Homes are no match for a violent tornado," he said. "Warnings aren't enough when it comes to violent tornadoes. "Merely seeking shelter in the lowest, innermost portion of a home adds a measure of safety, but does not guarantee survival," Greg Forbes, former severe weather expert at The Weather Channel, told in an email.įorbes said Joplin illustrates the need for underground and specially designed in-home tornado shelters. NIST also found that 82% of Joplin homes lacked basements, but that no deaths occurred in damaged homes where people sought shelter in basements. It was the deadliest tornado since 1947, which was before tornado warnings were routinely issued.Ī report by the National Institute of Standards and Technology found that 87% of the fatalities occurred inside a building. according to NOAA's Storm Prediction Center. Officially, 158 deaths were directly attributed to the tornado, the seventh-deadliest single tornado in the U.S. Less than a month later, Joplin shattered the notion that modern technology could guard against a prolific death toll from a single tornado. Then came the April 2011 Super Outbreak, when some 350 tornadoes killed over 300 people in the South. It seemed improbable in the era of Doppler radar, the internet, spotter networks, watches and warnings and news media that a single tornado could claim over 100 lives in the U.S. Power flashes occurred as the storm damaged electrical lines and equipment. KSNF-TV's tower camera captured the wedge tornado as it moved into Joplin. You might think a large, violent tornado would have an obvious, ominous appearance, like the May 1999 Moore-Oklahoma City or the April 27, 2011, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, tornadoes. Here are some reflections from meteorologists of that tragic evening. One of the nation's worst single tornadoes lingers in the memory of meteorologists who covered it, from those who arrived at the scene to those who warned the public of the danger. The city will commemorate the anniversary with an observance Saturday, including a tolling of bells and a minute of silence at the exact minute the tornado entered the city. One hundred fifty-eight people lost their lives directly due to the EF5 tornado on May 22, 2011. Fugate of FEMA said that the process was sped up over all, but that “there were some hiccups in there.Saturday marks the 10-year anniversary of the Joplin tornado, which tore a six-mile-long and up to a mile-wide path of devastation through the southwest Missouri city. Counties that decided not to use the corps for debris removal still received federal money. The corps has removed about 4.8 million cubic yards of debris in Alabama. Coghlan of the corps said it had provided a “historic statewide average” for debris removal of $46 per cubic yard. “If I’m going to bid a contract, I want to know what I’m bidding,” he said. Yarbrough also said the corps could not provide precise cost estimates for federally run debris removal, which made it harder to determine whether the county should simply hire private contractors to do the work. But he complained that government red tape had made the cleanup slower and harder than it needed to be. “I think their intentions were good,” said Stanley Yarbrough, a county commissioner in Cullman, Ala. Some have criticized the federal response. “It was just debris.” But tracking down property owners, many far flung, and working up the legal papers to allow right of entry, is slow work as well. “You couldn’t even identify yards” in many areas, Mr. said that its efforts to divert toxic materials from the stream of debris included more than 1,200 cylinders of propane and compressed gas 3,624 “white goods,” like refrigerators, freezers, air-conditioners, washers and dryers about 71,000 containers of hazardous materials, from paint cans to 55-gallon drums and larger 474 batteries and 24,516 “electronic waste” items, like junked electrical equipment. In Joplin alone, as of July 31, the E.P.A. The Environmental Protection Agency works to ensure that hazardous substances are kept out of landfills. All the while, workers check for substances like asbestos. Damaged structures must be demolished cars, trucks, boats and refrigerators must be carted away, along with rotting food and hazardous materials. Now environmental and health concerns about such pyres mean that much of the mess is sent to landfills, with efforts to separate out the worst of it and recycle when possible.ĭebris removal is not “a simple matter of having contractors load and haul truckloads of branches to a landfill,” said Lisa Coghlan, a spokeswoman for the corps in Alabama. In other times, disposing of debris meant piling it up and burning it.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |