Some of you may have seen the film "Twister," released in 1996 and starring Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton. They were storm chasers researching tornadoes (twister and tornado are synonyms). Having lived through numerous twisters in my childhood, I thought the film helped viewers who had never lived in the area understand the fear a tornado can strike in your heart.Once, I tried to drive out of the path of one twister while scanning for a ditch to dive into, if necessary. That was one day I was not worried about being pulled over for speeding!
If you've never encountered a tornado, know that the safest place to be is underground or in a basement away from the wall closest to the approaching tornado. If you are in a car, park your car on the side of the road and run to the nearest low ditch.
I turned the television on today to see the results of Super Tuesday, but the top news of the day began with, "Teams worked through the night searching for bodies." Another reporter said, "It looked like a war zone." I quickly realized it was not an earthquake in Turkey but tornadoes. Where? In the very area where many of my friends and relatives live.
Throughout the day tornados shared the headlines with Super Tuesday. "Storm rips across America's Midwest killing nearly 55 in five states and injuring many. All in an instant!"
Many of our Today's Zaman readers live far away from some of their relatives and when we hear news like this, we naturally begin to worry for the safety of our loved ones. We try to stay calm and hope for the best.
Disasters can happen anywhere. A friend of mine told me that she promised herself she would never live in California because of the threat of earthquakes. Guess where she lives now? Yes, in Turkey!
Earthquakes are another face of the dark side of nature. They occur too frequently here. The worst was in 1999 in İzmit. It measured 7.4 on the Richter scale and killed over 17,000 people in northwestern Turkey. If you are in an earthquake, yell "deprem!" (quake) and warn others. The safest place may be outside, away from windows, glass and bricks.
Nature is complex. Geophysicists use complex equipment to collect data on earthquakes and seismic waves, which move through and around the earth. Our local weathermen, or meteorologists, who study temperature, map reading, barometric pressure, humidity, wind speed and direction, certainly understand the power of weather.
If you are in Kansas or a neighboring state and see a violent rotating funnel in the sky, seek cover. It's not the like the one in the "Wizard of Oz" that was made out of muslin (plain woven cloth), keeping it flexible so that it could bend, twist and move from side to side, with a rod in the center, connected to a steel gantry that makes the tornado appear to snake back and forth. It's real.
Most people are under the impression that Turkey's latitude would lead one to expect a broadly temperate or Mediterranean climate. It's not quite so. Depending on the topography, the country's climate varies.
In some parts of the Turkey all four seasons can be experienced in any one day!
Depending on where you are, you can experience large temperature swings between day and night and even in the summer, nights can be surprisingly cool in Central Anatolia.
Depending on where you are in Turkey, you can prepare for the weather by packing an umbrella and a raincoat, a warm jacket or a sweater, cool cotton clothing, swimwear, a hat and suntan lotion. There is not much you can do about the dark side of nature. You just have to be ready. Try to have an emergency plan and first aid kit handy.
John Ruskin wrote, "Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather."
Weather doesn't have to have a negative affect on us but nature's dark side can turn our world upside-down.
