Rare and violent autumn storms ripped across MidWest on Sun

I grew up in the Midwest, so tornados were always something that was considered. As a family, we were never preppers; but, dad had an old battery powered transistor radio that we would take into the interior-est bottom floor room with candles and blankets. Never actually went through a twister, but a neighboring town was flattened twice!

Anyway, Mama called last night in her "shelter" (solid unfinished concrete room in the basement). She had her dog, purse, phone, and a bottle of wine!

My brother lives is Chicago, and said the winds and rain were quite severe.

From what I remember, trying to "get out" is a no-go in tornados. It's best to shelter-in-place in interior rooms with no windows. If you're caught out while driving, get out of your car and prone out in a ditch. Now, I haven't lived in the heartland since '03, so I dunno if those protocols are still legit.

Had a few friends down that way (Washington IL area) that are busy with the chainsaws this morning. Everyone's okay, stuff happens, we just cut it up and patch/tarp up until the adjuster shows up.

NoAm - Yep, tornado's are definately part of the "oh crap" plan in the midwest. Shelter in place is the name of the game, head to a downstairs/basement room if possible, if not a bathroom tub or internal room with no windows and get low. We have them almost every year, usually they're a non issue, but every now and then they make a mess. This last year we had an F2 roll through the nieghborhood where my hospital is and just made a mess of everything. We had no power at the hosp for 18hrs (not a great thing, but we're prepared for it. Machines didn't like it, but that's besides the point), but Power and Light got it up as quick as they could. The surrounding area didn't have it for 2.5 days.

I would bet that most didn't evac the stadium - those are fairly hardened, and Soldier Field is HUGE (been there a couple times). They most likely just moved everyone to the concourse for a bit until it blew through. Uncomfortable for a while, but tornado's pass fairly quickly.

Usual short term power loss stuff, in the event that power is gone once the dust settles. Gotta keep an eye on basement flooding if in an area prone to high water levels. If you want some entertainment, head to the lake and watch the tornado head out over it - waterspouts are neat, and usually end with multiple spouts before leaving.