2013-02-10 MISC: MS

[John goelz]

Many high attendance events such as sporting events are help regardless of outlook/watch/warning products being in effect. I used to work at Busch Stadium in St. Louis which is a weather ready facility, and I believe that the 1,000 fatality mark could be hit easily if such a venue were struck. Too many people would be on the streets trying to make it to their cars, or in poor shelter.

Here is a video from the 2006 Derecho event that hit during a game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSy46LCxrI8 Imagine what 100 more mph would do.

The good friday 2011 tornado that struck the airport was only 6 miles north of the park, and while it was in rain delay at the time and the warning was well communicated inside the stadium, people were not seeking out shelter adequate to survive a tornado, just looking to keep dry.

This summer there was one fatality 1 block south of the stadium as a tent collapsed in straight line winds as a crowd gathered at a post game beer garden.

Given the right (wrong) venue and a crowd, people will perish in huge numbers.

 

[Andy Wehrle]

locomusic01 makes a good point which is that the Hattiesburg tornado likely only produced an isolated area of EF4 damage. I was originally thinking along the lines of "a violent tornado is a violent tornado is a violent tornado" in that the line between EF4 and EF5 can be such a fine one and is the most difficult to determine (IE Tuscaloosa vs. the four EF5s of 4/27/11). If only one or two houses along the path experienced EF4 damage (total destruction with no walls to speak of left standing) then that is a big difference.

John makes another interesting point. I personally was shocked that the first 100+ fatality tornado since 1953 took place WITHOUT such a scenario as he described. Grazulis just about nailed the Joplin scenario on page 286 of "The Tornado: Nature's Ultimate Windstorm (2001) when he wrote

"...if the next 100-death killer tornado does not occur at a sporting event, it may occur in a city along the periphery of one of the tornado alleys. The residents of these cities may be much less prepared for tornadoes."

 

[Shawn Schuman]

locomusic01 makes a good point which is that the Hattiesburg tornado likely only produced an isolated area of EF4 damage. I was originally thinking along the lines of "a violent tornado is a violent tornado is a violent tornado" in that the line between EF4 and EF5 can be such a fine one and is the most difficult to determine (IE Tuscaloosa vs. the four EF5s of 4/27/11). If only one or two houses along the path experienced EF4 damage (total destruction with no walls to speak of left standing) then that is a big difference.

Hattiesburg reminds me a little bit of the Good Friday tornado that John just mentioned, too. I can't recall specifics off-hand, but I believe there were like three or five homes that warranted an EF4 rating in that tornado, while the rest was obviously EF3 or weaker. The headlines still said "EF4 tornado strikes St. Louis!", but that isn't entirely accurate. Same deal with HAT, the damage was isolated to a couple of homes and a building at the football field from what I understand. That's entirely different from a tornado like JLN, TCL, etc.. which left huge swaths of violent-level damage, and there's really no sense in comparing them.

 

[CGardner]

Look at the areas of Joplin and Tuscaloosa, a lot of cheap housing construction. I grew up in Joplin, and the housing construction in SW Missouri, really isn't the best. A group of guys, some tools, and get a contractor. You've got your framing team right there, and the low bidder always gets the bid. You ask about HDA and OSHA, and they think you are talking about medicine.

More tornado deaths are caused by debris or cave-ins, and with shotty construction. I don't care how accurate your weather forecasters are, it will not hide the fact. If you live in a poorly built home, that kind of tornado will wipe it clean, including an EF-4, and two, with no history of major touchdowns in the city. It assumed it was safe, because of folklore legends. Which sadly, a lot of people in those types of area, go by.

 

[Bob Wagner]

One thing that helped Hattiesburg at least a little bit was that the University of Southern Mississippi was on Mardi Gras break. I'd suspect that a decent percentage of the nearly 18,000 enrollment may have been out of town.

 

[Mike Smith]

The headlines still said "EF4 tornado strikes St. Louis!", but that isn't entirely accurate.

Actually, it was accurate. Tornadoes are rated by the highest damage they cause regardless of extent.

 

[Bob Hartig]

Actually, it was accurate. Tornadoes are rated by the highest damage they cause regardless of extent.

Exactly. It has long been understood that the damage caused by a tornado is a mixed bag. While some tornadoes might be "more EF4" or "more EF5" than others, it's up to the damage surveys to provide that breakdown. But when speaking in broad terms, the worst damage gets used to assign one grand, overall rating, and that really is the most practical approach. Those familiar with how the ratings work recognize that all lesser ratings are implied by the greater. The converse of that doesn't hold true; to have "averaged out" the St. Louis tornado to an EF3, for instance, would have failed to recognize the EF4 damage it caused.

 

[Shawn Schuman]

Yes, I understand that. Tornadoes are rated by their peak damage, and rightfully so. I'm just referring to the fact that not all tornadoes of a given rating are equal. When one headline says an EF4 hit TCL and another says an EF4 hit STL, it may technically be correct, but it gives the impression that the two events are equal. Clearly they aren't. The TCL tornado would have caused more fatalities than the STL tornado in almost any situation because it produced a much more extensive area of EF3+ damage.

That's the only point I'm making. It's technically correct, but it still presents a false perception of the tornado as a whole. As one person mentioned earlier, they assumed "a violent tornado is a violent tornado is a violent tornado." In fact, we saw this exact example in action among some people. The STL tornado was hailed by some as a triumph of our forecasting/warning ability since it was an "EF4" and it caused no fatalities, but a lot of that was due to the fact that the EF4 damage was very, very isolated.

 

[Matt Hunt]

The two are not even comparable events. You can talk about what the tornado was rated all you want, but looking at the damage tells the whole story. Compare a picture from 20th St in Joplin to a picture of the USM campus. Not even close.

 

[Brandon Clement]

The two are not even comparable events. You can talk about what the tornado was rated all you want, but looking at the damage tells the whole story. Compare a picture from 20th St in Joplin to a picture of the USM campus. Not even close.

That's what happens when you compare the peak damage in a high end EF-5 to the weakest damage of an EF-4. Hell, you can compare the damage from the 99 Moore tornado where it first touched down in Amber, Ok to where it was a monster near Moore and it the damage isn't remotely the same.

I've seen pics and video from the Oak Grove, Ms area where brick homes were reduced to a slab and scattered bricks. Pretty hardcore evidence suggesting the EF-4 rating. Problem here is all the media picked up was the pictures of the high school because Brett Favre coaches there.

However, for the most part I agree it was a really questionable rating to go EF4 because the EF4 type damage was limited to a very small area. I've seen large areas with evidence of EF3 and Ef2 but they've ranked every tornado in the past by the strongest point so why would they do this one any other way?