sojitodd

What is so shocking about this is that so many deaths happened over a relatively short path-I would imagine that most or all of the deaths reported were in the city limits of Joplin or at least in it's urban/suburban area. The Woodward tornado in 47 only took just over a hundred in and around Woodward itself-other towns like Glazier and Higgins had many fatalities. This may be the worst single town death toll since the Tupelo and Gainesville tornadoes in the thirties.

I hope this is the case. But they are reporting significant damage to that school which is maybe a third of a mile directly east of his location. It is on the list of 4 schools with 'significant damage'. It looks like it is going to be very close-I hope he and his are ok.

Well we shall see. It only takes one location-one house or structure-that qualifies as EF-5 damage to designate it as such, We just do not know yet, given how wide and long the path was. There are pictures out there of houses completely destroyed, but then again you don't know if the wreckage where the home used to be is from that home, or from another home entirely. They will just have to figure it out and do the surveys on site with the appropriate professionals.

I was not following this right as it happened, and can someone verify if Joplin had just a tornado warning, or if a tornado emergency was issued? I went through the Central Forum thread and do not remember seeing any tornado emergency?

Also reminds me of the hospital in Minamisanriku and the tsunami-they could not move the patients up fast enough and had to leave them or die with them. I hope that story on TWC about the man being sucked out of a sixth floor window of the hospital is not really true... With 89 fatalities and counting, I wonder if something like a nursing home or a crowded store or something got a really bad hit...kind of the opposite of the Tuscaloosa tornado which missed the university, hospital, etc. ?

Well apparently nothing so far..but in the thread in the Central Forum they tracked down where his house is(by using photos he had taken of his neighborhood in a snowstorm and then using google earth, etc.), and located the exact house apparently and it was right in the path of the tornado. His last post was rather chilling. Hope he and his loved ones are ok.

I also keep seeing 'mobile home, mobile home, mobile home' in the storm surveys. Also seems like many of the houses(not all, but many) were older or not necessarily extremely well constructed-especially in some of the small towns, rural, and semi rural areas. I also wonder about the demographic (and even socio-economic) breakdown of the injuries and fatalities. I know from dealing with my own elderly parents how often the elderly will have a 'it is just fate' or 'it is God's will' or some such fatalistic attitude-and often will simply not seek shelter. My own parents say they will not even bother-"We've lived this long and if it is our time, then it is our time" etc . It can be very difficult to deal with. And I know other elderly people who simply do not pay attention to the weather or have the same attitude-they just don't seek appropriate shelter.

yeah... only 18 homes destroyed and a few dozen others damaged-but 14 fatalities. Yikes. scary stuff.

well not to go back to the other topic...but we really do need to know just how many people did die 'hunkering down' etc. We need to know the circumstances of each fatality to see what went wrong-was it a bad choice, lack of information, complacency, just plain bad luck, etc-there has to be a very detailed and thorough assessment so things can be learned from this tragedy and corrections or modifications, if applicable, can be implemented. We really do need to know why so many died- if it was just very strong tornadoes and populated areas and that was it/nothing else could be done, or if there is more to it than that.

well I can understand why it would be a surprise. Many people just were not paying attention to the weather..at all..despite the warnings and everything. That is just the way it is with people and severe weather. I would like to see a very thorough study done of the fatalties and serious injuries in this outbreak, to find out just what the individual circumstances were that led to each situation turning out the way it did. I think much could be learned from that.

Well to be fair, if people knew that a major tornado was virtually guaranteed to hit their neighborhood at some point, then I think they would have a different opinion about it. I really do not think that was a fair comparison-a very likely event (a moderate to major earthquake threat that is almost a guarantee(not if just when) vs. a very unlikely event to happen at all(any given particular neighborhood in Alabama or Ohio or Missouri being hit by a violent tornado-not likely to happen at all). Maybe a better analogy with earthquakes would be flooding and flood measures or flood insurance? Apples to apples and oranges to oranges, Josh!

And once you have 'educated' the public, and a violent tornado is said to be coming, then you will have a worse disaster as people will then, instead of sheltering in their bathrooms or closets(where the vast majority will survive), be wasting time gathering their belongings, getting the pets, papers, etc. together, trying to get into their cars, debating which way to go, where the tornado is heading, trying to avoid other cars and traffic, and inevitably you will have people getting either caught in their cars and killed, or people killed in more vulnerable positions in their homes or near their homes as they hesitate, change their minds, etc. and are caught by the storm not in interior closets with blankets and pillows over them, but in living rooms, doorways, driveways, front yards, etc. This would kill more people in most situations imo. Telling people 'your best bet' is to shelter in place in an interior closet or bathroom in your home on the lowest level, unless you are in a mobile home, is still going to save the most lives. What do you expect them to say? Get out now!. or..Shelter in place-but if you get a direct hit you are dead meat? They are still giving people the best available option if there is no basement, shelter, or better structure immediately nearby to shelter in.

