What's scarier to you? Tornadoes or Earthquakes?

[TechBoyJK]

What scarier to you a severe earthquake or a equally severe tornado?

 

[BoomerD]

Your premise is pretty difficult to envision.

Even a mild tornado can cause more damage than a mild earthquake...but I'd rather have the room get a bit bumpy than to have lumber and such start flying around.

 

[shiner]

I've been in both.....so I choose reruns of Punky Brewster

 

[KaOTiK]

Tornado, can wipe your entire house out instantly giving you no warning or time to even try and get away.

At least with an Earthquake you can probably get outside to your yard if you are in your house.

 

[FoBoT]

you can't get away from an earthquake and you have basically no warning

i live in the midwest. it is tornado season. my weather alarm goes off whenever they do a tornado watch/warning. i get on my laptop (can get cell phone internet if power goes out) and look at the radar and i'd pretty much know if a tornado was close. with technology, even if your house gets flattened by the tornado, you should be ok

 

[mcurphy]

Earthquakes are extremely rare in my area, so a Tornado is much scarier to me as it's a real threat. We have several warnings every year, and our small town has been missed by only a few miles by 2 large tornados in just the past 3 years.

 

[Pardus]

What would you rather endure, a severe earthquake or a equally severe tornado?

All depends on location, if your are in a big city, a mild earthquake of 4.0, can kill you from all the falling glass, metal and stuff inside the building then if you were out in the country.

A tornado can be avoided by getting out of it's path of destruction while there is still time, it's something you can physically see, whereas an earthquake, once it's starts, you can't avoid it.

So your question needs to be revised to be answered properly.

 

[BustinAzianBalz]

If it is your time to die it doesn't matter which one you are involved with. You will either survive or die.

I have never understood the mentality of which life threatening danger would you rather face.

 

[TechBoyJK]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42725966/ns/weather/

Looks like St. Louis Lambert Airport just got wacked by a tornado.. Airport is shutdown, cars are on roofs, and a guy who posted a pic (was there) said it looked like Concourse C was over on the nearby interstate. The girl in the video keeps going back to talking about the 'glass' that's everywhere and how everyone is picking glass out of their skin and it's a messed up site. eeeeek

 

[Muse]

I live about 2 miles, maybe less, from what's now called the most dangerous earthquake fault in the world (heard that on the TV news tonight, again), the Hayward Fault. New studies show that a lot of the built up stress on the giant San Andreas fault (the one that gave way during the great S.F. quake of 1906) are being distributed to the Hayward fault, increasing the chance for a catastrophic quake. The Hayward Fault typically suffers a large quake every 140 years with fair regularity, and we're overdue.

Tornadoes are scarce as hens teeth around here, but we're overdue for a big earthquake. If the Hayward Fault gives way along a long portion of it that includes the section near me, my house could be rubble, and if I'm inside it, I'm apt to be dead.

Absent the question of which intimidates you more by virtue of where you live:

Earthquakes are scarier because if you are within 50 miles of the epicenter of a large quake, you are in great danger. But a tornado is only so wide. One earthquake can kill over a million people. No tornado can compete. They are relatively inconsequential. Add to that the fact that you will get tornado warnings and you can seek shelter, which you probably have if you live in tornado prone areas. They are trying to build an earthquake warning system in CA patterned after the one in Japan, but they don't have the 80 million dollars to fund it. That might give you from a few seconds to maybe 1/2 a minute. The closer you are to the epicenter, the less warning you would have, so if you are near ground zero (where the shaking is the most violent), you have essentially zero warning and you're just plain fucked.

 

[OutHouse]

you can't get away from an earthquake and you have basically no warning

i live in the midwest. it is tornado season. my weather alarm goes off whenever they do a tornado watch/warning. i get on my laptop (can get cell phone internet if power goes out) and look at the radar and i'd pretty much know if a tornado was close. with technology, even if your house gets flattened by the tornado, you should be ok

??? looking at radar on your laptop makes you safer in your home? yea ok,,,, there have been many many people killed in their homes due to tornado's. if you have a F3 or higher sitting ontop of your home and you dont have a basement your chances of living through it are not good.

 

[Balt]

Topic title and first post ask opposite questions. :|

 

[FoBoT]

you can drive some where else if the hook is anywhere near you, if you want.

However, when the radar shows the "classic hook" it is almost certain to spawn a tornado. Notice the shape of the dark red (heavy rain and hail) are on this image.

When they see this pattern, it is almost certain to generate a tornado, and a siren warning

 

[manimal]

I vote for bad polls..much worse than a tornado

 

[Muse]

If it is your time to die it doesn't matter which one you are involved with. You will either survive or die.

