worst tornado in us history

worst tornado in us history

The Worst Tornado in U.S. History: Causes, Impacts, and Lessons Learned

1. Introduction to Tornadoes and their Impact

More tornado incidents happen in the United States than any other place in the world. Tornadoes are natural hazards that come with little to no warning, and they leave in their wake large amounts of death, injury, destruction, and damage. One of the deadliest tornadoes in U.S. history occurred on March 18, 1925. This tornado outbreak had the second-highest number of F-rated tornadoes, and the most violent tornado has garnered an infamous place in the record books for the deadliest single tornado in U.S. history. The “Tri-State Tornado” claimed nearly 700 lives and pulled down a path of destruction over 219 miles in three states. Some of the towns that were leveled and residents that were killed had little time to react. They did not get much warning, as technology was not as advanced for forecasting tornado outbreaks. Several of the automotive and meteorological advancements that we take for granted today gradually became everyday tools of the trade as a result of the extraordinary Tri-State Tornado events. It’s extremely interesting to review this outbreak to understand the causes, impacts, and lessons learned over the years. The collective search for ever more accurate and fast meteorological prediction concepts that have been gained, and are being pursued, should alert more people to tornado activity. High-quality monitoring programs and efficient community action plans are some of the first steps that can prevent loss of life and property by the occurrence of new extreme tornado outbreaks that may be as severe as the events of the 1925 outbreak.

2. The Tri-State Tornado of 1925: Unraveling the Deadliest Tornado in U.S. History

Twenty-six years would pass after the founding of the U.S. Weather Bureau (the predecessor of the National Weather Service) before the then state-of-the-science blanketing weather forecasts “warned” southern Illinois and southern Indiana residents about violent storms and tornadoes that might visit them on March 18, 1925. Unfortunately, “weather” had a different agenda. What occurred was referred to as a winter storm, and mostly the focus was on a thunderstorm with an accompanying cyclone (tornado) that traveled across the Mississippi River, blew down the St. Louis suburbs of Dupo and East St. Louis, and then traveled across Illinois forty-four miles at F4/F5 wind intensities. Like all significant winter storm-related events in history, this one caused a significant number of injuries and deaths. However, just as we are experiencing steadily increasing numbers of warm-season fatalities primarily due to increased US population, so we also have winter storm-related increase issues as well.

On the fateful Wednesday, March 18, 1925, the countryside of mid-America was about to be reshaped by an F5 tornado spawned under a violent winter scenario. The Tri-State tornado cut across three states: Illinois, Indiana, and Missouri, leaving 695 dead, 2027 injured, and over 13,000 homes and other structures destroyed. It caused the highest death and injury toll of any tornado in US history. More than 12,000 people ultimately were made homeless, and an uncountable number of people and animals were mentally shocked. This tragic event provided qualitative insights into how early warnings can prevent tragedies, particularly those involving a large loss of social capital.

3. Factors Contributing to the Devastation: Meteorological Conditions and Vulnerable Communities

It is important to point out to students that a rare but particularly dangerous set of meteorological phenomena occurred to create the unique devastation of the 1925 Tri-state tornado. Breaking these forces down can help students understand what influenced the specific path and intensity of the storm. In the early part of the twentieth century, scientists were just beginning to understand the workings of supercell thunderstorms. More recent researchers have put the issue in more graphic terms: “The supercell – the rarest, most intense, most long-lived, and most hazardous of all thunderstorms.” An offspring of this family of thunderstorms, the violent F-4 and F-5 tornadoes, like the great Tri-state storm, are also rare. In their infancy, they are fairly shallow systems about 10 to 20 kilometers in diameter and have a lifetime of about 30 minutes. But they are capable of releasing 1000 times more energy than “Little Boy,” the atomic bomb the United States dropped on Hiroshima. In fact, according to one source, “In one second, a violent tornado releases about 10 times more energy than the atomic bomb used at Hiroshima.” What happens in that 30 minutes of intensity is influenced by how much instability is in the system, the amount of low-level wind shear available, and the presence of ample moisture at lower levels.

4. Aftermath and Recovery Efforts: Resilience in the Face of Disaster

A tremendous amount of money also poured in from appointments across the country. On June 17 and 18, at a mass meeting of Chicago citizens, about $44,000 were raised from $40 per month commitments to support the survivors of Rochester; one quarter of the survivors brought to Chicago were still there then in the city’s hospitals. Rochester merchants continued to pass the hat in their own city, initially doing so on initial relief trains receiving aid from other cities, including Chicago. The role of the local community in the initial response to the disaster is fundamental to understanding what followed. They had absorbed the initial shock of the disaster, and then also processed the grief that accumulated with such a huge amount of sudden mortality and served to care for the many injured, some of whom were still quite famous at the time. Indeed, the spirit of local community and support for the survivors cannot be overstated, making the response after the disaster truly remarkable.

What made the response to this disaster so remarkable was that so many people on the ground responded so selflessly and rapidly. In Goodhue County, Minnesota, by the end of June 21, the day of the tornado, locals had already set up a makeshift hospital in the rear of a local merchant’s store in Rochester. Many other locals in their own small towns cared for and offered aid for the survivors at a critical time, some of whom were brought to Rochester by steamboat. Medicines were donated by druggists; coffee, tea, fruit, crackers, rolls, and other foodstuffs were brought to the makeshift hospital by citizens and groups. By June 26, the mayor of Rochester reported that he could no longer accept prosthetics as there were already more on hand than there were patients; the mayor requested that everyone send donations.

5. Lessons Learned and Preparedness for Future Tornado Events

Though modern satellite and Doppler radar technology offer collaborative weather agencies the ability to identify rapidly evolving and severe thunderstorm and tornado events to an unprecedented level of detail, forecasters have historically tended to favor emphasis on the reports of severe weather on the ground, as they offer physical confirmation of the weather events in question. This is understandable, given that in the recent past, the vast majority of the deadly and damaging severe thunderstorm and tornado events tended to occur close to one of the 109 operational Weather Forecast Offices (WFOs) across the United States. Because of this historical bias toward remote, spatially concentrated events, in the event of widespread severe thunderstorm and tornado outbreaks, there still remains a geographic communication and situational awareness gap between the WFOs themselves, as well as the affected general public, National Weather Service (NWS) core partners, state emergency response agencies, and political leadership. Nonetheless, with continued public outreach initiatives and improvements to preparedness and forecast lead times, the preparedness of households in tornado-prone areas has been on a generally upward trajectory since the year 2000.