How Philly reacted to the great tornado alert of 2019

Congratulations, brave warriors of the Philadelphia realm, for surviving the great 3 a.m. tornado alert of 2019.

No matter that a tornado never actually happened. Your gutsy reactions in the face of the sheer possibility of a tornado, whether you fearlessly fell right back to sleep after receiving an alert to shelter in place or you took to social media to slay the tornado (and your followers) with snarky tweets, you proved that Philadelphia can weather any storm. Even one that belongs in Kansas.

For many, the early-morning tornado adventures began with an ear-piercing emergency alert blasting through their cell phone around 3:15 a.m., like a car alarm made from the shrieks of a thousand angry babies.

The alarm was especially jolting to Game of Thrones fans, who’d stayed up late to watch the season premiere and were dreaming their little dreamy dreams about Jon, Daenerys, or a group of White Walkers. Hey, whatever’s your thing. We don’t judge.

Some Philly area residents even tried to secretly use the tornado to coax Game of Thrones spoilers out of HBO. How very Littlefinger of you, Philly.

But, like Bran....

...it takes a lot to faze Philly. This is a city of revolutions, of foods that dare you to not have a heart attack, of a furry orange man-beast mascot that may or may not be rabid. We ain’t scared of a little whirligig breeze funnel.

That being said, a fair amount of people did heed the warnings and sought shelter in the basement or their bathrooms, making it the first time in history anyone in Philadelphia has followed directions.

In many cases, family pets who were included in the shelter-in-place efforts seemed more startled than their owners.

In perhaps the most Philly poll ever to be tweeted on Twitter, one user asked a very important question about what Philadelphians should do in the face of a tornado threat:

We’d just like to point out that the correct answer is actually to physically fight the tornado and then go to Wawa for comfort.

Keeping an eye toward the storm, and the ladies, one windbag on Twitter tried to use the tornado alert to pick up women in Philly like he was Bill Paxton in Twister.

Take your high-pressure system out of here, buddy. Nobody is falling into that vortex.

When it comes to why the tornado never touched the area, Philadelphians even had very Philly theories.

In the end, while the rest of the city is struggling to stay awake after the 3 a.m. wake-up call, two champions emerged victorious.