Finding your safe spot during severe weather
It's severe weather season in Michiana. Do you know where to go when the ABC57 First Warning Neighborhood Weather Team breaks into programming when a severe thunderstorm or a tornado warning is issued?With tornadoes popping up in the Plains today, it is a reminder to make sure your household has a plan in place. Where is the safest place to take shelter?
Five-year-old Jude knows exactly where to go when severe weather strikes Michiana.
The Barkley-Leniski family understands that Michiana is a hot spot for severe weather, which is why they make sure everyone knows where to take shelter when there is a threat.
"We have a little area underneath the stairs that fits all of us so we just go in there," Alex Barkley mentioned when I asked where they go in the event of bad weather.
"When it comes on the tv, we've had to go down there a couple times. When the severe weather alert comes on, [Jude] knows what that means," Kara Leniski adds.
Speaking of Jude, when we began our severe weather drill during the interview, he sprang into action. He took us down the stairs, scurried around the staircase and sat directly in the little cove underneath the basement steps.
This is the safest spot in your home when a severe thunderstorm or tornado warning is issued.
However, if you do not have a basement in your home, the safest place for you and your family is in an interior closet, laundry room, or bathroom on the lowest level of your home.
It's also crucial to make sure that there are no windows in this interior room.
Another important thing to remember is to put as many walls between you and the storm as possible.
If the ABC57 Weather Team stopped at your child's school for one of our Project: Tornado presentations, they would know that most severe weather happens in the late afternoon and early evening, but that doesn't mean mother nature can't strike when the sun's down.
Severe weather can strike at anytime, so it is important to put a plan together with your family tonight.
Alex and Kara both recalled a couple times last year when storms woke them up in the middle of the night and they had to take shelter in the basement.
Making sure you and your family are safe is our number one priority.
Plus, if you would like Project: Tornado to come to your child's school, send our weather team an email at [email protected] or call our newsroom at (574) 344-5557.