# Tornado Fatalities **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [July 29, 2011, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tornado-fatalities/590756 "2011-07-29T17:59:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![digitalFlack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e95f7d/32.png) [@digitalFlack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digitalFlack)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2011, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tornado-fatalities/590756/1 "2011-07-29T17:59:50Z")
Huh? Paragraph two says there were 537 fatalities so far this year “a huge increase” and only 45 in 2010. Then the next paragraph says “a ten year review of 18,717 deaths found…” Sounds like an average year is 1,817 fatalities. If the excess fatalities are in another country, the shift in builidng standards and codes makes the rest of the article frivolous. And anyway 44% were in mobile homes - which is largely an American home style. If the review took ten years and it covered a 40-50 year period… that would still be an average of 300-400 people a year… Cecil, (respectfully) watch the stats! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![colonial](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/34f0e0/32.png) [@colonial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colonial)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2011, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tornado-fatalities/590756/2 "2011-07-29T19:21:02Z")
> [@digitalFlack](#): > > Huh? > > Paragraph two says there were 537 fatalities so far this year “a huge increase” and only 45 in 2010. Then the next paragraph says “a ten year review of 18,717 deaths found…” Sounds like an average year is 1,817 fatalities. > > If the excess fatalities are in another country, the shift in builidng standards and codes makes the rest of the article frivolous. And anyway 44% were in mobile homes - which is largely an American home style. > > If the review took ten years and it covered a 40-50 year period… that would still be an average of 300-400 people a year… > > Cecil, (respectfully) watch the stats! > > 😉 Must be a typo. Here are links to NOAA tornado statistics: [Tornado Fatalities 1875-2008](http://www.norman.noaa.gov/2009/03/us-annual-tornado-death-tolls-1875-present) [Tornado Data 2008-2011](http://www.spc.noaa.gov/climo/online/monthly/newm.html) There have been 1,059 deaths 2002-2011 for an average of 106 per year, and 19,795 deaths since 1875 for an average of ~144 per year. Deaths have drastically declined since 1925. The trend 1961-2010 was steadily down; adding 2011 to that series flattened the trendline. ---
**Author:** ![Deeg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deeg/32/2955_2.png) [@Deeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deeg)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2011, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tornado-fatalities/590756/3 "2011-07-29T22:02:21Z")
How do brick buildings fare when compared to concrete or wood buildings. BTW, [link to article in question.](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/3007/is-your-basement-the-best-shelter-from-a-tornado) ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2011, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tornado-fatalities/590756/4 "2011-07-30T00:27:58Z")
> [@digitalFlack](#): > > Huh? > > Paragraph two says there were 537 fatalities so far this year “a huge increase” and only 45 in 2010. Then the next paragraph says “a ten year review of 18,717 deaths found…” Sounds like an average year is 1,817 fatalities. > > If the excess fatalities are in another country, the shift in builidng standards and codes makes the rest of the article frivolous. And anyway 44% were in mobile homes - which is largely an American home style. > > If the review took ten years and it covered a 40-50 year period… that would still be an average of 300-400 people a year… > > Cecil, (respectfully) watch the stats! > > 😉 I looked into this - it appears to be poor wording. The study from which the data was drawn looked at 18,717 fatalities. A review of a subset of the most recent 10 years of the larger dataset - from 1996 through 2005 - showed 43.6% of deaths happened in mobile homes. Two sentences were mangled very early during the editing process, by myself it turns out, when I was summarizing the technical paper after I looked it up for **Cecil**. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2011, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tornado-fatalities/590756/5 "2011-07-30T13:12:21Z")
In Cecil’s column he mentioned Joe Eagleman, from the University of Kansas, who studied the destruction from the EF5 Topeka, Kansas tornado of 1966. I lived through that tornado! I was a kid of 11, and before it struck I was watching “Lost in Space” and getting annoyed that they kept breaking in to make weather announcements. Dumb kid, huh?😛 Anyway, I don’t have a cite for this but I do remember on story that bears out Mr. Eagleman’s conclusions. Washburn University campus had a lot of stone buildings, many of which were destroyed in the storm. One was MacVicar Chapel, and that night there was a piano recital there. Folks took refuge in the basement and went to the “wrong” corner, ie, not the southwest, because they got direction turned. A lot of the stone fell in the southwest, and so nobody was killed at the chapel. It was this story that is the first time I remember hearing that the SW might not always be the best, as we’d been advised in the past. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2011, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tornado-fatalities/590756/6 "2011-07-30T14:14:38Z")
I can’t remember the details, but some years ago in Illinois (was it in Plainfield?) bar customers took refuge in the bar basement and were killed when the building collapsed in on top of them. Don’t know if it was defective construction or just a really big tornado or bad luck or what. It is an illustration that even a basement isn’t a guarantee of survival. Wish I could remember more details. ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2011, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tornado-fatalities/590756/7 "2011-07-30T17:59:16Z")
MPSIMS: In Волшебник Изумрудного Города, the well-loved Russian version of _The Wonderful Wizard of Oz_, Элли (Dorothy) lives in a trailer. ---
**Author:** ![squidfood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a87d85/32.png) [@squidfood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squidfood)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2011, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tornado-fatalities/590756/8 "2011-07-30T19:37:44Z")
I’m extremely disappointed in Cecil today. Speaking as someone who isn’t a climate-change denier, and in fact whose job partly involves looking at climate change research, I have to say: **one anomalous season does not climate change make**. Tornados, hurricanes, heat waves, whatever, even if they’re unprecedented and off the charts. To me this is as bad as climate-change deniers making a lot of noise when a particularly cold winter comes along. Just… really disappointing alarmist tone from Cecil.