Severe weather in this area of the country has to be taken seriously, no matter what level its forecast at. Its a consequence of our high population and population density, and for me, its a personal encounter. I say this because, about four years ago, on July 25, 2010. I had my own close encounter with severe weather. Allow me to tell you this story I was in a shopping center in Rockville doing errands when the squall line that ripped through that day struck with full force. The sky turned black...jet black and ferocious winds ripped into North Bethesda. They picked up dirt from a nearby construction site and started pelting people running for the safety of the stores. Then the real gust of wind hit, Im not sure how strong the winds were where I was but I know the damage they caused. Five transformers blew simultaneously, trees came down and light posts fell. Power went down all over the city. One of those light posts fell on a car, a car parked two spaces away from mine. The driver was not in the car, she was shopping for clothing. But someone couldve been that car, and had Id decided to take that space about 10 minutes before, that couldve been me. Before the storms (you could see they were coming), I thought Oh, its a summer storm coming through, itll blow through quickly and I can finish up after it passes...and then came the distant power flashes. Id seen too many documentaries on tornadoes for my own good, and I fled inside. And good thing I did. But thats me, because I thought I knew what that signaled because of what Id seen before, so I took action. But what if you didnt know what that was? You may have been caught completely off guard, and I saw people who were. People who were going about their business on a Sunday in July...all of a sudden given a monster of a scare. When you have a close call like that, you cant forget it. Its one of few times that weather has truly made me feel endangered and scared and it scarred me. Its one of the major factors that led me in 2011 to get this going, and why, when truly threatening (by Mid-Atlantic Standards) weather occurs I can take such a serious tone. Because it almost happened to me, its happened to too many innocent people, and the ultimate goal is to prevent a catastrophic death or injury to any one else and their family. This is preventable in many situations, and the more people who know about threatening weather, ideally, the higher the chance they take action to protect themselves. Weather is vicious and its out to get you and I consider it a duty of mine, and every other meteorologist, amateur or professional, to let you know when its really out to get you. My study of geography has only amplified that calling. Because were such an urbanized area, even lower-end severe weather can have an amplified impact. Look what happened on Tue: A lower-end squall line knocked more than 100,000 people off the power grid, and tragically took the life of a child. A higher-end event not only knocked 10x as many people off the grid some for more than a week and killed more people. And the highest-end events can wipe whole towns off the map, and were not immune to them or anything along the weather severity spectrum. This isnt an area where a downed tree has a higher chance of falling in a field of wheat than on a house, its the opposite. If you knock a tree over, which is surprisingly easy for storms to do here, odds are that youre going to hit something. And it might not be a tree, it might be a weakened lightpost... in a shopping center... on a July afternoon in 2010...
Posted on: Sat, 12 Jul 2014 17:17:50 +0000
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