Moore, Oklahoma pretty much wiped off the map

[Broomstick]

Massive tornado hit Moore, Oklahoma today. At least an EF4 with windspeeds between 267 and 320 kph (more if it turns out to be an EF5), over 3 kilometers wide at the base at its peak. At least one school destroyed, multiple fatalities even with early reports.

The video and picture look like the town was just squeegeed off the face of the Earth.

[Cosmic Average]

Photo of part of the tornado's path. Devastating. Almost the exact same path as the May 3rd tornado back in 1999.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Just took some screenshots of the place from Google Earth, looks like it used to be a nice place.
It really is something that a whole town can just be scraped off the map like that.

[Zaune]

The Guardian has a live-stream from the local news channel that works outside the US. The overhead shots they had on just now look like a nuke went off out there.

[Flagg]

At least two dozen kids dead at Plaza Tower Elementary.

[Skywalker_T-65]

I'm keeping a very close eye on this. The storms that caused that are coming my way (Joplin). The footage is bringing up some bad memories.

[Flagg]

I'm keeping a very close eye on this. The storms that caused that are coming my way (Joplin). The footage is bringing up some bad memories.

Get underground and stay there is my advice, but you have more experience with tornados than I do so I guess just use your best judgement to stay safe.

[Skywalker_T-65]

We're ready to do that here at a moments notice. Right now things aren't that bad here. Thank God.

[Kuja]

Photo of part of the tornado's path. Devastating. Almost the exact same path as the May 3rd tornado back in 1999.

Jesus it looks like a debris field in a landfill.

[Col. Crackpot]

At least two dozen kids dead at Plaza Tower Elementary.

That's fucking awful... did it come in too quickly to get the kids underground? This is Oaklahoma arent storm cellars part of every building down there?

[Cosmic Average]

That's fucking awful... did it come in too quickly to get the kids underground? This is Oaklahoma arent storm cellars part of every building down there?

They were taking shelter in a hallway. The school apparently didn't have a below ground storm shelter.

[Skywalker_T-65]

It looks like its missing us. That's a relief.

At least two dozen kids dead at Plaza Tower Elementary.

That's fucking awful... did it come in too quickly to get the kids underground? This is Oaklahoma arent storm cellars part of every building down there?

Joplin doesn't, or at least we didn't. Granted we aren't in Oklahoma, but we are close.

[Ahriman238]

Death count was 37 as of an hour ago. Expecting calls of "God's Wrath for [policy speaker doesn't like]" and felt inspired to look up why there are so many tornadoes all at once.

Tornado season has been relatively quiet this year. There were only 72 tornadoes nationwide in April, 70 percent below the 10 year average, according to the Weather Channel. But within in the last week, tornado outbreaks have been erupting from North Texas to Minnesota.
Why do these tornadoes seem to be hitting all of a sudden?

An eastward advancing cold front is to blame. This pocket of cold air has run into warm air from the Gulf of Mexico. Like a wedge, the cold front has caused the warm air to rise, since it's less dense, said Jeff Weber, a scientist with the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.

"It's kind of the perfect setup," Weber told LiveScience.

This rising warm air has created thunderstorms that have in turn spawned tornadoes, which draw their rotation from the system's abundant wind shear, which is a change in wind speed and direction with altitude. In this case, winds have blown north off the Gulf of Mexico, and interacted with currents moving east along with the cold front, Weber said. This helps create swirling gyres that can be flipped vertically and create tornadoes, he said. [Infographic: Tornado! How, When & Where Twisters Form]

This follows a relatively calm spring that saw few tornadoes, which is largely due to unusually cold temperatures throughout much of the country. The cold can in turn be blamed on the fact that the jet stream, the ribbon of wind that stretches across the Northern Hemisphere, dipped farther south than usual. This brought with it frigid Arctic air and prevented warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico from advancing northward.

Last week, with the jet stream shifting north and the atmosphere more conducive to tornado formation, an outbreak of an estimated 16 twisters erupted in North Texas on May 15. The tornadoes ranged in strength from an EF-1 in the town of Millsap that caused damage to roofs, to an EF-4 in Granbury that completely destroyed houses.

The Texas tornadoes were worsened by the fact that the jet stream dipped south during this outbreak, adding extra rotational power to the twisters, Weber said.

