Neese: Shelbyville narrowly missed two tornadoes

Charlie Neese of WTVF (Channel 5) presented his "StormSafe" program Thursday night at First Baptist Church on Depot Street. [Order this photo]

Neese said two strongly-rotating storms passed right over Shelbyville, either of which could have resulted in damage if it had touched down.

Neese gave his "StormSafe" presentation Thursday night at First Baptist Church on Depot Street, hosted by the church and by Bedford County Emergency Management Agency. He said Tennessee's lenient building codes make homes here more prone to tornado damage and praised Bedford County's network of storm shelters, which saw heavy use during the April 10 storms.

Although Neese is a native of Middle Tennessee, he worked several other places while moving up in the world of TV weather forecasting, including Cape Girardeau, Mo., where he said building codes require solid, concrete foundations. Too many Tennessee homes, he said, are built on cinder block foundations, allowing them to be picked up and moved by a tornado. And mobile homes, which make up 18 percent of homes in Tennessee, can be rolled over by even a relatively-weak tornado, which would take a few shingles off a traditionally-built home.

Although the safest place to be during a tornado is in a basement, this does not apply to a crawl space, said Neese. A crawl space can be one of the worst places to be in a tornado. A home which is moved off its foundation could crush someone hiding in the crawl space, or pipes or other debris could prove deadly in such an enclosed space.

In addition to crawl spaces and mobile homes, Neese listed bad places to be during a tornado:

* Near windows. "Debris is what injures most people in tornadoes," he said. The natural inclination it to want to watch an approaching storm, but that can put the spectator in the way of broken glass or worse. A tornado can throw debris up to 1/2 mile, he said.

* Upper floors. Tornado winds are faster the higher you go, he said.

* Near or in the garage. Tornado winds can rip through garage doors, and when tornado-force winds blow into a garage they have no place to go, so they may be forced up through the roof, weakening a home's structure and causing walls to collapse. Garages that face south or west are especially vulnerable.

* Cars and trucks. A tornado "can pick up a car like a tin can," he said. If you are in a vehicle and a tornado is close or headed in your direction, get out and lie down in the nearest ditch, as low as possible.

If your home does not have a basement and it is too late to reach a storm shelter, look for a small, centrally-located room away from windows or the garage. The smaller the room or closet, the more structurally sound it is. Bathrooms may also have addes structure due to the tub and due to plumbing in the walls.

Homeowners can also have special storm shelters built -- a traditional underground storm cellar, reinforced steel storm shelters inside the home, or even a type of storm cellar carved into the concrete foundation under the garage. (This would be one instance where the garage would be a safe place to be.)

Neese said Tennessee is in the middle of a 20-year cycle of increased tornado activity. The last such cycle ended about the time of the 1974 tornadoes which ravaged the state; the current cycle began in 1996.

Neese said it's important to take warning seriously. Buy and use a weather alert radio. Newer models can be programmed so that their alarms only go off when the user's home county is the subject of a warning; this eliminates the annoying tendency of older models to go off multiple times during the night.

Local AM radio station WLIJ-AM (1580) will offer official announcements of local shelter openings, and Nashville TV stations like Neese's offer team coverage of major storms.

WTVF now offers a paid service which will call users on the telephone when their home address is in a warning area.

On the web

BeStormSafe.com

Bedford County storm shelters

• New Bethel Baptist Church, Styte Route 64, Bedford / Wheel area
• Bell Buckle United Methodist Church
• Friendship Baptist Church, Hilltop Road near Flat Creek
• Crowell's Chapel Lutheran, Halls Mill Road
• Mountain View Baptist Church, Horse Mountain Road
• Normandy United Methodist Church
• Pleasant Grove United Methodist Church
• Rover Baptist Church
• East Park Methodist Church, East Parkway at April Lane, Shelbyville
• First Baptist Church, Depot Street, Shelbyville
• Southside Church of Christ, Narrows Road at Cannon Boulevard, Shelbyville
• Wartrace United Methodist Church