Agree.
I know you heard this one before, and hope you don't mind if I tell it again. I was just thinking about it the other day, in fact. Thinking about events that shape your attitudes. LOL.
If a tornado is strong enough to pick up your parked vehicle and throw it (assuming its upon you before you have the chance to drive fast away from it) you are already in very deep sh&t, and getting out of your car and trying to find some ditch would be impossible or deadly. Not even possible if the storm is already upon you. Remember movies you have seen of people trying to haul themselves from the back porch to a storm shelter a few yards away hanging on to farm equipment and crap to keep from being blown away? And that heavy, hundred pound or more door to the storm shelter, how hard it is to get that closed down against the rising wind in the movies? That's not just 'theatre".
I for one, don't care what anybody says about not parking that car under a highway over pass, either. That's where I would park that car if I had the opportunity. Anybody wants to convince me different better have a good story about how they themselves died because they parked their car under a bridge and stayed in it waiting for the storm to pass. .
Then all the rest you said. And turn off the car if there's no chance to drive away, set the brakes, get low and cover up with whatever is in the car that can add a shield. Yep, I have been belittled and warned that this is NOT the recommended practice. But I am not talking about getting out of the car and climbing up under the bridge. I'm talking about parking under it. Yep, I am "aware" of all the stories about people who took refuge under bridges...again, most got out of their vehicles and climbed up under the beams....dopey. You got solid steel around you, keep it around you. Steel = good armor. Skin and tank top and sweat pants = dead meat.
The few that purport to be incidents involving cars parked under or "near" a bridge are just that...speculations after the fact of what happened to a vehicle that may or may not have been under the bridge....and wasn't when it was found.
So, I'll take the "been there, done that" opinion (mine) over the "see what happened to the dumb people who climbed up under the bridge and tried to hold onto the beams" approach or the "went there afterward and tried to figure out what happened to the dead guy a few feet away from the bridge and how he and his car got there" approach. Or the "this is a computer simulation of how the bridge would make a wind tunnel and would get you anyway" approach. That didn't happen, but what did happen was large debris went flying by and struck cars that were out in the open trying to drive through to get to a ramp off the interstate I guess. What did happen was that large vehicles out in the open, including at least one tractor trailer I saw afterwards, were spun around 180 degrees in the middle of the road. One car, I talked to the driver, later, went a full 360 degrees or more.
The tornado that passed behind me at an angle as I was going around indianapolis in 2004 (Indy 500 day) was deemed to be a ...what is it..class? Class 3 at an intersection where it took apart a store. that intersection was between a half mile and a mile from where I was tucked under an overpass over the interstate.
So, as I have said before...I am in the car, under the bridge. Rest of you can get out and run to a ditch if you want...
... You just have no idea. I doubt I could have gotten the door open against the wind, much less stand up or even crawl through that...couldn't see to find anything anyway. And if I did get it open, and the wind caught it right, could have slammed back on me and taken an arm or worse. When I was still out in the open, the truck (suv...chevy tracker...NOT a good vehicle in wind to say the least) was tipping so far over to the driver's side, I was sure it was going to go over...several degrees off center, and I am positive not much of the passengers side wheels were still in contact with the ground sometimes.
I never even saw a funnel. I saw power flashes, though. They looked like rocket hits I saw on CNN in Baghdad. Those were probably not from "my" tornado, though, but one of the two or three other ones that went through around the same time but farther away. Sight of "My" tornado would have been blocked by the bridge/overpass. But out the front, even though you could see nothing beyond the bridge, the flashes came through the curtain of downpour (think standing behind Niagara falls trying to look through it) bright and clear and lit the clouds around them with great clarity for a split second. It was surreal. I don't even understand how that can happen that it showed through the rain/downpour. But it did.
Okay. End of my rant. Carry on. LOL. Oh, except it doesn't matter what you think is best to do or what you think you will do, or what you plan to do. Just doesn't matter when it happens.
Spotter's Rants... 
Do you think that would help lower the chances of bodily harm?
Linear Mode
