What breaks my heart about these mobile homes is they're often a less expensive option than a house. The person who owns a mobile home may not have the money to put in a proper storm shelter. The only option being to run is just terrifying for me. A friend of mine lives in a home with a slab foundation in OK. She has a relationship with her neighbors for tornado watches because THEY have a proper shelter. Bless those who lost their lives and their families.
What your saying is why I believe we need to mandate public shelters in mobile home communities and subsidize them. A lot of nuance is lost in the classifcation of tornado's and the damage they actualy do. An EF3 will still delete your house rendering it uninhabitable / making it not economically viable to repair, so if an EF3 can do that, maybe the money spent on building stronger houses is wasted and we should instead mandate that homes in these area's be built with proper storm shelters.
Also, one thing that confuses me about most of the US would be the among of single family housing and also trailer parks. I know that's often the case due to ridiculous zoning laws. People would be much safer in well-built midrises with basements or underground parking that could double as easily accessible shelters. It wouldn't be more expensive either
Some people do have shelters around here, but a lot of factors steer the decision. Bassfield & the surrounding areas not only has a high water table, it also has many different types of soil to contend with. That makes any below ground construction a challenge & also makes for upkeep hassles. As mentioned before, Bassfield isn't exactly the Burbs, meaning that there isn't much industry to speak of, so most people don't have the financial resources to undertake such a luxury. I do like the idea of public shelters, but that presents another problem: location. Bassfield & Soso, much like the rest of most of Mississippi, is rural. The boonies, if you will. Meaning it is a fair drive to the nearest town/community. Travel in these areas is done on haphazardly paved narrow roads through thick forested terrain. I foresee panicked people driving to the nearest shelter, congesting the thoroughfares, & never seeing the beast that is coming.
@@goose2090 You bring up very good points. I live in rural Iowa and visibility can be an issue since a lot of tornados end up rain-wrapped (like Parkersburg), but you at least know the direction where things are coming from because it's set up like a grid. Add curving roads and tree cover and things change drastically. I also know there are some pretty significant radar holes in the south that need to be contended with as well.
@@dornsmichel_1364 That's not feasible for most rural or suburban areas, and people typically don't want to live in shared dwelling spaces. Having your own property, being able to have a garden and a yard, not having to put up with noisy upstairs neighbors all have their own benefits that outweighs tornado risks for most people.
This tornado was an absolute monster. People couldn’t see it for 2 reasons; 1. Trees all around and hills. 2 it was a rain wrapped mess. Thank goodness this monster of an outbreak remained over rural forested areas. It would be a catastrophe if it didn’t. I love the video! Keep doing this.
This one did not get nearly the attention it deserved. I remember hearing about this in real time and was shocked that no one was talking about it! Great video as always!
@@vasik2919 El Reno is the largest tornado on record and killed several storm chasers and Greensburg was the first EF5. The damage was so bad that the president himself visited. Both tornadoes made history. There are tons of videos about El Reno and Greensburg on RUclips as well. Maybe you just aren’t interested in them, but both were far worse than this EF4.
i love how he actually spends time talking about the humanity lost, and not just the damage. i have never seen anyone who has emphasized how important these lives are. thank you :)
I'm from MS, Jackson specifically, and I'm noticing a trend where we seem to be getting a lot more strong/violent tornadoes much more frequently. Look at these storms from 2020 and 2021 and then the one is Rolling Fork this year. I'm just hoping that we don't see a tornado like this one impact a densely populated area like the Jackson metro or tri-county or somewhere like the one in Hattiesburg in 2013 did. Great video again regardless.
@@jacobthayer236thats the biggest reason. Also weather people did a horrid job detailing tornadoes for years. Dixie alley wasn’t even talked about until recently. They made it seem like tornado alley was it and anywhere else getting one was rare. Stats say otherwise. The midwest still is king but the south isnt far behind at all. Neither is the rust belt area. OH, IN, IL etc. they all get significant tornadoes yearly yet people still think tornado alley is it. Sad honestly.
