CapeFearWX

That is incredible.

Unfortunately, the Joplin tornado may have been one of those storms that caused multiple fatalities in large buildings. In such cases you can get horrific death tolls on a relatively short path. That was one reason for the high death toll in the Gainesville tornado in particular - there were 70 deaths in one factory, another 20 in a department store, etc.

I saw that report, too. It mentioned that there had been deaths but that all of their employees had been accounted for, so I'm assuming there were fatalities among the customers. Also, my mom tells me that on this morning's news they mentioned that the deaths at the hospital were in the parking lot?

According to this article on TWC's website: http://www.weather.com/outlook/weather-news/news/articles/joplin-search-survivors2_2011-05-24 Seven deaths so far at the Home Depot store that was destroyed, with search and rescue (but moreso recovery as time goes on) still underway.

For my part I would want people to just be generally more weather-wise in the future. What I mean by that is to not just wait for a warning before taking any sort of action, but paying attention to weather forecasts in advance of any severe weather threat and recognizing how that threat evolves over time. For example, if there's a watch issued (especially if it's a PDS watch), you might not want to plan a whole slew of outdoor activities for that day. If you check the radar and see a huge squall line producing warnings a couple of counties over and heading your way, it's probably not a great idea to go out shopping/dining/to a movie at that time. And naturally, a warning is only effective if people hear it, so make sure that you have a weather alert radio for whatever building or group of people is in your charge, whether it be your home or the office or store that you manage. You're absolutely right that waiting for a tornado EMERGENCY is not the right thing to do. People need to be aware of EVERY severe weather threat, not just the most dire ones.

Yeah, I did see that discussion yesterday, actually. :-)In big events like this, though, one thing I always like to look at is how the media frames weather stories. Most news journalists don't have direct expertise in meteorology (that's how Harold Brooks keeps getting cited in these tornado disaster articles), so how do they present tornado stories as opposed to, say, earthquake or tsunami stories? Do they do their research and compare it to events in the past like we do here? I think all of us here don't have much trouble grasping the magnitude of 100+ people dying in a tornado in 2011, but what about the general public? Are they so numb to disasters by now that they accept this as just another one? Or do they take events like this to heart and try to learn from them? The latter is what I hope to see going forward.

Well, first of all I should give the disclaimer than I'm a big history buff, so any time I see some major tragedy such as the Tri-State tornado mentioned in a news article with the caveat "oh, but this was on unofficial records", it sort of ticks me off. It's like saying that they somehow don't matter as much because they happened before 1950. But maybe that's just my weird thing I'm overly pedantic about :-D Second, I think in this case some historical perspective is definitely warranted. What I haven't seen many in the mass media bring up is that this is the first U.S. tornado to kill over 100 people since 1953, the year that public tornado forecasts began. If the death toll passes Waco/Flint, it will be on the list right below the Woodward tornado which was in the era before tornado forecasts. This is not a small thing that we have had death tolls like this in our time, with media saturation and longer leads times on warnings than there has ever been. It's similar to how Katrina's death toll was significant because there hadn't been a hurricane in the U.S. like that since 1928. Why was the death toll in Joplin (and, for that matter, the death tolls in Alabama) so high when there were warnings issued, and how can they be prevented in the future?

There have been a couple of very close calls in the past few years. The basketball arena in Atlanta was sideswiped by a tornado during the SEC tournament a few years ago, and the arena where the Utah Jazz play was damaged in the Salt Lake City tornado in 1999. I would hope that all sports venues in tornado-prone areas have evacuation plans for tornadoes, but logistically I could see it being very tough in some cases. The massive football stadiums in the Big XII and SEC hold upwards of 80,000 people on game days, and NASCAR superspeedways generally seat over 100,000. Then there's the threat of storms hitting right when throngs of people are leaving or arriving at the games - massive traffic jams on the surrounding roads with possibly very little shelter.

Okay, it's bugging me a little bit that CNN keeps referring to this tornado as the "second-deadliest" or "tied for deadliest on record", as in this article: http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/05/23/missouri.tornado/index.html Yeah, I know that they're going by the "as of 1950" benchmark since that's as far as the official NWS database goes, but come, guys. No one really doubts that the deaths on 3/18/1925, 4/5/1936, 4/9/1947, etc etc. were caused by tornadoes. The overall tornado record might be very spotty prior to 1950, but there's nothing wrong with acknowledging high-death-toll events prior to that. It does look as if other news outlets (Weather Channel, MSNBC, etc.) are mentioning some of the major tornadoes prior to 1950. Heck even the BBC had a little sidebar on their website that listed some significant past tornado events, including the 1932 Deep South outbreak and the Natchez tornado of 1840.

I've been thinking, it's pretty remarkable (and sad) how many tornado and death toll benchmarks have been set so far this year: ~ worst (# of tornadoes) outbreak in NC history, possibly of all time, but at least since 1884 ~ worst tornado outbreak in AL history, definitely in terms of deaths, possibly also in terms of total tornadoes ~ possibly the most prolific tornado day in U.S. history (4/27/2011) ~ deadliest U.S. tornado outbreak since at least 1936 (if you consider the Tupelo and Gainesville tornadoes both parts of one outbreak), or possibly 1925 ~ deadliest single U.S. tornado since either 1953 (if 116 death toll in Joplin holds), 1947, or 1936 (if you consider the Woodward event to have been more than a single tornado) That's a lot to bear in just one year.

Yes, the "big box" stores (specifically the Wal-Mart) would be the ones to worry about. There's also a high potential for, at the very least, injuries in any sort of building that has plate-glass facades. The hospital that was hit in Joplin doesn't appear to have suffered that much structural damage, but just about every window was blown out and anyone not in an interior space would have been at serious risk. An important factor would be whether staff and customers are aware of a tornado's approach and whether they could even get to safe areas in the building. The evacuation order at the Sanford Lowe's might not have come in time had the tornado not been clearly visible and spotted as it approached the store. All large commercial properties ought to have a weather radio for receiving warnings, but this isn't always the case - I know that the shopping mall where I work does NOT have one in their office, although the head-of-security does subscribe to a weather alert service via cell phone. Hearing that the Joplin tornado was rain-wrapped and hard to see makes me very worried that the worst might have happened at one of the stores that was hit.

IIRC the main high school in Joplin took a direct hit, but everyone was at a graduation ceremony off-campus when the tornado struck, which would be very fortunate.

According to this article on CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2...hpt=T1&iref=BN1 Two of the buildings that took direct hits in Joplin were a Wal-Mart and a nursing home. I'm wondering if any of the deaths occurred in those places, both of which would be pretty vulnerable to a tornado. Large retailers are never safe places to be during tornadoes, and have narrowly avoided major tragedies on several occasions (like in Sanford, NC a few weeks ago). And the elderly, unfortunately, seem to be a segment of the population that is especially vulnerable to tornadoes. They may have a reduced ability to physically take cover, especially if bedridden such as in a nursing home.