I can give one example of evacuation that did work: the Golden Spur mobile home park hit by the Andover tornado in 1991. I believe about 350 to 500(can't remember exactly) or so people were in the park at the time the tornado was approaching. One fourth fled the park in automobiles. One half fled to the tornado shelter that was at the park. The other fourth did not flee and were caught in the park in their trailers. All of the deaths at the park were those in that last fourth, who were still in the trailers. -the majority who fled to the shelter survived-nobody was killed or seriously injured there. -the people who fled in automobiles could easily see the tornado approaching for several minutes beforehand, and given the grid pattern and wide visibility, were able to drive away from the tornado path, and they all made it as well. This may be a situation that would fit jomo's theory(even though it is a mobile home park). Staying in place in this case was a very bad idea. And fleeing in automobiles was a decent option-there was good visibility, enough time, good regular grid road network, on the edge of development in the Wichita area, so no congestion, traffic jams, etc. But these situations would be the exception imo. Certainly not the case in a wooded, hilly, metro area with an irregular street system, limited visibility, very fast moving storms, etc.

This would be one of the worst situations imo given the fast forward movement of the tornadoes, sending people out of their homes-to where exactly? For most people, hunkering down in their homes was the best solution. You cannot say that any other option would not have resulted in higher fatalities-especially in this situation. I simply cannot grasp your reasoning here(and I do apologize for my profanity in my previous post).

Sorry but that is such crap. There is NO WAY you can say that was 'bad advice' since you cannot say that any other response(as in evacuation by automobile)would have had a better outcome. They never guaranteed anyone that they would survive-but they gave the best advice they could. How incredibly irresponsible of you to suggest in your way that the 'tv personalities' are in some way responsible for people dying by telling them to hunker down. Utter bull****.

TWC just said it is now 271 confirmed dead. Jesus, when is it going to stop rising.

Per TWC, death toll now 267. Also, I find it hard to believe that anyone would advise mass evacuations in the path of a violent tornado. If you are in a very weak structure, mobile home, etc. than of course. But in an average subdivision? Hell no. Unless it is somewhere like Fargo in 1957 when they could see if for miles and see the roads and all and have plenty of time to drive to sturdy shelters. In this case..around rush hour in crowded cities full of sprawl, traffic lights, other vehicles, with vision obscured by trees, and with violent tornadoes moving very rapidly and capable of making erratic jogs and movements left or right at any time? No. I would say that even more people would have died if everyone tried to evacuate from regular average subdivisions and such. Some people probably would have 'evacuated' right into the path of the storm-while their home was untouched. Look at the Bridge Creek/Moore/OKC tornado 1999-thousands of homes were severely damaged, and numerous homes had f4/f5 damage, yet only several dozen people died in homes. Same with Wichita Falls 1979, even Xenia in 74- a total of 11 people died in the worst hit subdivisions, Windsor Park and Arrowhead-with over 300 homes wiped out there. Sending panicked people out of their subdivisions onto the roads in a situation like this would be disastrous. If anything, maybe evacuate to a very sturdy building with a basement or strong interior room, like a bank building or civic building or such-but only if there is time and you live in a crappily built home or mobile home. One thing you see in nearly every pic shown of this outbreak is demolished cars. Imagine those cars having been filled with people trying to evacuate.

And deaths too-I think at least 8 or so in Windsor. I wonder what this outbreak would have been like if it had a northern component like in 74-with Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky being severely affected. -the Tuscaloosa tornado reminds me of both the Xenia tornado and the Andover tornado. -when that tornado was moving through the northwest of Birmingham, and I was watching it on TWC, and they were saying it did not even look like a tornado, just like the supercell/wall cloud/whatever was on the ground, it made me think of what the Tri-State tornado must have looked like-it was always described as looking like a 'cloud on the ground' or 'an amorphous black cloud'. Now I can imagine what that must have looked like back then-and why so many people did not realize what it was.

Mayor of Tuscaloosa just reported 32 deaths in that city alone. Terrible to think that as I was watching that live yesterday that at least 32 people were being killed. Over 600 injured there, and the toll of deaths and injuries there is expected to rise. (on TWC).

Good God..the death toll just more than doubled? I hope there was some kind of mistake. If there are 150-200 dead then I guess this really does rival just about any other outbreak. Just horrified and shocked with this new death toll! And thank God Ohio and the northern end of this did not pan out! 171 deaths being reported on TWC.

Oh that is very very bad. If that is true, the death toll is going to be intolerably high overall. I was really hoping that would be the one area(deaths) that would not be so bad with this outbreak, but when you have tornadoes like this in large towns, deaths are inevitable I guess. Just horrible for the southeast. And it is still ongoing.

For what area and time period? Any other info on this? And it appears that everyone else also thinks the Tuscaloosa and Andover tornadoes are virtual twins.

look up some of the Andover Kansas tornado videos from 1991-very very similar to this. Everything I have seen of this in Tuscaloosa makes me think of the Andover tornado. Now when it was that monster moving into Birmingham, I don't know what I have seen that looked like that. Will give Xenia 74 a bit of credit too. Certainly historic and going to be way up there.

The pics and video from that remind me so much of the Andover tornado as it left that AFB. Just very violent and very similar looking.

Dammit...lift! ...weaken, something. That is headed right for central Birmingham.