What you're seeing is much more comprehensive coverage of events. Strong and violent tornadoes are definitely not on the rise. Cases in point: the long-standing (albeit disputed) EF5 drought, and the super outbreak this year that had only 1 violent tornado and 11 EF3s. Even the outbreak in this video (4th largest ever) had only 3 violent tornadoes. Certainly, Dixie Alley is receiving much higher coverage than previously, most likely in response to the 2011 Super Outbreak.
Honestly i’m obsessed with these videos. I wish someone would cover the van texas tornado but there’s not a lot of pictures or videos on it. It hit at 9:00 PM on mother’s day 2015 the first bit of warning we got was family calling us and telling us a tornado was on the ground. I just think it’s interesting how we weren’t informed until it was already hitting :/
Thanks for the comment! Unfortunately, there are many tornadoes that are not well documented :/ One of my long term goals is to devise better tornado surveying practices that yield way more detail than current practices.
This was a great analysis. On that infamous day, Tenn was hard hit too. Chattanooga was hit by a EF3. And so was my town. On that day, 3 times, one was headed straight to me, but each one lifted, went overhead, but still done some damage to trees, and a little roof damage. In 2016, my home was hit hard by an EF3, same wind speeds as the one that hit Chatt that day. I lost my house that day. This young man was speaking of the damage to a trailer or manufactured home. Well this EF3 totally destroyed my brother-in-laws trailer, just as what you see on this video. Nothing, and I mean nothing left… except this, what I consider a miracle. This man and his wife was woken up by the Elbert on their phone. They had less than 4 minutes. They got up, went into the living room, set down on their black leather couch, turned on the tv, and it hit. They grabbed each other and held on each other. There was two, not one EF3 that hit our neighborhood. One 5 minutes behind the other. They were left, setting on the concrete that their trailer was on, setting on one of the black leather pillows from that couch. That was it. Nothing else there. They were not hurt, except for scratches and bruises! They heard the other one coming, got up and trapped onto the trunk that was all that was left of a big tree. They watched as the section one raised up, jumped over the house I was in, then set back down to flatten my barn, then precede to my house, doing even more damage than the first one did. I consider not only those two very blessed that night, but I certainly was also. I have watched videos of EF2’s completely demolish any kind of trailer or manufactured home, and do major damage to well built homes. God bless everyone, and stay safe
I find things like tree debarking and ground scouring frustrating in terms of what you can pull from them. I might have said this before, but there's just too many variables to try and think about how to model it in your head, and many different possible ways for that damage to be done. Analysis would most likely have to be done experimentally, maybe relationships could be developed from there, but who knows. Ground scouring in particular is especially weird because of all the variations in composition, and things like moisture could affect that. My general rule of thumb, is in places with relatively loose soil (Oklahoma, Texas, Dixie Alley) ground scouring is generally expected above 170 mph. It's indicative of a violent tornado, but that's really it. If you look at northern violent tornadoes, it's a lot more hit or miss. Compare something like the Barneveld F5 to Oakfield, to Plainfield, to Flint. Unless it's absolutely extreme (Think Bakersfield Valley, Bridge Creek, Philadelphia, Jarrell) you really can't use it to support a specific rating. Tree debarking is similar. Because of different species of trees, maybe how healthy those trees are, how much debris is in the air, its difficult to quantify. You can say "yeah, this was absolutely a strong tornado" but that's it. For things like that, you might be better off not trying to assign an overprecise wind value, maybe just a bulk EF rating like they did on the old Fujita scale. Very few tornadoes actually had precise wind estimates before the Enhanced Fujita Scale. Oakfield being the only one that comes to mind off the top of my head, rated F5 265.
I drove through the path of this tornado back in march of this year on the way home to Little Rock from Florida. Oddly, we stopped in Jackson Mississippi that night due to storms in the forecast. I was looking up information about this tornado as the Rolling Fork ef4 touched down. Had we continued, we would have been passing through Rolling Fork when the tornado hit. Then like a couple weeks later my town was hit by an ef3 that was on the ground for nearly 40 miles. It hit Little Rock, North Little Rock, Sherwood, Jacksonville, and Cabot, Arkansas. I've heard that the only reason they couldn't rate it higher was because the houses that were slabbed were not considered to be well built.
