Worst Case Tornado Scenario(imaginary)

[rdale]

Any weather that could lead to an EF5 in NYC would have resulted in the cancelation of festivities well prior...

 

[Connor McCrorey]

I think a major tornado hitting a major sporting event - Indianapolis 500, a major Nascar race, the "big house" in Ann Arbor, or any major college football stadium.

Major concentration of people with little shelter and little chance of escape.

I believe last year (4/13/07?) Texas Motor Speedway had a close call on a race day. I don't remember what happened, only that one of my friends was calling me to ask what was going on when he heard they were under a tornado warning when he was at TMS.

 

[Joel Wright]

I think a major tornado hitting a major sporting event - Indianapolis 500, a major Nascar race, the "big house" in Ann Arbor, or any major college football stadium.

Major concentration of people with little shelter and little chance of escape.

I can't imagine any scenario resulting in more potential harm to life than this. Unfortunately, this will happen someday. We've already had a few "close calls".

 

[Jason Foster]

So much more to consider.

I think a major tornado hitting a major sporting event - Indianapolis 500, a major Nascar race, the "big house" in Ann Arbor, or any major college football stadium.

Major concentration of people with little shelter and little chance of escape.

That is one of the points with the "city scenario". The city itself is not the only risk. Yes, some buildings will perform better than residential houses as Shane pointed out. However, cities have many more issues, such as a large population condensed into a smaller footprint. There are many more vehicles, pedestrians, etc. There is a lack of visibility of such a storm approaching because of tall buildings. There is a higher amount of debris that become many time more dangerous. In the case giving about Fort Worth, Falling glass from high rises. Since these structures extend into the higher velocity areas of a tornado, than it is possible to think that even an EF1 could be much more destructive.

As with the Indy 500 event, cities could have baseball games, or other large sports events. And I would argue that those at work are less likely to receive a warning because businesses are not equipped with weather radios and don't have TVs or Radios on a lot...not enough to get the warning spread more quickly.

Of course a worse case scenario (as the thread title suggests), is this happening and a failure to warn is factored in. Perhaps another small tornado also hit the NWS and demolished the Radar, and took out the NWS facility. Yet another factor of cities is the industrial areas near a city. Perhaps a chemical plant is destroyed, sending thousands of harmful, deadly fumes into the air. Perhaps a tornado hits a bio-research lab, releasing deadly airborne viruses. Perhaps not in the city, but close to the city is a nuclear power plant. While I suspect that many are built to withstand tornadic damage, a "worse case scenario" says there is a failure, or some other reason, damage has caused the plant to no go into a protection mode, and a catastrophic event is set in motion.

There are so many, but to me cities have the ingredients that number way more in considering the risk factors.

 

[Jeremy Bower]

I'm currently finishing up my thesis which is entitled "An Assessment of the Potential Impacts of a Catastrophic Tornado in Lincoln, NE". It will be modeled in accordance with the Dallas study and will examine what the outcome would have been had the Hallam tornado hit Lincoln. One of the impacts needed to be explored is what would be the worst case scenario for Lincoln in that situation. I've said many times at least here is that the worst case scenario would be roughly between 3 and 4 p.m. on a weekday afternoon in May. Reason being is the digitized Hallam damage path would hit over 20 different schools and leave most of the buildings in the center part of the city damaged or destroyed.

Trust me, more to come when this work is completely finished....

 

[Eric Wolf]

Actually, a lot of the damage/injuries/deaths from high rises would be from flying glass and similar debris, not to mention the difficulty of getting to adequate shelter in that type of structure. Give me a safe room in a residential structure anytime.

I work in one of the Downtown Dallas high rises, and I think I would feel safer in the concrete stairwell of the building than I would at my house. Most high rises that have elevators have concrete stairwells too.

 

[Tony Laubach]

I actually recently gave a talk on what if the Windsor tornado had been 50 miles south and tracked through Denver. Windsor was EF-3 at its worst, and my map had that part of the track over densely populated areas in Aurora, so you can imagine how that would be bad.

