Tornado safety do's and don'ts during severe weather awareness week
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Tornado sirens will sound at 1:45 and 6:45 p.m. in Minnesota Thursday as part of the National Weather Service’s Severe Weather Awareness Week.
NWS meteorologist Tyler Hasenstein told Morning Edition it’s a practice day, should severe weather hit you.
Do: Make a plan
“The thing that we would like to stress is if you don't have a plan to take shelter, or a quick plan that you can put forward with your family to take shelter when severe weather is coming, today would be the perfect day to try and develop something and practice that,” Hasenstein said, both at work and at home.
Don’t: Stop under an overpass
That can cause a bottleneck. Falling hail could mean a tornado is close behind, and “all of a sudden, you have a lot of people that are out there stranded,” should people stop under an overpass, he said.
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With the hail, “getting out of your vehicle, even to get into kind of a low lying area, maybe not the best idea,” Hasenstein said.
Do: Shelter from the storm
While the basement is technically the best spot to escape tornadoes, sturdiness is key.
“Generally, the thing you want to think of is: have as many walls as possible between you and the storm, and then, in addition to that, the less windows, the better,” he said.
Listen to the full conversation by clicking the player button above.