People mentioning injuries always confused me because I figured injuries just meant concussions, broken bones and some glass embeded into skin.Until I started looking into tornadoes I didn't realize they meant severe injuries people survived.Luckily I have never had to experience such injuries nor has my family. We have a few trailer parks around here.Luckily we rarely get tornadoes but nasty thunderstorms and 70mph+ staright line winds have caused damage to my brick house.They are so vulnerable.
I live in a mobile home. I have a weather radio, I stalk the SPC website daily, and I leave my home if there is even a tornado watch... But it took almost getting hit by a tornado and watching my neighbor's trailer get ripped apart for me make these changes. I think the thought we all have that "it won't happen to us" is even more dangerous than a tornado.
Do you work for a professional agency doing damage assessments? This is the first time I've ever seen a video from your channel. You seem to be on point with what your saying. You explain things very good and make the information relatable to everyone .. 👍
The owners of the mobile home parks in tornado prone areas should by law have to put in a community shelter. I cant believe it hasnt been done, low income families are doing the best they can. Thank you for your soap box speech!!!
I don’t live in a tornado prone area but a tornado went straight at our park in August. I think a better option would be expanding access to public underground shelters in general.
You know, the discussion of manufactured/mobile home survivability suddenly reminded me of something from my childhood back in the 80s--specifically, an episode of the sitcom "Mr. Belvidere" involving a tornado outbreak. The episode was terrible and clearly written by Southern California types who knew nothing about tornadoes (the "damage" shown after the tornado hit the family home was particularly laughable), and it continued to perpetuate the by-then debunked "open all the windows so the house doesn't explode" myth, but there was one line that *does* still resonate to this day. At one point, the family's ten-year-old son asked, after hearing a damage report on the news, why tornadoes always go after trailer parks. The response? "Because they know that a *real* house will fight back." Which is actually a really good summary of the situation...
Amazing as always man, looking forward to your manufactured home video and the references you plan on bringing to the table, and one tornado I really want a good indepth analysis of is the Piedmont EF5 and/or Phil-Campbell-Hackleburg EF5 (The "3ft" trenches it dug intrigued me so much).
I remember this day well. The conditions spooked me because of the high winds, temperatures and humidity. It’s the first time it felt like it did on April 27, 2011. I knew there would be a bad tornado that day somewhere.
Very informative I especially want to learn more about the dangers of manufactured homes and improving building codes in rural areas, I really think shelter either underground or above structure should be mandatory for manufactured or mobile homes in high tornado area.
It's just hard for me to believe this was an ef4. I like watching your content because it really puts more context or I probably wouldn't be able to underst 32:54 and. Have a safe season
There is a paramedic show video on youtube from the 1999 Moore F-5. That video really hit home what the human tradegy looks like for one of these huge tornadoes. It's horrible.
Excellent information, sir. This video should be reviewed by everyone in the Bassfield area. A couple of things. One, people built a lot of these structures with the resources they had. Unfortunately, Bassfield is historically poor, so a lot of corners were cut. Second, many who rebuilt ensured that the next one was gonna have its work cut out for it. They built some super solid homes after this.
Even if you could see it, tornadoes that wide begin to look less like tornadoes and more like heavy rain being whipped in the wind in the distance. Plus the whole thing might not even be condensed, so even if you could see it and think it's going to miss it could still hit you. It's incredibly terrifying and one of the reasons why people should always respect warnings even if they think it will miss them.
I have footage after it had hit my house, it was so wide that it barely looked any different from an ordinary cloud. Also while we couldn’t see it, we could hear and smell it. Just before it hit the air reeked of fresh pine.