In the next few days, this system should soon weaken, Weber said. That's because the center of the cold front's circulation is now over Minnesota and Wisconsin, and warm air has filled the center of the country. This means there will be less interaction between masses of cold and warm air, which fuel tornadoes' destructive power, Weber said.

My sympathies to the families of the deceased, and my hopes that everyone else stay safe.

[Meest]

That's fucking awful... did it come in too quickly to get the kids underground? This is Oaklahoma arent storm cellars part of every building down there?

They were taking shelter in a hallway. The school apparently didn't have a below ground storm shelter.

Stuff like this makes no sense to me, you live in tornado alley, why isn't it mandatory to have public shelters or buildings worth a damn. Their plan was to stay in the hallway? That's it, no reinforced gymnasium or underground shelter, they kept the kids after school to stay safe. The only part of the school that looked somewhat intact was what I would guess is the 2 story gym section, though the roof collapsed. It seems it can vary with the housing too, not everyone has a underground shelter, how could you live there without doing some upgrading, it's not like a generation has passed since the last major tornado. Just baffling to me, though I wonder what the stats are with construction styles, they showed mostly brick/stone houses standing but that could just be near misses than direct hits.

[Ahriman238]

That's fucking awful... did it come in too quickly to get the kids underground? This is Oaklahoma arent storm cellars part of every building down there?

They were taking shelter in a hallway. The school apparently didn't have a below ground storm shelter.

Stuff like this makes no sense to me, you live in tornado alley, why isn't it mandatory to have public shelters or buildings worth a damn. Their plan was to stay in the hallway? That's it, no reinforced gymnasium or underground shelter, they kept the kids after school to stay safe. The only part of the school that looked somewhat intact was what I would guess is the 2 story gym section, though the roof collapsed. It seems it can vary with the housing too, not everyone has a underground shelter, how could you live there without doing some upgrading, it's not like a generation has passed since the last major tornado. Just baffling to me, though I wonder what the stats are with construction styles, they showed mostly brick/stone houses standing but that could just be near misses than direct hits.

No mystery here, emergency prep is fucking expensive. Especially if you're talking about designing buildings from the ground up to withstand crises (earthquake, firestorm, flood, hurricane, tornado) they may never encounter. Anyone who wants to spend on this sort of safety gets ridiculed for wasting tons of money, especially while the economy's still crap, and then when something happens the same people who wouldn't or couldn't shell out demand to know how this could happen and find a scapegoat.

Happened in Florida, in New Orleans, in New York. Same old story, getting older fast.

[Enigma]

Forgive me as I do not know much about protection against tornadoes other than what is widely known but is there any protection against an EF4 or EF5 tornado other than an underground shelter? Do above ground reinforced structures offer any protection against those massive tornadoes?

[Lord of the Abyss]

Expecting calls of "God's Wrath for [policy speaker doesn't like]" and felt inspired to look up why there are so many tornadoes all at once.

There's already nonsense about "it was government weather control" from the conspiracy nuts.

[Cosmic Average]

Stuff like this makes no sense to me, you live in tornado alley, why isn't it mandatory to have public shelters or buildings worth a damn.

Sorry, that was early info from the news. Updates show that they made it to the basement, but it become flooded:

Back when the highest winds ever recorded–302 miles per hour–blew through Moore, Oklahoma in 1999, none of the 440 young students at Plaza Towers Elementary School had yet been born. The tornado which swept through the suburban Oklahoma City community on Monday killed at least 51 people, according to the Oklahoma medical examiner. Amy Elliott, the ME, said the death toll was likely to rise.

At least seven children drowned in the basement of the school, according to a Weather Channel reporter, and up to 30 children remain unaccounted for.

Link

[Zaune]

Forgive me as I do not know much about protection against tornadoes other than what is widely known but is there any protection against an EF4 or EF5 tornado other than an underground shelter? Do above ground reinforced structures offer any protection against those massive tornadoes?

Something like an Anderson or Morrison shelter might work. I wouldn't be surprised if you could buy modern versions.

[Dave]

Forgive me as I do not know much about protection against tornadoes other than what is widely known but is there any protection against an EF4 or EF5 tornado other than an underground shelter? Do above ground reinforced structures offer any protection against those massive tornadoes?

