Hope Your Christmas Was Great

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Hope your Christmas was as great as ours.

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“We Encourage All Citizens to Take Steps to Prepare Themselves for Any Type of Emergency or Disaster"

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The title of this essay is from a press release that indirectly "blames the victim." The author is Sedgwick County Emergency Management regarding a fatal tornado that occurred just north of Wichita at 1:14 this morning. The tornado was rated EF-2 ("strong") intensity. I believe the wording is unfortunate as discussed below.  Photo: KAKE.com. Note that with a basement, as little as seconds to dash down the stairs might have been sufficient to avoid injury.  In what has increasingly and unfortunately become the norm in tornado situations, no NWS tornado warning was issued even though: Rotation was depicted on radar Radar shows lofted debris People from outside the NWS are observing tornadoes and bringing them to NWS's and the public's attention.  I want to be clear: the tornado formed practically on top of the home and there was probably no way to have warned in time to help the man killed. But there is absolutely no reason a tornado warning could not have bee...
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