For the back to school season i was thinking you could do a damage analysis on schools that got hit by high end tornadoes. Such as (briarwood elementary, enterprise highschool, joplin high school, etc.) its an interesting topic i havent seen done before
Just watched this video and man you did a great job. I actually live in the Bassfield area and the tornado left a path half a mile from our home. We live in a 70s/80s brick home on a concrete slab but with huge trees around us I’ve never felt safe there. So when a severe weather day is being forecasted we stay at my mom’s house where it’s a newer two story home with no large trees to add to the equation. Anyways I appreciate your video, I learned a lot and I plan to watch more of them. If you ever want some pictures or anything of the area let me know and I’d love to help!
I live in a mobile home. We have a deal with the local fire department to shelter there (1 mile south east) and also the option to run south to a rest area (3 miles by highway) or my parents’ house 18mi away. If things look bad we just stay at my parents’ until it passes. Have also sprinted North in an emergency once because that was our best option and holed up in a Costco food court because it was 10 miles north of the storm. Night is scariest for us, because very little is open and afternoon options (like the library basement or stores) are not available. Fortunately I used to chase so I am better at predicting this than most people, but we had a tornado touchdown and head directly at our house before lifting this past August. Fortunately I saw the storm on radar, thought it looked bad, and had us 1 mile from my parents’ basement (25 miles south of the tornado) before any part of the storm hit us.
I've been learning a lot more about tornadoes lately, and it's truly frightening yet fascinating to see what they can do. This series makes that very clear. I must ask, where do you find the tornado damage paths with the indicators? It seems you're using Google Earth for that, and I have been trying to find it to no avail thus far. Keep up the good content!
Hey June First, There's a tornado that I've always wonder how it got its maximum wind speed, and it's Cookeville with 175 mph, and imo I think it would be 190 or possibly more, if you could do a Analysis on the Cookeville Tornado (3-3-2020,), Please and thanks!
I just wish folks would take initiative and learn to use a radar app that can tell you basically real time exactly where a tornado is instead of relying on luck or nws warnings. It truly is easy people, this way you have PLENTY of time to get out of the way. Would love for you to do damage video on the f5s from april 27th
Have you guys ever noticed how both tornado super outbreaks happened for years after the creation of a new tornado rating scale for example the f scale was created in 1970 and then 1974 tornado super outbreak happen in 1974 the EF scale was invented in 2007 the tornado super outbreak of April 27th 2011 happened four years after prove me wrong
You're not wrong. It does seem to be a coincidence though. The EF scale was invented in response to protest by engineers who say that not all structures are built or anchored equally and that the windspeed measurements (which were based on an imaginary scale) were unrealistic. It's possible the US will eventually adapt the International Fujita Scale (which frankly isn't good but solves some of the problems of the enhanced Fujita scale and probably can be improved upon when combining damage assessment techniques.
@@trollerjakthetrollinggod-e7761 Of course, the EF scale has since been misapplied, since it was meant to be a useful research tool in tornado climatology by having a one-to-one correlation between F-scale and EF-scale ratings. That can only realistically be done by having the required level of construction quality be the same for an EF5 as Ted Fujita required for an F5 in his final revision of the F scale in the 90s. The problem is that most (all?) WFOs are now demanding that construction quality for an EF5 rating be the best possible quality now, thirty years later, which includes technologies that Fujita could only dream of. For example, the anchor bolts and stripped plumbing examples here--in 1992, Fujita's ratings wouldn't take anchor bolts into consideration (they were a brand new technology with no real data behind them yet), and a slabbed house with plumbing still sticking out of the slab was the norm for an F5 rating; one of the reasons that Jarrell was seen as so extreme was that it did rip plumbing out of the foundations. In my opinion, EF5 should require construction standards matching those of Fujita's era; structures built to even higher standards should be considered "superior" construction (as opposed to the "well-built" construction in EF5 criteria) and used to determine an even higher rating of EF6 damage for the most violent storms. (Remember, Fujita always reserved the right to assign an F6 rating, and although he never did assign a *final* rating of F6, there were two cases where he assigned a preliminary F6 rating--Lubbock, TX, in 1970, and Xenia, OH, in 1974.)
