I know that it's the wrong time of the year to be discussing tornado safety practices, yet here I am. I think I wrote about this once before, but I went crazy and deleted everything on this site. I'd like to post it again, anyway.
There are lots of people out there that think that an overpass is a safe haven from tornadoes. Not true. In fact, it's very dangerous. There have even been "Tornado Jams" where cars have just stopped where they are on the interstate and people sought refuge under an overpass. You are better off in a ditch.
I think the main cause was two very popular films. One was the Kansas Turnpike Tornado of 1991 and the other was the Jacksonville, Illinois Tornado of 1996. In both cases, newscrews took shelter under overpasses as tornadoes either hit them directly, or came very close. One man narrating the Jacksonville storm said he knew "You were safe under the bridge." In the Kansas Turnpike case, a news crew took a direct hit by a small F1 tornado. Had this been a violent storm, their chances of surviving uninjured would be smaller.
Also the overpass in the Kansas clip was an unusual overpass, which allowed people to take cover and gave them protection with steel beams and handholds, most overpasses to not have this luxury. If you are on the road and a tornado approaches, try to get off the highway and seek substantial shelter. If you run into a "Tornado Jam", try to find shelter well away from all the cars in a ditch or a low-lying area. These will offer you a better chance of survival.
I'm a big storm buff as most of you know. I even have my own website dedicated to tornadoes and have often discussed the misnomer of underpasses as good shelter. Here is an interesting essay by Roger Edwards.
http://webserv.chatsystems.com/~tornado/3may99/comments.htm How it changed my life:Hopefully this will save a life.
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