Which tornadoes are you talking about? The only tornadoes that have struck lower DET Metro would have been on 7/2/97. An F2 ripped through Highland Park, which is pretty close to downtown Detroit. If that's the case, the majority of that whole area is lower class homes, with a few neighboorhoods actually being upper class.
I don't like it when people say "white" people have "insurance" and can afford to protect themselves... This is only because the people that can afford to protect themselves have a JOB. There is equal oppurtunity for all in this Country... And for that matter, there is poor blacks AND whites (which some people seem to forget, especially the NAACP). There is a lot of well-off african americans too!
EDIT - I did a little more searching and it was July 2, 1997. There were articles subsequently about people in the city faring much worse and having a harder time rebuilding because they did not have insurance, while most in the suburbs were able to rebuild fairly quickly.
ORIGINAL POST:
Nick, I am not sure of the exact date, but I will paste in parts of an article from USA Today in a Google search (unfortunately, the archive does not show a date). It was the day people died being blown into Lake St. Clair. Note the article mentions both the city of Detroit and Grosse Point Farms, so I think that supports my recall that the storm affected both rich and poor areas.
As to your comments about not liking what I said, I didn't say it to make you like it. But if you think that "there is equal opportunity for all in this country" your are incredibly naive. Starting in the first year, a black baby is twice as likely to die as a white baby. That's equal opportunity?!? Schools, job access, transportation - none of these offers equal opportunity. Did the people that can't afford a car have equal opportunity to escape the hurricane?? (He said, struggling to keep an increasingly political discussion vaguely on-topic.)
Here are excerpts from the article:
Seven killed as severe storms, tornadoes ravage Michigan
DETROIT - A string of storms thundered across the Midwest, uprooting trees, turning freeways into ponds and killing at least seven people. Among the dead were three children and two adults who had sought shelter in a gazebo that was blown into Lake St. Clair.
The gazebo was lifted from the water's edge of Pier Park in the affluent Detroit suburb of Grosse Pointe Farms. The Detroit News reported Thursday that at least four of the five victims were related, including an infant girl and boys age 2 and 8. The fifth victim was not identified, the report said.
On the east side of Detroit, witnesses said what appeared to be a tornado lifted a house off its foundation and tossed it several feet into an alley.
Timothy Petty said he and another man helped a woman out of the entrance of what used to be her basement stairs.
"I was scared to death," Petty said. "I've been in Detroit for 32 years and I've never seen anything like this."
Detroit suburbs reported numerous buildings damaged. Water levels rose as high as car windshields along one section of Interstate 75. At Tiger Stadium, the storm blew large sections of tar paper from the left-field roof out onto the field less than an hour after the Tigers beat the New York Mets 9-7.
Nothing is ever easy. Hopefully somebody has a stroke of genius soon to stop all this stupid finger pointing.
