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Harold Brooks · March 2nd 06, 07:46 PM posted to sci.geo.meteorology

In article ,
says...
Theodore Baldwin Boothe III wrote:
On Thu, 02 Mar 2006 11:22:12 -0600, Scott
wrote:

Theodore Baldwin Boothe III wrote:

new orleans. I remember several hurricanes in the past that were cat
3, 4 and sometimes 5. None of these hurricanes killed more than 10
people. However, a tornado that hits even a small city can likely kill
dozens of people and injure upwards of 200 people. And injure is a
word without meaning. Injure could be anything from scratches to a
broken spinal cord.

I can think of no cat 5 hurricane that has killed less
than 10 people. My conclusion is that your memory may
be faulty.

OK, then what about the fact that hurricanes takes days to arrive.
People are warning and they have every chance to leave. Those who end
up dying in hurricanes that make landfall in the US have no one to
blame but themselves for staying like fools. Tornadoes aren't the same
at all. Sure you might get a warning for a tornado but where are you
going to evacuate to? You newly built iron bunker 25 feet below?
People die in well built homes even when they go to a basement.
Also, there are a lot of tornadoes that come with no official warning

For some definition of 'a lot' I suppose. My impression is that
killer tornadoes are only rarely un-warned. The last one I
recall was in Evansville, IN around midnight in November or
December.

No. The Evansville tornado did have a warning out, issued almost 30
minutes before the first fatality. Fatalities in tornadoes without
warnings are very rare. I'm fairly confident the last unwarned event
with more than 2 is probably the Plainfield tornado in 1990, although I
haven't gone through every event.

--
Harold Brooks
Head, Mesoscale Applications Group
NOAA/National Severe Storms Laboratory