Day of unexpected crazy, with bonus awesome

[whymc]

Today was supposed to be a day all about giving a final exam. Instead, it ended up being a day of zany adventure. My class was interrupted by a tornado warning. I'm not sure why the university felt it would be better for my class to shelter on the bottom of a concrete buildig than on the 13th floor of said building. I mean, if the building

Comments

On storm shelters..

[verymelm]

I lived in Seattle for three years. My first day at a new job, on the 39th floor of a 45-ish story building, we had an earthquake drill. I was told that appropriate procedure for an earthquake was to crawl under my desk to protect my head and neck from anything falling on me. I wondered whether the people below me thought their desk would protect them from me - and my desk, and the ceiling - falling on them. It struck me as the most useless piece of survival strategy I'd ever come across - and when you realize I grew up putting hardcover books over my head while sitting in a school hallway for tornado drills, that's saying something!

(Also, buildings built in earthquake prone areas are built intentionally to sway. When we would get high, strong winds, the building would sway noticeably - you could watch the blinds sway, and some days, if I took my hands off my desk, I'd feel my chair roll away from it (I had an ergonomic kneeling chair and tucked my feet up so they were off the floor as a matter of course). There was motion sickness medicine stocked as a matter of habit in our office first aid kits.)