I have never understood the mentality of which life threatening danger would you rather face.

Do you have an imagination? Are you just a fatalist?

 

[RockinZ28]

Depends where I'm at.

Inside, earthquakes. Outside, tornadoes.

 

[TechBoyJK]

i updated the poll question.. it wasn't clear....

 

[Obsy]

alien invasions are pretty damn scary

 

[trmiv]

Having lived through bad ones of both (89 Loma Prieta quake, and the recent tornadoes here in Raleigh), I will say tornadoes. Earthquakes catch your ass by surprise, so there isn't any build up, it just happens. By the time you're freaked out, it's over.

When tornadoes are on the way, you know it, but all you can do is sit and wait. Last weekend my wife, me, our 3 dogs and cat were stuffed in our tiny half-bath downstairs waiting for something to happen with the power out. Then that tornado rolled through, the house shook like crazy and we could feel the pressure on our ears as it tore the fuck out of the end of our street. Finally after it's over I go outside and trees are on neighbors houses, our 50 foot maple is fallen in our backyard, one house is ripped off the foundation, most houses are missing half their siding, roofs are destroyed, huge areas of trees are clear cut. Our neighborhood now looks like a fucking warzone. So yea, tornadoes are scarier.

 

[TechBoyJK]

yea i was just watching a vid from lambert airport in st. louis and one of the flight attendants had said that they were in a plane as a tornado was rolling through and that the pressure in the cabin was insane.

 

[sportage]

u forgot to add the option REPUBLICANS

 

[BoomerD]

I live about 2 miles, maybe less, from what's now called the most dangerous earthquake fault in the world (heard that on the TV news tonight, again), the Hayward Fault. New studies show that a lot of the built up stress on the giant San Andreas fault (the one that gave way during the great S.F. quake of 1906) are being distributed to the Hayward fault, increasing the chance for a catastrophic quake. The Hayward Fault typically suffers a large quake every 140 years with fair regularity, and we're overdue.

Tornadoes are scarce as hens teeth around here, but we're overdue for a big earthquake. If the Hayward Fault gives way along a long portion of it that includes the section near me, my house could be rubble, and if I'm inside it, I'm apt to be dead.

Absent the question of which intimidates you more by virtue of where you live:

Earthquakes are scarier because if you are within 50 miles of the epicenter of a large quake, you are in great danger. But a tornado is only so wide. One earthquake can kill over a million people. No tornado can compete. They are relatively inconsequential. Add to that the fact that you will get tornado warnings and you can seek shelter, which you probably have if you live in tornado prone areas. They are trying to build an earthquake warning system in CA patterned after the one in Japan, but they don't have the 80 million dollars to fund it. That might give you from a few seconds to maybe 1/2 a minute. The closer you are to the epicenter, the less warning you would have, so if you are near ground zero (where the shaking is the most violent), you have essentially zero warning and you're just plain fucked.

Well...Japan just suffered through one of the largest earthquakes in recorded history, and MOST of the 10,000-20,000 people who were killed or are missing were killed by the tsunami, not the quake.

The Loma Prieta quake in 89 only killed 63 people, many of them when the Cypress Freeway structure collapsed on top of them. CAN earthquakes cause catastrophic damage and thousands of deaths? Yes, but MUCH of the damage can be minimized by adhering to high quality building standards...instead of the "throw it together as cheaply as possible" like they did in China. We all saw how that worked out for them...an 8.0 killed an estimated 68,000.

Tornadoes are usually less catastrophic in nature, but they can appear out of nowhere and technology MIGHT give you a few seconds to a few minutes advance warning...On average, tornadoes kill less than 100 people per year, but there are those years when many more die due to tornadoes.
On average, more people are killed in the USA every year by tornadoes than by earthquakes.

 

[GoSharks]

All depends on location, if your are in a big city, a mild earthquake of 4.0, can kill you from all the falling glass, metal and stuff inside the building then if you were out in the country.

A 4.0 is quite unlikely to cause any damage, or even cause more than a passing mention. (At least in CA.)

 

[PieIsAwesome]

A tornado will destroy my house.

An earthquake, barring something absurdly huge, will not.

There are earthquakes here all the time. They are routine and harmless. If we had routine tornadoes, well, fuck.

 

[PieIsAwesome]

All depends on location, if your are in a big city, a mild earthquake of 4.0, can kill you from all the falling glass, metal and stuff inside the building then if you were out in the country.

A tornado can be avoided by getting out of it's path of destruction while there is still time, it's something you can physically see, whereas an earthquake, once it's starts, you can't avoid it.

So your question needs to be revised to be answered properly.

lol, a 4.0 is completely insignificant. Just another earthquake, continue to sleep/work/etc.