Inside the tornado with nowhere to go

Citation

(2009), "Inside the tornado with nowhere to go", Disaster Prevention and Management, Vol. 18 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/dpm.2009.07318dab.003

Inside the tornado with nowhere to go

Article Type: News items From: Disaster Prevention and Management, Volume 18, Issue 4

In the wake of the February 5-6, 2008 tornado outbreak – the second deadliest in US history – the National Weather Service examined why people failed to heed evacuation warnings.

The answer is that most of them had nowhere safer to go. The report found two-thirds of people in the storms’ path were in mobile homes and 60 percent of them had no safe shelter to retreat to, such as a basement or storm cellar.

“The majority of the survivors … sought shelter in the best location available to them, but most of them also did not have access to a safe shelter”, the report stated. “Some indicated they thought the threat was minimal because February is not within traditional tornado season. Several … said they spent time seeking confirmation and went to a safe location only after they saw a tornado. Many people minimized the threat of personal risk through ‘optimism bias’, the belief that such bad things only happen to other people.”

Super Tuesday, as the outbreak was called, saw 82 tornadoes rake nine southern states, killing 57, injuring 350, and causing $400 million in property damage.

(Extracted from Natural Hazards Observer, May 2009.)