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A Historical Look at Tornadoes: Damage and Death

A Historical Look at Tornadoes: Damage and Death. Harold E. Brooks NOAA/National Severe Storms Laboratory Norman, Oklahoma brooks@nssl.noaa.gov. Impacts of tornadoes on society. What happens in an “average” year? ~40 deaths ~$400M in damage Looking backwards and forwards

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A Historical Look at Tornadoes: Damage and Death

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  1. A Historical Look at Tornadoes: Damage and Death Harold E. Brooks NOAA/National Severe Storms Laboratory Norman, Oklahoma brooks@nssl.noaa.gov

  2. Impacts of tornadoes on society • What happens in an “average” year? • ~40 deaths • ~$400M in damage • Looking backwards and forwards • Historical trends • Implications for the future

  3. Adjusting historical tornado damage • Damage numbers go up • Inflation, acquisition of things, population • Adjust for inflation, total wealth (1997) • Consumer Price Index • Current-Cost Net Stock of Fixed Reproducible Tangible Wealth (1925-1997)-“Stuff” • $25,000,000,000,000 in 1997

  4. Adjusting stuff outside of period • Pure inflation (gap between curves stays same) • Stuff grows with GNP

  5. Raw Value($M) Date Place Adjusted Value 1000 3 May 1999 963 Oklahoma City, OK Wichita Falls, TX 884 10 Apr 1979 400 250 6 May 1975 Omaha, NE 745 135 Lubbock, TX 558 11 May 1970 8 June 1966 100 Topeka, KS 494 Windsor Locks, CT 442 200 3 Oct 1979 Saint Louis, MO 380 26 May 1896 12 Xenia, OH 100 3 Apr 1974 325 Conyers, GA 321 89 31 Mar 1973 52 Worcester, MA 311 9 June 1953 Inflation adjusted top ten

  6. Stuff-adjusted Big Ten • 11 Oklahoma City 909 (963) • 10-4 all range from 1023-1141 • Lorain-Sandusky (28 June 1924), Lubbock, Gainesville, GA (6 April 1936), Topeka, Omaha, Worcester, Wichita Falls • 3 Tri-State (1925, raw-16) 1392 • 2 St. Louis (1927, raw-22) 1797 • 1 St. Louis (1896, raw-12) 2916 (2167)

  7. Summary of Adjustments • Big damage-combination of meteorological event and civilization • Inflation still shows some era bias • Saint Louis 1896 • Destroyed ~.01-.025% of national wealth • Comparable to Dallas-Fort Worth study

  8. Tornado deaths • First recorded death • 1680 in Cambridge, Massachusetts • Total of 19,814 (as of 23 April 2001) • When do they occur? • How have they changed through time?

  9. Problems with death tolls • Poor counting • Cultural biases (e.g., Natchez 1840) • Who was there (e.g., Saint Louis 1896)? • “Indirect” fatalities • Big problem with hurricanes • At least 5 in Oklahoma City • None, apparently, in Plainfield (1991)

  10. How has the decrease happened? • Causes can’t be deconvolved • Changes • Number of tornadoes • Frequency of “big deaths” • Number in big events • “95th percentile” killer

  11. How has the decrease happened? • Fewer fatal tornadoes • 40/year in 1920s, 1930s • 20/year in 1980s, 1990s • Increase in time between fatal tornadoes • “High death” tornadoes are smaller • 36-fatality tornadoes occurred once/year in 1920s, 1930s • 95th percentile death toll dropped from 20-25 to 10-15

  12. Putting death and damage together • Consider deaths per damage amount • Inflation • Wealth

  13. 3 May 1999 Oklahoma City • 36 deaths, 11 in mobile homes • >7000 permanent homes, 100 mobile homes • Estimating the death toll before warnings? • Rate used to be ~15x today, so ~540 • Inflation-adjustment, ~700 • Wealth-adjustment, ~250 • What happened?

  14. Mobile Homes • Previously • 20x rate of deaths compared to permanent • Big increase in Oklahoma City • What might the future hold?

  15. Final Thoughts • $1B tornadoes occur ~1/decade in US • ~$3B tornado is “practically” worst case • Can’t identify causes of decline in deaths • Mobile home problem • Big disaster situations? • Education and communication

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