You can tell from my name that I am currently stranded on the east coast. It is amazing how terrified some people are out here of tornadoes. A fellow Okie at work was laughing about how his wife (A New England girl) was freaked out about the recent tornado warnings we've had out here, lately. He came home and she was sitting in the middle of the living room with pillows and a jug of water. She asked him if he would help her to drag the mattress into the room. When he looked at her with disbelief, she explained that the warnings all said that they should get to the inner most room of the house and hide under mattresses.

In the first place, he told her, no tornadoes were in the vicinity. In the second place, they have a finished basement, underground, complete with a TV and game room...

People are stupid.

They will freak out over a tornado, but do nothing about the fact that (statistically) they are going to die of heart disease soon.

Mississippi Floodwaters in Iowa - The Big Picture - Boston.com (http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/06/mississippi_floodwaters_in_iow.html)

Something to show his wife. (Most beautiful picture of a tornado I have ever seen.)

Ugh. Its not a tornado. Stupid media.

The structure is beautiful...but not a tornado. The low hanging part is likely part of a wall cloud - a storm with similar structure was video taped the same day and in the same area. However if you just look at the structure of the clouds, they don't even closely resemble a tornado's structure.

A friend of mine moved to OKC from Michigan about three years ago. She's weathered our tornado seasons well, so is no longer in that "freak out" stage, especially now that she lives in a home with a basement.

About two weeks ago she went back up to Michigan for a family function, and as they were driving from the event venue to a friend's house, she found herself - lo and behold - smack dab in the middle of a tornado...green cloud, significant lowering, swirling debris, the whole bit.

As she was driving with members of her family, she recognized what was coming right for them, pulled into someone's driveway (and by "someone," I mean random person they do not know), and ran into the house. The people came up the stairs from their basement, and beckoned her and her family back downstairs with them. Her first words once they got settled back in the basement and away from imminent danger were: "I'm from Oklahoma!"

After the fact when they got back outside, there was a great deal of limb/tree damage, and one limb had fallen on to the car of the people who owned the home.

Her first words once they got settled back in the basement and away from imminent danger were: "I'm from Oklahoma!"

I'm pretty convinced this a key phrase here. It's why she knew to pull into a random person's driveway and just go inside without knocking. I'm not sure folks from anywhere else would ever try that, even with a tornado bearing down on them.

Neat Story!

It's OK! I'm from Oklahoma!

"I'm from Oklahoma...wait, what are all these saws and knives down here? Are those body parts?"

"It's Ok, i'm a doctor.. I mean, i'm from Oklahoma."

Dammit, Jim! I'm from Oklahoma, not a meteorologist.

good one

I'm from Oklahoma and I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express.

Oklahoma slogans...

Let's put on our license plates...
1. Tornado Alley
2. We're Meteorologist
3. The Weather State

I know a girl who moved here from the east coast. She was moving into her home at Saturday at noon...do I need to tell you what happened? She flipped out and asked where the shelter was. Ummm there's not a cloud in the sky....

My wife has a friend who's not originally from our state (don't remember from where) but has lived in Oklahoma for about 15 or so years so you think she'd know. Anyway, on a beautiful, cloudless Friday last year she heard a tornado siren go off. By the time she got to our house to visit with my wife she was completely freaked out. My wife tried to tell her that they tested them every Friday at noon. This didn't help though, she had to call her husband and ask if he'd been watching the weather and if he'd heard anything. We still laugh about that.