The Tornado Warning Syndrome

When you grow up in the Midwest, tornado warnings are a part of life.  The hot, humid, sticky day, the darkening skies, the alerts to a tornado watch, and then the sirens, blaring the news that a tornado might be in the area.

My hometown of Crystal Lake, IL, has not seen a significant tornado go through there since 1965.  That tornado was deadly and scary and at a time when the only way meteorologists knew there was a tornado on the ground—was when someone called them and told them a tornado was on the ground.

By the time I was in high school, the idea of a tornado hitting our town, while very possible, seemed very unlikely.  Tornado warnings were still issued primarily by observation and covered a wide area.  Even the worst storms produced funnel clouds, brief touchdowns, or what were ruled later as microbursts, straight line winds.

What we usually get from a tornado warning...do you see any rotation?

Perhaps that’s why, when eating dinner at a Chinese restaurant one summer evening a few years ago, I raced to the window when the tornado warning alerts came over the phone….instead of taking cover.  Peeking through the blinds, I thought, “oh, that’s just a microburst,” rolling my eyes that once again, the National Weather Service got it wrong.

Haha, trust the meteorologists. I can now say I’ve been through a tornado.  Thank goodness it was very, very weak, but as I run around town near the tornado’s path, I can still see the swath of branches that were ripped down by nature’s fury.

I’m in one or two tornado warnings every summer, and yet have only been in one tornado.  Over the course of my lifetime, that means I’m probably 1 for 50—2% chance—of being hit by a tornado when a warning is issued.  With those odds, it’s not a surprise that, when severe weather alerts are issued, people don’t even understand what they mean.  You have no idea now many times I’ve heard, “There’s a tornado watch, which means there’s on the ground.  Well, it’s sunny here, so I’m not taking cover.”  Of course it’s sunny—a tornado watch means conditions are favorable for a tornado to form, so you should be on alert.  The storms are on their way.

I call it the Tornado Warning Syndrome.  You’ve been through so many tornado warnings without actually seeing any significant tornado damage that the warnings are no longer taken seriously, even though tornadoes continue to be a threat.

I’ve been thinking about this mentality as our covid case numbers have been rising exponentially.  When the pandemic began, our governor put the entire state under a stay at home order for two weeks, essentially, a “pandemic” warning.  While we were in a place where only those who needed tests were taking them, the positivity rate was far below 100%.  People were getting sick, but not nearly in the numbers we expected.  Even so, our governor continued to extend the stay at home order for a total of two months, then rolled out a slow reopening plan, based on whether or not spikes would occur.  You could call it a “pandemic watch.”

The problem was that in Chicago, cases were growing exponentially, but even in my little community in the north suburbs, they were trickling.  By the end of the lockdown, early June, less than 200 people had tested positive.  In the rural western and southern parts of the state, the rates were even lower, with many counties having less than a dozen cases.

For the hundreds of thousands of people who not only didn’t know someone who had gotten severely ill, but didn’t know a single person who tested positive, it was just like those tornado warnings of my childhood.  Lots of anxiety and thunder, not a single home destroyed.

The summer continued, positivity rates declined, and people stopped taking the pandemic seriously.  Gatherings that had been postponed started to happen again.  Businesses reopened so they could continue to pay their employees.  People formed “pods” of friends, people who they trusted to stay safe, and continued socializing. 

Like a tornado that can rip a whole house down to the foundation while leaving the next door neighbor intact, outbreaks of covid were occurring, and people were still dying.  However, unless you were connected to an outbreak, the alerts and warnings felt like the tornado warnings with no tornado.  People became increasingly complacent, and businesses tired of struggling for no obvious reason.

As the chilly fall weather approached, people turned inside to gather, and cases started jumping up again.  The pleas to stay at home were falling on deaf ears, as families wanted to see each other, friends wanted to celebrate, and people craved social contact.  As the governor tried to stop the spread by restricting indoor dining, restaurant owners fought back, citing that not a single one of their employees had tested positive for Covid, so they were being unfairly punished when the actual outbreaks were tied to private gatherings where protocols were not being followed. 

When a storm system produces a large number of tornadoes, ironically, it is called an outbreak.  Well, we have an outbreak of Covid—a SuperOutbreak, even—but will people heed the warnings as hospitals and ICU beds fill?  Or will they feel like they’ve been told the sky is falling for so long that they’ll just ignore the warnings?

Don’t be fooled.  I’ll never forget my senior year first semester final exams.  It was January, and of course, a snowstorm was headed to Chicago.  The forecasters, based in Chicago, didn’t think it would be a significant snowfall, and so my district didn’t plan to cancel school (because, first day of finals).  Being so far from the city changed the forecast drastically.  While Chicago proper had a typical snowy January day, we ended up having to traverse heavy snow—the final storm total was over a foot—to get to school in time to take our finals.  The buses were having so much trouble that the school had to adjust the entire day by 20 minutes so everyone had the full time for their exam.

Just because you don’t see the havoc that these skyrocketing numbers are making doesn’t mean you’re not in danger.  Just like our school, watching the Chicago media, was caught unaware of a narrow, heavy snow band, don’t think that just because you don’t know someone with Covid means you have no risk.

Stay home.  Wear your mask.  Wash your hands.  Be safe.  Be well.  And don’t fall for Tornado Warning Syndrome.