Extreme Weather

Answers
1. tornado
2. thunderstorms
3. lightning
4. flooding

Transcript

Severe weather you can never plan when it will happen but you can prepare for it. Here are a few safety tips to remember when encountering different severe weather scenarios.

First, let’s talk about tornadoes. When a tornado siren goes off, it’s important to seek shelter immediately in a sturdy building especially in the basement or a hallway away from windows and don’t stay in your car. A car can be easily tossed around by the power of a tornado. You don’t need a tornado to have high winds. Thunderstorms can bring them to. These winds called straight-line winds can get up to 100 miles per hour and even though they’re not the winds of a tornado you should still seek shelter. Stay away from windows and don’t use electrical appliances of power lines might have been damaged or destroyed.

Speaking of a thunderstorm we have a few pointers on those too. If Thunder occurs less than 30 seconds after lightning seek shelter immediately, wait there until at least 30 minutes have passed since the last rumble. If a thunderstorm occurs while you’re driving seek shelter if you can, keeping away from windows that can be smashed. If you can’t leave your car don’t touch any metal surfaces if lightning strikes.

If you live in an area with flash floods occur this one’s for you. Never drive into a flooded area. Nearly half of all fatalities from flash floods occur with people in vehicles. And never walk through flooded areas. All it takes is six inches of water to sweep you off your feet.

Now, this is a message for everyone no matter where you live it’s important to have a disaster plan and designated shelter for you and your family and if you live in an area with severe weather stay connected to your local weather station. It never hurts to prepare for the unexpected.

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

The heavy rains, record floods and extreme weather in the Central U.S. this spring are the kinds of events expected to become more common with climate change. On a reporting trip in Oklahoma and Arkansas last week, NPR’s Nathan Rott decided to ask whether the people living through these disasters link them to climate change.

NATHAN ROTT, BYLINE: The first day in Oklahoma, first interview, a guy named Matt Breiner is on a bridge near downtown Tulsa watching a bloated Arkansas River surge underneath. Asked if he was worried about the flooding, he says, no, he’s, not for himself – maybe others downriver, but he’s fine. And then without prompting, he says this.

MATT BREINER: It just tells us that if we’re – we got to come to a conclusion about – not to get crazy – but global warming. If this is going to be an ongoing thing…

ROTT: Now, as someone who covers a lot of natural disasters in the U.S., I can tell you that climate change does not often come up when I’m out talking to people on the ground, not like this. And it made me wonder if other people experiencing or seeing the flooding were thinking about climate change, too. So I started to ask. At other windy bridges like this one in Fort Smith, Ark…

Climate change – is that a thing that you guys worry about? Is that a thing that…

HUNTER MOON: Yes.

ROTT: …You think…

BREIGH HARDMAN: Somebody in my office…

SAVANNA BOWLING: I think we made somebody mad, and they were like, we’re going to get back at Arkansas and Oklahoma (laughter).

HARDMAN: Somebody in my office today…

BOWLING: That’s what I think.

HARDMAN: We all owe Al Gore an apology.

ROTT: That was Breigh Hardman, Savanna Bowling and Hunter Moon. I asked at riverside parks in the central part of the state where people like Lucero Silva were watching other folks fish the muddy waters for catfish.

LUCERO SILVA: Yes, actually, we were just talking about that earlier with my family that had came over, and I think it is affecting the world right now. And we should probably start doing something.

ROTT: I asked at donation centres where people like Benita Teague, who had to flee her house from the flooding, were picking up supplies.

BENITA TEAGUE: Sure it is. I mean, I don’t want to say it, but I think it’s got to do with the end of time, you know? I mean, he said it’s going to all happen, so…

ROTT: And I asked local officials like Joe Hurst, the mayor of Van Buren, Ark.

JOE HURST: Well, I’m not a scientist, but all I know is it seems like we used to get snow all the time.

ROTT: Now, this was not a scientific survey. I, too, am not a scientist. Elizabeth Albright, though, is.

ELIZABETH ALBRIGHT: Most studies do suggest that experiencing an extreme event does affect one’s beliefs about climate change.

ROTT: Albright is with the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University, and she’s part of a study looking at the beliefs of people who lived through flooding in Colorado’s Front Range in 2013.

ALBRIGHT: And what our broader research question is – how communities rebuild after a climate-related disaster.

ROTT: What actions do they take? This, she says, is the more important question. Marty Matlock, the executive director of the University of Arkansas’ Resiliency Center, agrees.

MARTY MATLOCK: People are not questioning that things are changing. The challenge is, how do we motivate people, give people a sense that there is an actual opportunity for influencing that change in a positive way?

ROTT: Getting people to reduce their impact on the environment by conserving energy, for example, or not wasting food. But also, Matlock says, the challenge is getting communities to better prepare for what a warmer climate holds.

MATLOCK: For us, for our generation and probably the next generation, we have to adapt.

ROTT: Matlock is hopeful that flooding like the kind that’s happening now in his state will inspire communities to do just that. And he may be right. Again, the mayor of Van Buren, Ark., Joe Hurst…

HURST: There seems to be indications of some changes in the climate, and I don’t know what causes it. But all I know is that we’re dealing with a historic flood. And now in my mind, I’m going to be prepared for this unprecedented event to happen, you know, a lot more often.

ROTT: And he’ll do everything he can, he says, to prepare his town for that future as well. Nathan Rott, NPR News.

Adapted from How Extreme Weather is affecting people’s opinionof climate change by NPR News