Twister, British-style

Amazing. Simply amazing.

I just watched part of a special entitled "Tornado Britain," which covered the '05 Birmingham tornado and the December '06 London tornado (how did I miss that?). Oh, Equinox...not so hot, people, not so hot.

I've never personally lived through a tornado, thank God; the closest I've come is straight-line winds as a kid. I am, however, from a state where tornado drills are mandatory for grade schoolers, and I have many fond memories of being freed from one class or another to sit in the tunnel with my head against the wall, giggling at the inanity of the exercise and of the ungraceful butt-up position we were required to take. I was watching ABC 33/40's tower camera when a tornado came over the mountain into Birmingham in 1998, and I know that 10 AM on the first Wednesday of the month is siren testing time (believe me, one was across the road from my high school, and class had to stop until the test was over). I've seen what tornadoes can do.

After listening to half an hour of this documentary, you would have thought a pack of rabid, hungry Yetis had descended upon Birmingham and London and started smashing things up. The reactions were unbelievable and frightening - no one expected it, and so no one knew what to do. One shopkeeper tried to rescue his sidewalk merchandise. People stood by windows, taking footage with their mobile phones. A TV cameraman, who just happened to be in the park when the Birmingham tornado came through, was blown to the ground but kept the camera rolling. People were frightened, obviously, but completely clueless.

In the aftermath of the Birmingham storm, the announcer told us, 112 roofs were damaged and 90 cars wrecked, though no one was killed. Considering that this was a neighborhood of old Victorian row houses and that the tornado had a seven-mile damage path, 112 roofs doesn't seem like much, but to the announcer, this event was roughly on par with Hiroshima.

Enter the tornado experts from Texas.

I love these guys. First, they cut to Texas Tech's debris lab, in which burly guys load beams into a cannon and shoot them at various types of housing materials, supposedly for research purposes. The announcer seemed suitably impressed with the way a flying beam could punch a hole in your average Victorian brick wall, and I was suitably impressed by the producer's show of restraint in not subtitling the Texans. Next was the tornado chaser and wind expert (he's seen something like 175 tornadoes live in the last 26 years), who did two things that made me grin. First, he said the Birmingham twister was probably an F2, nasty but hardly earth-stopping. Secondly, he pronounced 'Birmingham' correctly - you know, like we do in Alabama.

Did I mention that I love these guys?

If Equinox is right and Britain is going to be seeing more tornadic activity due to global warming or stampeding Yetis or whatever, someone needs to put out a PSA with some basic guidelines. Seek shelter away from windows in the lowest floor of the house or basement. Don't try to outrun a tornado headed your way. And folks, just because there aren't any cows flying by, you do not have license to stand outside and gawk while your lovely row of Victorian houses disintegrates - this is common sense time.

Also, TORRO, I don't care how fancy your scale is, Fujita it was and Fujita it will stay. It was an F2 (excuse me, T4-5), and by American standards, that's pretty wussy. Deal with it. Just by comparison, the Birmingham, AL tornado of 1998 was an F5, 31 miles long, and killed 32 people. If using the T-scale, it would most likely have ranked a T-9 or T-10.

By the way, I know of some folks who make great storm shelters...