I didn't get too detailed into numbers, but the estimates of people in the path were amazingly high considering that tornado would've tracked across 30 plus miles of very densely populated areas.

Like with La Plata, this was an eye opener for those in Denver seeing as 50 miles would've made a difference on that day.

 

[Danny Neal]

May 30th, 2004 - Indianapolis, IN: Wasn't that the near miss on the Indy 500 (either race itself or qualifying)
November 12, 2005 - Ames, IA: Tornado moves just west of ISU campus during pre-game of the Cyclones game.

-------, -- ???? I know there are probably more, but those were the two that come to mind right off the bat.

I think any tornado through a rush hour in any type of populated city would be catastrophic. That is already known.

I agree though, any type of large sporting capacity affected by a strong tornado would probably cause unimaginable chaos. Look at what happened during the "May-fest" Hailstorm in the Metroplex.....add a tornado to that mix.

 

[Jason Foster]

Always studying

I'm currently finishing up my thesis which is entitled "An Assessment of the Potential Impacts of a Catastrophic Tornado in Lincoln, NE". It will be modeled in accordance with the Dallas study and will examine what the outcome would have been had the Hallam tornado hit Lincoln. One of the impacts needed to be explored is what would be the worst case scenario for Lincoln in that situation. I've said many times at least here is that the worst case scenario would be roughly between 3 and 4 p.m. on a weekday afternoon in May. Reason being is the digitized Hallam damage path would hit over 20 different schools and leave most of the buildings in the center part of the city damaged or destroyed.

Trust me, more to come when this work is completely finished....

I'm always on the lookout for papers and reports and studies that look at structure damage from severe weather events. As an architect it is just part of being a better designer.

I look forward to seeing the finished thesis.

 

[AlDanks]

Was it as far back as 2004? I remember one race day that started with 15% tornado risk for IN. SPC soon issued PDS tornado watches and the race went on. During the closing laps tornado and funnel cloud reports started popping up all over IN. A tornado hit the South side of Indianapolis right near the end of the race. According the radio I was listening to, shortly after the conclusion of the race, the speedway was urging people to leave as there was severe weather in the area.

Wasn't a NCAA tournament basketball arena hit last spring during a game?

Someone else said something about the chaos and the business not knowing what to do. Earlier this year someone reported their experience at Six Flags or some other such park. During a tornado warning visitors to the park did not know where to go for shelter, the staff seemed not to know either, and did not recognize the seriousness of the warning. I figure about the same would happen at a speedway or major football stadium.

As long as the event host continues with the event in the face of severe weather forecasts a major hit is probably inevitable.

 

[Danny Neal]

Was it as far back as 2004? I remember one race day that started with 15% tornado risk for IN. SPC soon issued PDS tornado watches and the race went on. During the closing laps tornado and funnel cloud reports started popping up all over IN. A tornado hit the South side of Indianapolis right near the end of the race. According the radio I was listening to, shortly after the conclusion of the race, the speedway was urging people to leave as there was severe weather in the area.

Yeah, I was chasing EC IL that day. Remember hearing about that Indy situation as I was several cells to the west. Pretty intense day and a very fun day to chase.

Wasn't a NCAA tournament basketball arena hit last spring during a game?

I can't believe I forgot this as I was watching the game. It was the SEC tournament in Atlanta on March 14th. The tornado passed in between the arena and a convention center I believe. I think it said 90 yards away from the actual arena? (The number 90 sticks out to me)

Someone else said something about the chaos and the business not knowing what to do. Earlier this year someone reported their experience at Six Flags or some other such park. During a tornado warning visitors to the park did not know where to go for shelter, the staff seemed not to know either, and did not recognize the seriousness of the warning. I figure about the same would happen at a speedway or major football stadium.

Yes, it is on youtube I believe. I wonder if it was June 7th? I remember after the tornadoes on the southside of Chicago, another cell on the northside started to rotate and eventually dropped a "reported" tornado in Mundelien.[/quote]