'Goodbye mama... it's heading straight for me' sad sad

This is one of the saddest stories I have ever read.

A 22 year old son was texting his mother right before an ef4 tornado struck his home killing him in Vilonia, Arkansas.

First he texted his mom saying that he was scared and she tried to calm him down.

Then he sent this right before the tornado hit his house.




"Good bye mama it's heading right for me" Brought tears to my eyes.

But despite the terror of losing her only son, Regina is comforted in the thought that Jeffrey, in the midst of panic and fright, thought to tell his mom goodbye.

www.dailymail.co.uk...

Dear God.... I teared up just reading it myself. How utterly devastating. There really are no other words for it.

How lucky are we this night? Geez.

originally posted by: Kangaruex4Ewe
Dear God.... I teared up just reading it myself. How utterly devastating. There really are no other words for it.

How lucky are we this night? Geez.

Very lucky. Really puts things into perspective.

a reply to: alienjuggalo

The question is, how many people are going to have to get a text like these, before house building in tornado prone regions is changed to prevent deaths like this?

There ARE routes by which affordable houses could be built which would withstand the power of a very strong tornado. Geodesic structure would be a good start, low friction coatings applied to outside surfaces, no exterior walls at 90degree angles to the ground...

But because it involves a little thought and planning, no one wants to think about it. Much better to keep building homes with flat, upright walls, building houses without hardened bunkers underneath them, than put the effort in. It makes me sick to think that a new, old fashioned building will be built on the site of this ruinous event, for some other poor bugger to send a final word to his mother from.

a reply to: TrueBrit

All houses with a yard in those areas should have a storm shelter dug. If you don't then dig one yourself. You can hand dig one in 2 days.

I grew up in a small town in the Midwest and I remember we had community shelters in damn near every neighborhood.

We use to break into them and hang out when we were kids

a reply to: alienjuggalo

Well that's great and all, but if house builders and insurance companies in the area are to do their due diligence, they are going to have to change the way that the family home looks and works as a physical structure in these locations. Being in a hand dug hole in the ground is not what I would call an effective measure against such a powerful weather event. It would be much better to have buildings which are designed specifically to have deep foundations, toughened and low profile exteriors, and hardened basements, with back up power generation and emergency beacons to alert rescuers to the presence of trapped persons, in the event that debris from other structures occludes escape routes after the incident.

If you want to have a vessel which can dive beneath the waves, you do not buy a fishing boat and wait to get sunk. Similarly, if you want to live under the most dangerous skies in the world, you do not do it in a clapboard house with all the inherent structural strength of a damp lettuce!

a reply to: TrueBrit

I agree with you!

But zoning laws control very much what people can build and where and this is generally orientated to keep business going as these kind of crisis's tend to loosen up and release a lot of stored up Insurance paid out on claims.

a reply to: DietJoke

A house in a tornado prone area, should be UNINSURABLE if it has four walls at 90 degree angles to the ground, a wooden substructure, and no hardened basement! The building and insurance industries KNOW this! They know the weaknesses that exist in these buildings, and to continue to build and insure them in their current format amounts to fraud!

originally posted by: TrueBrit
a reply to: alienjuggalo

The question is, how many people are going to have to get a text like these, before house building in tornado prone regions is changed to prevent deaths like this?

Isn't it amazing that so many other industries move on with such speed and advancement for nothing more than convenience and fashion, but something as important as this has STILL not changed after thousands of needless deaths and hundreds of viable solutions?

What the hell is going on here? Why is nothing changing on this? What is standing in the way of progress and design developments in these states?

It's tragic, and just like others I teared up reading that. I can't imagine the fear that poor young man was feeling at that moment or the pain of his mother. It's just very tragic and totally pointless.

originally posted by: TrueBrit
a reply to: DietJoke

A house in a tornado prone area, should be UNINSURABLE if it has four walls at 90 degree angles to the ground, a wooden substructure, and no hardened basement! The building and insurance industries KNOW this! They know the weaknesses that exist in these buildings, and to continue to build and insure them in their current format amounts to fraud!

I agree with some of what you say. What about hurricanes? Florida, the Gulf coast...shouldnt most of that be uninsurable as well? Tornados are random and can pop up anywhere with varying strengths. But hurricanes are always most damaging by the southeastern coastline. Thoughts?

a reply to: the owlbear

Again, normal, traditional houses, which are not built using defensive strategy in mind for the conditions which prevail in a locality, should not be insurable.

In hurricane prone areas, the risks are high sustained winds, flooding through rainfall and storm surges, and flying debris. Therefore, to mitigate the damage from winds, similar strategies as used in my example of a hypothetical tornado proofed house would apply, but with augmentation to improve their ability to survive a storm surge. That augmentation would come in, when deciding the shape of the footprint of the building. To prevent the building being destroyed, one would want the buildings footprint to be a tear drop shape, with the fat end pointing toward the sea.

This shape would do two very important things. First, it would allow waves to break over the curved fat end of the shape, and flow around the structure, rather than impacting fully against a flat surface, and pushing entire buildings off their moorings. Second, if you imagine that all beachfront properties, or properties within a previously effected area are built to the same basic principle, then what you have is a system which breaks up waves, stealing their momentum from them, with every block the storm surge passes. The tear drops thin end would face inland, and this would allow water to recede with far less difficulty, and channel receding waters in such a way as to reduce the amount of time it takes for sea water to leave the area and flow back to the sea, AND would sculpt the flow of the water so that it would flow between, rather than over the buildings.

