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1. How can you prepare for a tornado?

The best preparation for a tornado is to designate a safe place in or around your home as a tornado shelter. Tornado shelters are safest if they are underground. A storm cellar or basement away from windows offers the best protection. If neither of these are available, plan to find shelter under heavy furniture or mattresses near an inside wall of your house on the ground floor. Get under solid furniture or cover yourselves with mattresses pulled off the bed.

Other things you can do include:

• Know the location of the designated shelter where you work or go to school.
• Make an inventory of your household furnishings and other possessions.
• Plan to evacuate your manufactured (mobile) home.
• Plan tornado drills with your family so everyone knows what to do.
• Supplement the written inventory with photographs or video. Keep inventories and pictures in a safe deposit box or some other safe place away from the premises.

2. What should you do when a tornado warning is issued?

Things you should and shouldn't do when there is a tornado warning include:

• Do not drive. You are safer in a home or basement shelter than in a car.
• If you are driving in a city and spot a tornado, get out of your car and go to a nearby building immediately.
• If you are driving in open country, drive at a right angle away from the tornado's path if you can safely do so. Do not try to outrun the storm. If you cannot avoid the tornado, get out of your car. Lie flat in the nearest depression, such as a ditch, culvert or ravine. Protect your head and stay low to the ground,
• If you have a storm cellar or shelter, go to it immediately with your family. If no shelter is available, go to your basement and get under a heavy workbench or stairs. Do not position yourself directly underneath heavy appliances on the floor above you.
• If your home has no basement, stay in the center of the house away from the windows or in a small room on the ground floor that is away from outside walls. Take cover under solid furniture or mattresses. Protect your head.
• In any large building, such as an office or department store, avoid all large, poorly supported roofs. Go to the basement or to an interior hallway on a lower floor.
• In mobile homes or vehicles, leave and take shelter in a substantial structure. If there is no nearby shelter, lie flat in the nearest ditch or culvert and cover your head with your hands.

3. What should you do after a tornado?

After a tornado passes:

• Be alert to fire hazards such as broken electric wires or damaged electrical equipment, gas or oil leaks or smoldering piles.
• Have damage to your property assessed by your insurance company.
• Keep tuned to the local radio or TV station to get an all-clear signal before leaving your shelter.
• Re-enter buildings with extreme caution as they may be unstable.
• Report broken utility lines to appropriate authorities. Please do not call 911 unless you have an emergency.
• Sometimes more than one tornado will develop during a violent storm so keep alert to the possibility of more tornadoes.