CNN news 2015-05-15 加文本

cnn news 2015-05-15

Welcome to cnn Student News, current events for middle and high school classrooms, no commercials.

This Tuesday, May 12th, Americans from parts of South Dakota and Iowa, stretching down to Arkansas and Texas, are recovering from severe weather. Over the weekend, fierce storms ripped through the country's midsection. At least five people were killed, dozens were injured, and several were still missing yesterday afternoon. More than 70 tornadoes were reported. 

One of the areas hardest hit was the northeast Texas town of Van, population: 2,300+. A fire marshal there says roughly 30% of Van was damaged. The town's schools were closed after getting this kind of damage on Sunday. The district's superintendent said they felt blessed this did not happen during a school day. A high school in Iowa also lost most of its roof.

Apparent tornadoes weren't the only problem. The storms brought sudden flash flooding the areas of northern Texas. Helicopters were called in to airlift people when flood waters covered the roads nearby.

So, now, the EF scale, Enhanced Fujita Scale, starts at 0 and goes only to 5. And anything above 200 miles per hour is considered an EF-5 tornado. 

If you have a 0, you're going to lose shingles. A 1, you may lose a couple of boards on the roof. A 2, you'll lose all the windows, and maybe even a wall. A three, EF-3, you will lose a couple of walls on the outside, but there were still be a part of the home standing. An EF-4, most of the home is gone but you'll still see the refrigerator, you'll still see a closet and you'll still see the bathroom. An EF-5, you cannot find the house. It's completely gone.

We don't know how big that Fujita scale will be, how big that tornado will be, literally until after we look at the damage.

The greatest threat of a tornado is being hit by something that the tornado is moving. If you're outside or if you're not protected inside, if you're hit by 140 mile per hour 2x4, you're going to be killed. So, you need to be inside and the lowest level, of somewhere in the middle of the home, away from windows.

When you hear the word "warning", and you hear your county, that's when you need to take cover. When you hear the word "watch", that means something might happen today. Let's have a plan. 

When you hear the word "warning", it's too late to make a plan. You need to already have a plan. Warning is the long word. It's the bad one.