Weird Scarey Storm That Lasted Ten Minutes

[shadowkat]

Alright this is scary. I'm sitting on the fourth floor of a brownstone during a tornado warning in Brooklyn, NY. No indication one has definitely touched down. (Okay if it did touch down? I'd be dead. There are no interior rooms away from windows. No basement, I can go to, and no place to be safe. I suppose I could sit in the bathtub. There are no windows in the bathroom. )Before it began to rain - I looked at the sky and it was the color of Kale, a bracken green, deep as seaweed. And when it hit - it was if a wall of rain hit the building all at once. You couldn't see past the window. And lighting crashed against the windows. The air stinks of water, that dank dewy stinky smell of damp moss and algae. It's calming a bit now. But for a minute there I thought the storm would crash through the windows.

Does explain the sick headache I've had all day, and the feeling as if I were swimming up through
a fog. Even inside. All I've wanted to do all day was sleep. Curl tight into a ball and sleep. Ache all over. The air pressure heavy, pushing me down. What can I say? I'm a human weathervane.

Comments

[yourlibrarian]

Wow, very freaky. Yes, even outside of a dense city we have no place we could get to in time for a tornado (nor do most apartment dwellers, I expect). Plus, given traffic, not many places to go if you're in the street either.

[ann1962]

I can feel drops in the barometric pressure too.

Seriously, a bike helmet, a blanket and a bathtub could save your life. We have the kids put them on when we have to go to the basement for the storms.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Ever since I smashed my head open and got the six stitches - shifts in barometric pressure give me what amounts to sick headaches, and aches in every place that I hurt. It's weird. Was always sensitive though. Just more so now. Once it was over, I felt light and happy. Very weird.
Today was the polar opposite of yesterday in that regard.

I know my Grandmother used to go to the bathtub whenever a tornado hit.
The trick is to get away from windows - which can break and pull you out and into the wind funnel. So if you can hide in an interior room, you should be fine. Or so my parents tell me - we lived in Kansas for 17 years, tornados were about as common as thunder storms. Here, they are alien creatures that no one quite knows what to do with. LOL!

[louise39.livejournal.com]

We are about 35 miles from Manhattan. The sky turned dark 30 minutes ago and the cats were stock still, afraid to move. The electricity, of course, staggered on and off with the lightening strikes and then the rain came down HARD. For 10 minutes!

The electricity to back! Yay!

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Are you in NJ or NY? I know NJ was hit hard by it. It was definitely a tornado, albeit a small one but in a densely populated area that can do a lot of damage.

We got the outer edge, so were fine more or less, just a bit shaken.
Park Slope, Brooklyn and Forest Hills, Queens weren't so lucky - lots of damages. Roofs off buildings and everything.

[louise39.livejournal.com]

I live in Nassau County. My daughter works on Wall St and with no LIRR took 3 1/2 hours with subway/bus/car for her to get to her home to Long Beach.

But today is super-gorgeous!

[embers-log.livejournal.com]

sounds like you got a full measure of the storms we completely missed out on (which I'm glad about, we've had plenty of rain) over the last couple of days...
And yeah, a bathtub (particularly in a bathroom with no wndows) can be a very safe place... I know homes that were hit directly and the people in the tub were okay (bruised and scared, but basically perfectly well). Inside a closet can also be good.

Of course I've moved back into a trailer, and there is no good in a trailer (the wind gets underneath it and lifts if up... then bounces it a few times)

I'm glad you are okay!

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

It only lasted ten minutes. Weird for NY. Was a tornado, also weird for NY.
The city is still freaked out about it. LOL! One gal called it a hurricane.
Uh, no. Tornado.

Not quite sure where you can go in a trailer.

[embers-log.livejournal.com]

the rule for both cars and trailers is that you get out... you are (literally) safer lying face down in the mud then inside of a container that can be lifted up in the air and bounced around on the ground. Luckily Fairfield (where I live) has only had near misses in the last 30 odd years, so I haven't had to do the lying face down in the mud thing.

Actually my landlord recommends going to some buildings a block away that have basements... but that is kind of an unappealing alternative in the middle of a storm too.

Frankly I find hurricanes scarier than tornados; with a hurricane you have a huge area where every building is under the brunt of powerful winds, falling trees, power lines, etc... but a tornado usually touches down doing a great deal of damage in a small area and then leaves the rest of the neighborhood untouched. Tornado damage is weird because it is totally hit or miss.