In addition to the teardrop shaped footprint, the houses themselves would either have to have an entire body shell which was able to be pressurised in the event of a serious emergency flooding scenario, or a basement with a family sized capsule inside which could be. Now that I grant you, would cost a fair bit. But the fact is, if the house is GOING to be hit in the future with waves and rain and wind, capable of destroying the house, and that it will happen again is a statistical certainty, then a regular house should not be insurable in that position, and builders should refuse to construct it on the grounds that it will not last. Only houses specifically designed to survive that sort of thing, and protect occupants and property within, should be put in place of what has already been destroyed!

It does not matter which scenario we are talking about, whether it be repeated coastal flooding due to storm surges from hurricanes, or swirling killer vortexes in the alley. The unifying feature is, that there are building design possibilities which could mitigate these problems, materials which could be used to make those designs workable, building methods which will expand the possibilities still further, and no one is implementing these things, and that is just plain wrong.

ETA: a word on materials... One of the strongest materials I can think of to make these homes out of, would be ferrocrete , which is a mixture of iron and concrete, which is then heated and left to set. Normally it is used to build bank vaults, out of big sheets of the stuff, which have steel reinforcement bars sunk into them. If three dimensional printing techniques were industrialised, there is no reason that these buildings and their foundations, could not be printed in place. Once set, the whole structure would be proof against all manner of environmental assault, and a coating could be applied to all surfaces to minimise salt water damage to the iron components in the mixture.

a reply to: TrueBrit


I agree totally with the hurricane assessment. It is GOING to be hit again, just as a house close to an active fault line is GOING to suffer damage from another quake.
So why not build better and slightly more expensive that will sustain far less damage?

Insurance makes it's money from risk/reward. They are a legal racket. Most drivers would be able to pay for any accident they get in out of pocket compared to the premiums for the life of the vehicle. That is why healthcare is so messed up in the US as well. But im getting off topic.

I used to live in Tornado Alley. Know the risks. Lived near Atlanta when the tornado went downtown. Didnt have a basement. Sent my family and dogs to a neighbors until I knew it would actually come our way. If you know a tornado is coming in your general direction and you do not have a plan beforehand...sad, but that is on you.

a reply to: the owlbear

The thing which troubles me, is that in a very small space of time indeed, when I hear about a tornado coming through a town in the US, I immediately think of architectural systems which could prevent massive death and the constant destruction of people's property, the violent interruption of their lives, and the extended hardships they endure while displaced.

If a moron like me can come up with something in less than half an hour, that actually makes some sort of mad sense, then how can it be that someone with a degree in civil engineering and architecture has not petitioned the local governments in tornado hit areas, and put these plans forward as a standard replacement for any house destroyed in a tornado?

If a poorly educated sap like me can understand that a storm surge needs breaking up, and that houses which present a flat side to a wave will be smashed asunder, why has some big shot architect or town planner been unable to summon at least that small amount of wit, and get these things moving, so that these things never happen again in the same way?

Do these thoughts just not occur to people who are actually in related trades or what?

a reply to: TrueBrit

Here is an even better thought... Areas that are prone to these types of disasters should be zoned as not habitable. Quit building (and rebuilding) homes/businesses/huge resorts in these areas (regardless of the materials used) and stop the carnage (and the huge insurance premiums!).

originally posted by: BendingTheTruth
a reply to: TrueBrit

Here is an even better thought... Areas that are prone to these types of disasters should be zoned as not habitable. Quit building (and rebuilding) homes/businesses/huge resorts in these areas (regardless of the materials used) and stop the carnage (and the huge insurance premiums!).

That would make half the US uninhabitable.

a reply to: BendingTheTruth

The thing is, that people, quite understandably have time and money invested in these locations. There are entire cities in these places, and moving the entire populus en masse just is not practical in the least, even if you leave out the sentimental value of land, and the importance of the livelihoods of those involved.

Besides which, the idea of merely backing out does not bode well for our strategy for dealing with an ever more insane climate. If we keep doing that, eventually there will be no where to go. If we do not learn to adapt to our surroundings, rather than running away when things get hairy, then our species will become even more pathetic, certainly in the western developed world, where hard as we may work, the simple process of a day in the life is not nearly as hard as our ancestors had to put up with.

If we run from challenges, even with our resources and technological mastery, then we may as well all walk into the ocean, jump off a roof, or otherwise self terminate, right now.

a reply to: TrueBrit

You're right. If people are gonna live in tornado alley then they need to build underground or something. I couldn't live there unless I was underground.

Sad story. I hate hearing this stuff as I have a soft heart.

Terribly sad, made me tear up....

There ARE routes by which affordable houses could be built which would withstand the power of a very strong tornado. Geodesic structure would be a good start, low friction coatings applied to outside surfaces, no exterior walls at 90degree angles to the ground.. - See more at: www.abovetopsecret.com...

I think I even read an article where most houses in such areas aren't even built with storm cellars anymore. Seriously?
www.weather.com...

As for hurricanes, really apples and oranges. The hurricane's damage is from hours and hours of high wind, rain, etc. vs. a violent burst. Much different protection strategy (and we do have certain hurricane building codes).

a reply to: Gazrok

Ah yes, but for seafront homes in the face of a storm surge, they do not stand up very well to the effects of the sea coming in through the front door, which is why the shape and construction of homes in those areas ought to be radically altered, if the insurance industry is to be able to sell insurance on them at all.