Posted on 06/17/2005 7:33:53 AM PDT by Dan from Michigan
Fleeing a tornado may be safer than hiding from it
Study of 1999 Oklahoma disaster raises questions
Friday, June 17, 2005
Newhouse News Service
OKLAHOMA CITY - The tornado was born to the southwest, a monster on the plains. A mile wide, the furious funnel of red dirt erased homes from foundations, tossed tractor-trailers, peeled pavement from earth and killed 36 people.
For thousands stuck in its path, the most urgent question - to run or to hide - arrived in an instant. A new analysis suggests fleeing, usually not recommended, was the best choice; the findings are expected to jump-start a long-standing debate on tornado survival.
Linda Wood, home from work, found her family in the driveway. Get back in the truck, they said. With their pregnant horse in tow, the Woods sped east. Their house exploded minutes later, as if hit by a gas bomb, neighbors said.
"We outran it," said Wood, tears spilling at the memory.
Deon Darnell had fewer options. Hailstones were battering his mobile home. He rushed next door to his parents' house, squeezing into a windowless closet with six relatives. They prayed aloud.
Moments later, windows shattered and house timbers snapped. When Darnell opened his eyes, his two-story boyhood house had vanished. His mother lay nearby, dead. His wife was unconscious. Their infant boy was gone. When they found 3-week-old Asheton, he was dead.
"It pulled the water out of the ponds, and the grass out of the ground," said Darnell, whose back was broken in three places. "I wasn't even sure if I was on my property."
The decision to flee or take cover from a tornado requires instant calculus: When will it arrive? How big? If I stay, where can I find safety? Should I run for the car?
Those who study tornadoes have traditionally ranked the options: Underground storm shelters are best, followed by basements, bathrooms or closets without windows. Sprinting to a car or truck has never topped the list.
But the new study of Oklahoma's legendary May 3, 1999, tornado challenges the tenet that taking flight is foolishness. In that storm, people cowering at home were more likely to die than those fleeing in vehicles, according to the analysis newly published in the American Journal of Epidemiology.
The paper, authored by federal and state researchers who reviewed coroner and medical reports, plus survey responses from more than 600 survivors, confirms that people caught in mobile homes face the worst odds. In the giant Oklahoma City tornado, they were 35 times more likely to die than those in permanent houses.
But the more provocative finding - that those who tried to out-maneuver the tornado fared as well or better than those who hunkered down in homes - is bound to stir controversy.
About 16 percent of people in the Oklahoma storm path tried to flee, researchers estimated. Two people were killed trying to reach their vehicles. Two others, killed under highway overpasses, which can act like wind tunnels in tornadoes, may have been fleeing. Twenty-eight people died in their homes.
Relying on their sampling, the researchers calculated that people fleeing in vehicles had a 40 percent lower risk of death than those hiding in homes, including houses, apartments and mobile homes.
Better weather forecasting and advanced warnings, extensive TV coverage and increasingly sturdy cars may have helped people escape the tornado, said the paper's lead author, Dr. W. Randolph Daley, a researcher at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The findings suggest tornado safety guidelines may need modifying, but Daley and others noted that the Oklahoma tornado was an unusual beast. Its size attracted massive attention, and its duration - nearly 90 minutes - provided lots of warning. Other tornadoes have resulted in numerous vehicle-related casualties.
"It raises a lot of questions about fleeing," cautioned co-author Sheryll Brown, an Oklahoma State Department of Health epidemiologist. "You have to consider traffic tie-ups and panic. It's really a difficult issue."
The Oklahoma tornado was actually one of 61 twisters that hit the state on that Monday afternoon and evening. It was the largest tornado outbreak in state history, and the biggest tornado claimed 36 of the 40 people killed.
The largest was spotted at 6:23 p.m. about 30 miles southwest of downtown Oklahoma City. It drilled northeast through rural areas, winds quickly jumping from 100 mph to nearly 300 mph - the first category F5 tornado recorded in Oklahoma history.
Disaster workers arriving by plane were rendered speechless by the tornado's signature - a 37-mile swath of bare earth. More than 600 required hospital treatment. Coroner reports on the dead showed some lost their lives due to bad judgment, others because of horrible luck, like an 86-year-old trucker-turned-minister who died when a truck crashed through his roof. He was hiding in the same closet as his wife, who survived.
