Abstract
Tornadoes wreak havoc and destruction across the United States every year. One such tornado occurred in Joplin, Missouri on May 22, 2011. This tornado killed 161 people, damaged nearly 8000 structures and caused billions of dollars in damage. This chapter discusses the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Technical Investigation of the environmental conditions, performance of buildings, emergency communications and human response to the Joplin, Missouri tornado. As a result of this investigation, recommendations to improve public health and safety are currently being implemented. A discussion of these recommendations concludes this chapter.
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Notes
- 1.
10 % of the survivor interviews were conducted with managers and employees of local businesses and institutions, 10 %provided information regarding individuals who died from the storm, and 10 % of interviewees were among the injured.
- 2.
Other deaths occurred due to non-impact-related factors. Three non-impact deaths occurred in single-family homes where two individuals died of heart attacks due to stress brought on by the storm, and one individual died of pneumonia. In all three of these cases, the storm did not damage the victim’s home, but the death was attributed to the storm due to the stress it caused to the individual. Heart attacks that led to deaths were also determined to be the cause of two of the fatalities that occurred at SJRMC. The sixth and last non-impact-related death was of the police officer killed by lightning in the line of duty on Monday, May 23. All non-impact-related deaths occurred after May 22.
- 3.
CDC dataset via MDHSS, provided to NIST in 2012.
- 4.
Buildings and other structures that are intended to remain operational in the event of extreme environmental loading from flood, wind, snow, or earthquakes.
- 5.
The AT&T store was not rated by the GIS database; however, the pictures after the event clearly show a structure that was “demolished” by the storm.
- 6.
According to information that NIST found through a LexisNexis® search of obituaries.
- 7.
Six sets of 2 people and one set of 3 people who perished were together in the same houses when the tornado hit.
- 8.
Only three of the 71 individuals who died in residences in the Joplin tornado had access to basements. Two of these three individuals did not take refuge in the basement before the storm hit, and the other individual’s location within the home is unknown.
- 9.
The locations of the two fatalities in apartments who took internal refuge (in a bathroom) were counted as “unknown” because it is unclear whether they were in a ground-floor apartment.
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Kuligowski, E.D., Lombardo, F.T., Phan, L.T. (2016). Human Response to and Consequences of the May 22, 2011, Joplin Tornado. In: Steinberg, S., Sprigg, W. (eds) Extreme Weather, Health, and Communities. Extreme Weather and Society. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-30626-1_14
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