- Title: Warnings, planning and building strength: lessons learned from deadly tornadoes
- Date: 12th December 2021
- Summary: NORMAN, OKLAHOMA, UNITED STATES (DECEMBER 12, 2021) (Reuters) (SOUNDBITE) (English) DR. HAROLD BROOKS, TORNADO EXPERT AND SENIOR RESEARCH SCIENTIST AT NOAA'S NATIONAL SEVERE STORMS LABORATORY, SAYING: "I know there were a large number of tornado emergencies that were that were issued, which is the strongest possible language we have. It's not completely clear how much stro
- Embargoed: 26th December 2021 23:54
- Keywords: Illinois Kentucky building codes construction damage lessons preparedness tornadoes warning
- Location: NORMAN, OKLAHOMA, UNITED STATES
- City: NORMAN, OKLAHOMA, UNITED STATES
- Country: USA
- Topics: Disaster/Accidents,United States,Wind/Hurricane/Typhoons/Tornadoes
- Reuters ID: LVA001F7QFKNB
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text:After a string of powerful tornados struck the U.S. Midwest and killed more than 100 people this weekend, attention turned on Sunday (December 12) to the warning systems in place, and how communities and leaders can interpret alerts and prepare for potentially deadly weather.
Meteorologists in local offices of the National Weather Service issue a tornado warning when a tornado is either reported by spotters or indicated by radar and there is a serious threat to lives and properties in its path. An even higher level of warning, rarely issued, is a tornado emergency.
U.S. President Joe Biden on Saturday (December 11) raised questions about the tornado warning systems.
"What warning was there? And was it strong enough and was it heeded?" Biden said.
Tornado expert Dr. Harold Brooks, a senior research scientist at NOAA's National Severe Storms Laboratory, said several tornado emergencies were issued on Friday. The variable with the alerts, he said, is how people in communities react to them.
"It's not completely clear how much stronger we could make the messages," Brooks said. "I think one of the lessons that it's taken a long time for meteorologists, I think, to think to understand this, is that there's, no matter how good our physical understanding and predictions are, there's a lot that happens beyond that, that we could try to help with, but we're not actually the experts in that."
Brooks gave the example of a candle factory in Mayfield, Kentucky, where eight people were killed when a tornado destroyed the building where 110 employees were working.
"The candle factory is going to be a big item for discussion," he said, "whether they had adequate shelter or not. How long in advance would you have needed information and then what kind of information would you have needed to make a decision that would have led to fewer fatalities."
"I think we're at a point where mostly our learning now is in the human behavior, social science side. So I think that is the biggest thing in how we how we interact with that," Brooks said.
If buildings like the factory are not built well enough, Brooks said, then there are no safe places to shelter. Bringing in building safety rules could help prevent extensive damage, he said, but retrofitting work to strengthen existing weak structures is problematic.
"Retrofitting houses for tornado is hard, because you have to work on attaching the sill plate of the house to the foundation and attaching the walls of the house to the roof. And so essentially, you have to take off, to do this kind of stuff, you'd have to take off all the sheet rock and whatever the outer facing of your house is. So that's not real easy. But certainly with new construction, it would help a lot," he said.
Brooks said it was difficult to predict whether tornado activity would increase significantly in frequency or intensity in the future, or know whether climate change plays a part.
"Whether there's climate change affecting tornadoes or not, people need to actually have a plan. That's the biggest thing," he said.
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