I am not a badass. I am badass

Friday night, tornado warning. The funnel crowd was southeast of the Lincoln city limits on NE 2. Those of us downtown had no way of knowing this, however, so the fact that ignored the sirans and continued drinking makes us too awesome for words.
For those who don't know, let me give you a brief description of central Lincoln. There is downtown, of course; well maintained public buildings in a midst of drunkeness and homelessness. I have already told you about our rush to seek shelter Friday.
Surrounding downtown are neighborhoods full of substandard housing, outright shanties, really. T-Town, North bottoms, South Bottoms, the near south.

Tornadoes are a bit overrated by those outside of the Midwest. True, if if a tornado does hit your house it will destroy it and likely everyone in it. But twisters are small, usually no more than half a mile wide. So the odds that any given tornado will hit your house are quite small.

Having said that , the urban core of Lincoln is a bit frayed at the edges, and quite vulnerable to summer weather. I can picture it right now. A super-cell forms over my neighborhood (T-Town) The rain floods Antelope Creek. A tornado forms and hits T-Town, slices through the dorms at the NU campus and on into the Bottoms. Somewhere along its path through the obsolete infrastructure, the tornado busts open a gas line, the resulting blaze incinerates the aincient wood of the cheap rentals and the tenants trapped inside. It may be a streach, but 500 dead is a possibility.