anything if you don't know where you live or where you are at the time.
I live in Flomaton. If I get a weather alert that says a possible tornado has been sighted in Santa Rosa County and is heading northeast I wouldn't be concerned for myself. But if I heard a warning that a tornado had been sighted in Baldwin County and was headed northeast, I'd get concerned.
I went to high school with Spann. He had that radio voice all the girls loved and served as the disc jockey at a Tuscaloosa radio station. But Spann knows his stuff when it comes to weather.
My mother can't see very well but she sees well enough to see Spann on TV. If he's in his coat and tie, she's not worried. It's when the TV interrupts a broadcast and Spann is standing there with his white shirt and suspenders she knows something bad is about to happen.
Spann was also critical of the National Weather Service after the massive tornado roared through Tuscaloosa several years ago. His complaint was that tornado 'warnings' were issued too early and people became complacent.
When I grew up, it was first a tornado watch and a warning was not issued until a tornado had been spotted. His concern was that warnings were issued too often when there wasn't a tornado. People began turning a deaf ear to warnings because no tornado developed. It's kind of like when the boy cried wolf. He yelled it so many times when the wolf wasn't there that nobody believed him when there was really a wolf.
Most deaths from tornadoes come when people don't take precautions of the on-coming storm.
When I read Spann's comments about people not able to find themselves on a map I almost laughed. I could put that dot not only within 50 miles of my house but probably within 100 feet.
But knowing where you live is only part of the solution. You need to know the counties north, south, east and west of you as well. Depending on the direction of the storm you will know what precautions to take.
My best advice to everyone is to get a battery back-up weather radio. Many years ago I had one but I kept getting awakened up in the middle of the night with warnings about flash flooding in Baldwin County. Today they have radios that can be programed to only warn you when you are in the path of a storm.
Since Ivan most of us make plans and get supplies during hurricane season. We need to make those same plans for tornadoes.