"A lot of people died despite going to the right locations in their homes," said Ken James, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Norman. "This was such a large and destructive tornado, you really needed to be below ground."
This article is a bit misleading. Yes, it's foolish to "cower at home" (as they put it) if your home is a trailer OR if you have no storm cellar. Personally, I think it should be the law that every private home must come with one of those--and every aprtment building should have one for the tenants too. I doubt that it will happen.
We have a storm cellar, and I wouldn't live in Oklahoma without one. We know some people who scoff at having one, and joke about them being for "scaredy-cats" only. I just think to myself, well, happy scoffing, idiot.
Gee, ya think?
Interesting article, Dan.
I wonder what I'd do if put in that position?
Part of me thinks I'd flee if time permitted and if I knew the tornado was bad enough.
The other part of me thinks I'd crawl into the basement (if I were at home) and try to ride it out.
Fellow Freepers, some of you have been in a tornado before. What do you do?
For those of you who haven't, what do you think you'd do? Hide or flee?
Opinions anyone?
the "panic" factor mentioned is important. if everyone was trying to flee the numbers may have been different. the ones that fled were able to because not everyone else was.
In 2001 a tornado struck Fort Worth. It devestated downtown and one victim who was east of downtown was struck and killed by a basketball sized hail stone that was driven through his windshield. A couple pulled into a parking garage and was within 100 yards of the twister but they were saved by the parking garage's structure which absorbed the wind. The testified that it was quite a show.
Storm cellar is safer than being caught on foot or in a car. Also, tornado paths are not always that predictable. You'd better know for sure you're moving away from it and not into its path.
I have been through many, actually I was nearly right in the middle of this one in the article. I felt much safer being totally out of the path instead of cowering right in its path. During one last year, we cowered in a closet before deciding to flee at the last minute. Fortunately it missed our neighborhood.
When I was a kid, my dad would stand outside watching it until my mother practically dragged him down to the storm shelter
I personally have never even seen a tornado. If one were to come for me I'd hide. Having said that, when your time is up, it's up. It doesn't make any difference how you decided to deal with a tornado.
alot of people in the plains dont have storm shelters....or basements...the best thing is not to panic and get in a car and drive away...pay attention to the sky and get a spotter network radio..this will give you size and location of the tornado..if its heading towards you,,flee...the same thing happened in the jarrel texas tornado..those who stayed died....those that got the heck out of its way lived......sometimes we sheeple do whatever the so called experts tell us and just take their word for it...remember when they used to tell us to open the windows too?
LOL. I've done that and looked for it. Never saw one although I've had a few near misses.
oh please more government regulation..just what we need...if i don't want to storm shelter i shouldn't be forced to have one
i grew up with tornadoes. we always went to the potato cellar, underground.
the large devastation of oklahoma a few years back revealed new homes on concrete pads with no under ground or secured safety areas.
I was at work one day a few years back (at a small airport), when one of my coworkers told me to come outside and look. There was a large rotating wall cloud, maybe 2 miles away to our northwest, moving slowly east. Soon we saw rotating debris above the trees, and soon after that there was a visible funnel. As we watched it grew to a 3/4-mile-wide F3-F4 tornado, a mile away at its closest. We just stood and watched (although there were basement steps only about 30 feet away). It was fascinating.
I think it really depends on the nature of the tornado. In this case, you had an F5, which could completely destroy well-built homes. And it was moving slowly, which meant you had a good chance of outrunning it in a car.
Now, compare that to a fast-moving F2. Stay in your home in a closet and maybe your roof gets taken out and windows are broken, but the structural integrity of the closet stays OK. But get in a car and the tornado runs you down because the road got blocked by a fallen tree, and an F2 is more than capable of lifting your car up and flinging it and you a good distance.
I don't think this tornado is a good way to compare the normal risk of fleeing to staying put, because it was such an abnormal tornado - you don't get too many that almost create a new niche for themselves, that of an F6 (it was one mph below the expected max thresshold for an F5).
A few folks are having a small hardened concrete cell built within their house. That's about the only above-ground shelter that would work in an F5.
Fine. If you don't want one, don't build one--but such people should also be banned from using their health and property insurance. Folks like you make my insurance rates go up.
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