There was one time I got a tornado alert on my phone telling me to take shelter in the basement. I have yet to see a house in Florida with a basement.

Candles were removed from the list due to the fire hazard. After incident reviews, shelter structures were noted that caught fire in affected areas from the open flames.

Build A Kit | Ready.gov

All good suggestions and simple to organize in a few minutes. Go to an interior area, closet or tub. Use some blankets, pile of clothes, or other covering that is manageable for your body type for an immenent situation (think tornado). The idea is for some protection from projectiles. A heavier object, ie mattress, if caught in a prolonged situation is preferrable and you could not evacuate (severe hurricane).

Be safe.

I dont know what it is about some on here and mattresses. If you want constructive and usefully advice...for an aged population, order a lightweight and inexpensive toddler mattress on Amazon. Easy to maneuver and more practical for the tub option. Also, and more importantly, you won't throw out your back, hip, risk a fall etc....and it's easy to store when not in use

Weather Alert Radio
 

You can buy a NOAH weather alert radio at Walmart. It has a loud alarm that you can hear thru your entire house. It alerts you however you set it up - severe storms, tornedos, floods, etc. You are correct that we have no tornedo sirens here. I was here for the Ground Hogs Day tornedo on Feb. 2, 2007. We were surprised to learn we did not have warning sirens. It went right over our house (no damage). It does sound like a freight train!!! Pretty frightening.

We had lots of tornadoes and hurricanes in NC where they also don't have basements. We had a interior walk in closet that many of the homes have here that we kept an emergency kit in. Water flaslights a wind up radio and a waterproof folder that had cash important papers. We had a cat 3 hurricane hit us and had no electricity or water for a week. Was so glad we had cash...credit cards don't work when there is no electricity. Doing the same here although I think hurricanes aren't as normal here but who knows the weather has been weird. We did keep one ice scraper. Haha!

I’ll take that all day everyday! The MA version of the storm is ice and sleet and power outages!

Sumter co. Sheriff’s Office mobile app. It’s in the App Store.
You get weather alerts plus other alerts. Great app to have.

Say 5 "hail Mary's" and get into the fetal position.

I remember that tornado in 2007. My friend lost the back part of her home. They had to rebuild a new living room and dinning room. It was terrifying to see all the damage. Thankfully they were not hurt.

We were thinking of using the walk-in bedroom closet should a tornado warning occur. It has plenty of room and a high ceiling. But it also had access to the attic which I was concerned about so I asked someone at the weather club. He advised not to so we plan to use the small bathroom.

4.8 earthquake centered in NJ at around 11am today.....felt as far north as MA/NH border and as far south as DC