Yes, I believe so. There are steel shelters that can be bought and installed (on the ground floor) in existing homes that are designed to keep a family safe despite, say, the house being demolished in a F5 tornado. I'm not sure how resistant they are to worse-case direct impact, though.

Some random company's PDF offering tornado shelters for $6500 and up: F-5Brochure.pdf

New housing construction in the Midwest can, of course, be built with a shelter in mind. My friend's house just south of Springfield, MO had a room that was obviously designed to double as a storm shelter.

[Sea Skimmer]

You can build a cinderblock and rebar shelter that will hold a family of four and withstand almost anything for a couple thousand dollars. The steel ones are easier to install, nothing wind thrown will breach them. The only risk is a failure of the foundation, which shouldn't happen if it was installed right. I'm pretty sure most areas in the mid west require storm shelters in all new construction. I can see how people might not retro fit older stuff, but a school, in a place which was hit by a 300mph tornado in the late 90s? That's just horrible.

[Flagg]

You can build a cinderblock and rebar shelter that will hold a family of four and withstand almost anything for a couple thousand dollars. The steel ones are easier to install, nothing wind thrown will breach them. The only risk is a failure of the foundation, which shouldn't happen if it was installed right. I'm pretty sure most areas in the mid west require storm shelters in all new construction. I can see how people might not retro fit older stuff, but a school, in a place which was hit by a 300mph tornado in the late 90s? That's just horrible.

It had a basement. Which flooded and drowned some kids.

[Napoleon the Clown]

EF4? Yeah, it's feasible to build something that will stand up to that. EF5? Possible but for it to be of any size it'll be obscenely expensive. We're talking about a storm that rips the asphalt up off the road base and has been known to pick up entire houses (briefly intact... they quickly disintegrate) from their foundations. Not to mention the debris. Once you hit EF5 it looks like a very thorough carpet-bombing in a best case scenario. Worst case it looks like a giant razor blade came down and just shaved everything off the face of the Earth in its path. EF5 is 200+mph windspeeds expected. Debris can and will include vehicles weighing several tons. Probably won't get hit by one of those but if you do... It better be a shelter designed for getting hit by a bomb. Even without vehicles in the air you've got a good amount of trees and the remains of basically any other building that gets hit by wind. EF5 is the kind of damage that you can't even fathom without seeing yourself. Meteorologists didn't believe the stories they heard until they actually witnessed the nastiest levels of tornado there are. Having seen what an F2 did to Salt Lake City in 1999 I'm inclined to say that something like a 2x4 caught in 200+ mph winds is going to laugh at a little sheet metal or cinder blocks. We're talking something thrown with enough force to go through a train car. Cinderblocks don't have enough mass to them to stop some of the debris you'd see in an EF5. And rebar may as well be twist ties in an EF5. We're talking about a storm that can twist the frame of a damn skyscraper. EF5s are, to put it delicately, fucking nuts.

So short version: EF4 you can have a very high degree of certainty you'll make it out unscathed, if you're in the shelter. EF5? If you take a direct hit or are unlucky enough for a good sized piece of debris to pay you a visit... no promises unless you're in something designed to withstand a bomb going off on top of it. Fortunately, EF5s are incredibly rare and the odds of one ever hitting you personally are so low that there's little justification in building something that durable. Even if one comes through your neighborhood you probably won't be hit by any of the gusts and the odds of the bigger debris actually hitting your shelter are so vanishingly small that there's no real point in building to the point of being able to take the worst of an EF5 to the face. Even being ten feet underground can be insufficient if you're really unlucky with those simply because they do shit you wouldn't think is possible.


On the subject of the Moore, Oklahoma tornado, I heard the news mention that there were 200+ mph windspeeds recorded which indicates this has the potential of being rated EF5. Only time will tell if the damage done will get it that label. Given the picture I saw, I'm thinking it will probably get classified an EF5 because that's essentially what I saw in pictures of the Joplin tornado.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Instead of going on about anecdotes, can you tell me the overpressure of an EF5? That would let me figure out the actual protective cost in about ten minutes.

[Skywalker_T-65]

Having lived through an EF 5 (though it didn't hit my house thankfully) I would be highly surprised if this isn't rated as one. The pictures I've seen look like Joplin, scarily so actually.