Tornado Awareness

Part of me wants to start a tornado awareness campaign of sorts for my fellow Alabamians.  It begins with "Any time it's warmer than 65 degrees on an overcast day in  January, you should check the weather" and ends with a link to the weather blog.  Also, information about polygons and the 'tornado alley' we have running from west central Alabama up through northeast Alabama.  And I'm not victim blaming here; these storms are strong and will do what they will.  That's not where I'm going with this at all.  But saying there is no warning is generally just saying you didn't receive the vast amounts of information that was floating around.  It's unfounded.  If someone wasn't warned, it's from a lack of education about weather and warning systems.  So many people don't even realize that those warnings aren't county wide; they're for a relatively specific polygon.  Our siren system just hasn't caught up to that yet, and people place far too much reliance on it.  My friend Elizabeth over at Adventures in Life, Love & Librarianship speaks her bit about preparedness in much more eloquent, informational fashion than I could muster today.  Go check it out!



*I will add that many, MANY people in our area do take these storms seriously.  We've been through enough as it is.  And I will give a shout out to every person who closed on a loan or house at our office today...they've all mentioned the storms and told each other (and their trusty closing attorneys) to be careful.  When the going gets rough in the South, we generally just get better.