Rarely have we seen such a bizarre sight. Joplin’s hospital records were found 60 miles away. Winds sucked debris up to 18,000 feet (airliner height). People had no more than five minutes’ notice before all hell broke loose. There was no time to take protective action or shelter.
Joplin, Missouri needs your help right now. It needs (1) first responders helping rescue anyone trapped in the debris from one of the Earth’s Most Concentrated Energy storms – a nearly mile- wide tornado generating 198 mph winds, and (2) donations for people hit by a mother nature’s nuclear-sized bomb.
Jim Cantore from the Weather Channel was following the EF5+ tornado and witnessed people dying in front of him. At one point he was so overcome he couldn’t talk. That doesn’t happen to a guy who has seen nearly everything in dangerous storms.
A doctor said that all the windows had been blown out of the hospital. I heard a young man in Joplin on TV talk about the glass blowing in -- and the sheer hell that then descended on them. Another man talked of seeing his windows “bow.” One debris strike at that moment and the glass explodes. It had to be pretty scary.
As I’ve watched these storm disasters unfold I found myself thinking how many injuries (even death) could have been avoided from flying glass with our certified window film, which is designed to stop a glass breach that leads to structural failure.
The same thing happened in Houston during Hurricane IKE. Windows blew out for hundreds of miles inland. And IKE was only a weak CAT 1 – not a 2, 3, 4 or 5 (Katrina size) or an EF5 like Joplin experienced.
Flying glass is lethal. It’s like a glass grenade – stressed glass disintegrates into shards that spray like a shotgun blast, hitting anyone unlucky enough to be nearby. Glass is the weakest link in every building. The “Project Safe Windows” study of the 2004 hurricanes that struck Florida found that a glass breach by windborne debris is the direct cause of structural failure. Once windows break, internal winds pressurize the building and that blows off roofs, etc. A tornado does the same thing. It throws debris through glass, the weakest link – with the same result.
ANY protection would be better than what people have today – zero protection.
Our security film is designed to prevent window breach. On commercial buildings we add an attachment to keep windows from being sucked out. Even if the wind speeds exceed 175 mph, the most extreme storms, our Armor Glass security film would still contain the glass in a single piece -- instead of showering occupants with thousands of lethal shards.
Ocean temperatures this year are 2 degrees HOTTER. That extra heat makes storms bigger -- and more dangerous. Tornadoes and hurricanes are one thing. Burglars are another. We installed Armor Glass safety film on a lady’s windows on a Friday last summer. Five days later someone tried to break in. He failed. Her stuff was saved.
Do what you can to help with the rescue of people still trapped by this monster tornado, PLEASE.
Weather forecasters say that conditions could lead to another tornado outbreak by TODAY. This is the latest in a series of strange records storms that are getting all too frequent.
We can either continue facing these without armor, or with.
