Greensburg vs Parkersburg in media attention donation etc

Since this thread has refreshed my memory of the Parkersburg event, I will also add that June 11th should include the towns of Chapman and Manhattan, Kansas, which were heavily damaged after dark. Most of the town of Chapman was destroyed and Manhattan had severe damage as well.

While we are talking about it...Can anyone else think of towns or major damage that occured in 2008?
 
Yes, Greensburg was the first EF-5 so the first of anything gets more attention. I had conducted aerial and ground surveys of both Greensburg, KS and Parkersburg, IA. There was quite a difference between the two tornadoes. A mile wide tornado destroyed practically all of Greensburg including the downtown area. However, the Parkersburg tornado was only a few blocks wide and went through the south end of town, missing downtown. The tornado did get larger east of Parkersburg and continued to do EF-5 damage out in the country, but unfortunately, a lot of that got ignored by the media. What I found interesting about the Parkersburg tornado was when it narrowed. The tornado abruptly changed direction several times, even made an S-turn, and a loop before dissipating. I am currently writing papers on both events to present at the next Severe Storms Conference. tm
 
Steve Polley said:
Picher, OK comes to mind.
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I think Chris nailed it though...

Chris Nuttall said:
Again, I'm not sure Picher is a good example regarding media coverage. Nationally, Picher has been in the news off-and-on because of the ongoing Tar Creek saga. When the tornado hit, pretty much the only people that were still living there were the people the were refusing to move. In this case, the town really was wiped off the map. I doubt very much will be rebuilt.
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While we are talking about it...Can anyone else think of towns or major damage that occured in 2008?
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Might be better for another thread (?) and I'm not sure what the criteria is for the size of town(s) you had in mind, but just off the top of my head:

Jackson, TN (third F or EF-4 in 10 years)

Memphis, TN (metro area, more than once)

Stuttgart, AR

Earle, AR

Atkins, AR

Clinton, AR

Mountain View, AR

Highland, AR,

Springfield, MO (metro)

Prattville, AL

Hugo, MN

All of those towns have higher population than Greensburg did prior to May 4th 2007.
 
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Heidi Farrar said:
Hugo, MN
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I think this also likely caused some time to be split away from Parkersburg, IA. Because there was unfortunately a death with the Hugo, MN EF-3 tornado on the same day, and the media treated them as two completely seperate and unrelated instances, it effectively cut the air time in half for Parkersburg because there was also aerial footage of Hugo after the tornado as well with the tornado going through a fairly urbanized area making for some impressive aerial and ground pictures.

-John
 
I believe there is one more aspect that has not gotten enough attention in this discussion.

The mainstream media has lost jobs by the tens of thousands nationally over the past two years. It accelerated in 2008 due to the poor economy. There just aren't the people to cover stories that there were for Greensburg and earlier disasters.

And, even when the economy improves, I doubt many of these jobs will come back.
 
Heidi Farrar said:
Yeah, I guess I did. I should probably just edit my post to say ARKANSAS and that should take care of it.

Windsor, CO is another one I forgot. And Suffolk, VA.
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Towns affected by tornadoes in IL were Chicago Heights, Richton Park, Frankfurt(Green Garden township), Park Forest, and Monee. All on June 7th. With the worst damage being to Richton Park. Certainly the damage(EF2) was not to the extent of other towns in the country, but equally significant to this area.

Arkansas: It seemed like you could have thrown a dart at the map of that state and within a 50 mile radius of that dart you can find a town effected by a tornado in 2008. Especially north-central Arkansas.
 
The Greensburg tornado was a lot larger than the tornado that hit Parkersburg and it engulfed the entire town I believe as why it received more media attention. Even though the Parkersburg tornado received less media attention I thought it may have been just as powerful.
 
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