1,001 Facts That Will Scare the S#*t Out of You: The Ultimate Bathroom Reader (69 page)

512

FACT :
Approximately 800 tornadoes are reported in the United States each year, causing eighty fatalities and 1,500 injuries.
A tornado can happen in any season and at any hour
, from mountains to urban areas.
Even if you’re a mile underground, a tornado will drill its way down through the Earth to get you.

Even if you were on Mars, a tornado could fly up there and suck you up. Okay, not really, but they do sound pretty aggressive.

“Terrifying Tornadoes, Wind Storms and Hurricanes,” Web-Ecoist, October 22, 2008,
www.webecoist.com
.

“Tornadoes: Nature’s Most Violent Storms,” NOAA Severe Storms Laboratory,
www.nssl.noaa.gov
.

513

FACT :
Think most tornado deaths occur in the Midwest? Think again.
Tennessee is the deadliest state for tornadoes
, killing 110 people over the last decade.
All of them related.

Adam Crisp, “Tennessee Tops for Tornado Deaths,” Chattanooga Times Free Press, April 22, 2009,
KnoxNews.com
,
www.knoxnews.com
.

514

FACT :
The Tri-State Tornado of 1925 was the deadliest in American history,
killing almost 700 people across Illinois, Indiana, and Missouri
. It also had the longest duration of any tornado before or since, taking almost 3
hours to cut a record 219-mile path of destruction.
Sounds like my grandma driving to the beauty shop.

“1925 Tri-State Tornado,” National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, National Weather Service,
www.crh.noaa.gov
.

“Terrifying Tornadoes, Wind Storms and Hurricanes,” Web-Ecoist, October 22, 2008,
www.webecoist.com
.

515

FACT :
Lightning is a leading cause of weather-related injury and even death in the United States. Even when
a thunderstorm is ten miles away and skies are blue overhead, lightning can strike
, which most people do not realize and which puts them at risk.
They probably realize it after it happens, though.

“Flash Facts About Lightning,” National Geographic News, June 24, 2005,
www.news.nationalgeographic.com
.

516

FACT :
Lightning strikes the Earth
more than 5,000 times
every minute.
The trick is knowing where.

Kevin T. Pickering and Lewis A. Owen, An Introduction to Global Environmental Issues, 2nd ed. (Routledge, 1997).

517

FACT :
Your odds of being struck by lightning in America are
1 in 700,000 in any given year
.
You have a 1 in 3,000 chance of being struck in your lifetime. The odds of it sucking are 1 in 1.

“Flash Facts About Lightning,” National Geographic News, June 24, 2005,
www.news.nationalgeographic.com
.

518

FACT :
Lightning
killed almost 4,000 Americans
between 1959 and 2003.
And scared the shit out of another 40 million.

“Flash Facts About Lightning,” National Geographic News, June 24, 2005,
www.news.nationalgeographic.com
.