WSMV News 4's Nancy Van Camp Visits Rotary Club
by Bob Augustin Jr.
WSMV-TV News 4 Meteorologist Nancy Van Camp was the special guest speaker at the January 30, 2009 meeting of the Lawrenceburg Rotary Club. This was Van Camp's second visit to the Lawrenceburg Rotary Club, having addressed the club two years ago.
The main theme of Van Camp's address was tornado safety. The purpose of her program and of WSMV's "Surviving the Storm" program, stated Van Camp, was to educate the general populace of the "Dos" and "Don'ts" of tornado safety. Part of their job, Van Camp said, was to correct past tornado safety rules which have been determined to be incorrect. For example, in past years conventional wisdom, based on the techonology then available, advised folks to open all the windows in their houses when a tornado was immenent to equalize the inside and outside pressure and prevent the house from exploding. Improved technology now shows that houses are not as air-tight as once thought and the house won't explode. In fact, opening the windows is dangerous and counterproductive because it allows the tornadic winds, and the debris it contains, easier access to the house and its inhabitants.
Van Camp gave the following tornado safety tips: 1) Put as many walls between you and the outside wall of the house as possible; 2) Protect your head. Wear a helmet, preferablly a motor cycle helment. Most fatalities in a tornado are due to head injuries, either from debris blown by the tornado or the ceiling and walls falling on the individual; 3) Go to basement, cellar, or safe room underground and get under a sturdy piece of furniture. If an underground room is not available, go to the smallest room in the center of your house, usually a closet or a bathroom. Any room bigger than these two, the ceiling and walls are more susceptable to collapse. Take a flashlight, with fresh batteries, NOAA weather radio, with fresh batteries, and your cell phone.
Pictured above are Rotary President Polly Marsh, WSMV's Nancy Van Camp, and Rotarian J. W. Durham.
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