75-year-old Charlesetta Williams had a first-hand experience with unpredictable Texas weather this week when a tornado picked up the bathtub she was hiding in, twirled it in the air, and dropped it off in the woods.
She was completely unharmed.
via Washington Post:
Jason Hansford, a senior meteorologist who conducted the storm survey, said he spoke to the woman after the incident.
“She heard the tornado warning come out and she took cover in the tub in her bathroom,” he said. “The only thing she remembers is that the tornado came in from the southwest across her home. At that point the whole backside of her house was sheared off. Her bath tub was ripped out of her bathroom and she ended up still in her tub in some woods near her home.”
Hansford said he didn’t know exactly how far the women, who he estimated to be in her 60s, was thrown. Except for some cuts and bruises, “she was uninjured but emotionally shaken,” he said, adding that her house was totaled
This stands out as one of the most incredible tornado survival stories I’ve read. In the absence of an underground storm shelter, meteorologists frequently tell people to shelter in a bathtub during a tornado because it is heavy and typically well-secured.
“The bathroom has strong framing and the pipes in the walls could help hold them together, according to Tornadoproject.com,” wrote AccuWeather in 2011. “The bathtub and commode are directly anchored to the ground. They are often the only things left intact after a tornado passes.”
Several people survived the deadly tornadoes in Joplin, Mo., and Tuscaloosa, Ala., in 2011 by huddling in bathtubs, AccuWeather reported.
But it is amazing that this Texas tornado dislodged the bathtub with the woman in it, lofted into the air and then apparently gently laid it back on the ground — with the woman unharmed.
If it’s not your time to go, It’s just not your time to go!
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