"When an F4 or F5 tornado hits, there's not much you can do to change the outcome," Alabama Gov. Researchers have to go back to a massive 1974 tornado outbreak and then back to the 1930s to find storms of similar magnitude and impact. April saw a record-breaking 600 tornadoes spawn across the US, many of them powerful enough to crush houses and malls. The sheer power of the storm systems, which have been produced by unusual jet-stream dips bringing strong cold fronts into the Midwest and South, is the main factor in the death toll, researchers say. "After the Oklahoma City tornado in 1999, we were horrified by 36 people dying. "As big as these events have been, people are putting politics aside and asking questions they weren't willing to ask a year ago," says Kevin Simmons, an economist at Austin College in Sherman, Texas, who has studied tornado casualty tolls.
Yet the stunning death tolls from tornadoes this spring raise new questions about government subsidies for storm shelters, the psychology of warning response, the possibility of limited tornado evacuations, and the argument that tornado warning and response should be considered a national security issue. On average, tornado deaths in the United States have gone from 8 per 1 million people in 1925 to 0.11 per 1 million people today – a trend largely attributed to early-warning systems fed by advanced meteorology and the introduction of Doppler radar. Officials in Joplin, which is still reeling from the tornado, say sirens went off about 20 minutes before the twister hit, but given the fluid situation on the ground, it's still not possible to know why so many people died.
JOPLIN MO WEATHER ACCUWEATHER SERIES
A tornado that claimed at least 89 lives in Joplin, Missouri, on Sunday is part of a disturbing pattern in a spring of violent weather.Ī series of tornado outbreaks in April and May have now killed more than 400 Americans.
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