It's important to note that structures aren't airtight and the pressure change isn't instant. The total size of all combined gaps in a house can be anywhere from golf ball to basketball sized. So the pressure gradient isn't as bad as the calculations there.
I know your list of tornadoes to cover is long, and I don’t know where else to put this comment, but it would be awesome to see what kind of mechanical forces were at work in the Smithville tornado to knock that Ford Explorer into the water tower 150 ft in the air.
Smithville, Philadelphia, and Hackleberg/Phil Campbell got their EF-5 ratings, but I still think the estimated windspeeds given are low. They're all on the shortlist for nastiest ever. And Tuscaloosa almost certainly had 200+ winds at some point, just not when it hit areas where the damage would give it a 5. I hate to say a catastrophe like that one could have been "worse" - but if it had hit the city at the same power as the Smithville storm...
Saw a trailer home with insolation coming out on 2 full sides same length. A small weak tornado produced damage nearby with several small trees cut off at the top and a dead tree and literally a slapped together shed destroyed.
"Manufactured homes/trailer homes are not suitable shelters when it comes to tornadoes." Great. Now, tell the Van Buren County Michigan Sheriff's Department and the Office of Emergency Preparedness that, because what THEY are telling people who live in mobile homes is to get in the bathtub and pull a mattress over you. I am not kidding here. I called them and asked them and that was their answer. Also there are NO public tornado shelters anywhere in this county (so if a tornado happens at night when everything is closed you are SOL), but they will kindly open one for survivors after the fact. Unbelievable!
Quick question regarding the engineering of the cabin; Would that not be straight-nailing rather than toenailing? it seems the nails were nailed from the bottom of the sill up into the studs from what i can see in those images, probably allowing the studs to just slide off but im just confused as it didnt really look like toenailing to me at first. I've also not seen a lot of examples of how toenailing is affected by tornado damage but i assume the nails are just ripped out?
I love these types of videos (I'm a big nerd I know) and I've been interested on how houses with basements vs no basements fair. I wonder why some with basements end up having them exposed by upper-end tornadoes.
I was there when the tornado started going between collins and seminary, I was a eighth of a mile from it and was apart of the disaster relief effort it was rough.
I would love to see you crunch the numbers on million lbs+ oil rig that got tossed in the Piedmont-El Reno EF5. If I'm not mistaken, that oil rig is the highest rated damage indicator in the history of the EF scale era at >210 mph
Tree damage can very greatly just like vegetation/ground scouring damage. If the area is moist and not loose with strong vegetation around it then we could probably know how strong a tornado would be if it would go through the area compared to another area thats drier and less sturdier and gets easily destroyed and scoured. I do hope we get better information on vegetation damage and how tornadoes can do this damage to it
The ef4 house with the plumbing still there...looks to me like that was the hot water heater closet and those are 3/4" lines that would have attached to the heater. If you look to the back right corner you can see where the pec tubing is sheared off at the foundation...just food for thought
My sister was visiting her inlaws in soso thank God they survived in the mobile home and it was headed for my house and missed us to the north by about 10 miles
I notice that contextual damage seems to be becoming a major thing in rating tornadoes as of late. It certainly seems to have been the downfall of a few would-be EF5 ratings.
what bugs me is u leave your trailer home and go to a neighbor or friend house and it is no stronger than the house you just left and u die doing what you was told to do as the right thing and I get it most people are not structural engineer or have built a house I hope you address this in that next video so people don't get a false sense of hope not ranting at you I agree don't shelter in a mobile home love the information you provided this channel need to be seen by more people
I live in a mobile home park, no shelter, lots of trees. The only relatively safe spot is approximately 3/4 miles south, which involves navigating two roundabouts and an Interstate overpass, and right now there is construction along the route. North and east, there really isn't anything and west is out for obvious reasons. There are no tornado shelters of any kind within my county although the Office of Emergency Preparedness will kindly open a shelter after the fact. The park does not want to put in a shelter, and the village I live in isn't really interested (cost). The police chief said he did not want people out on the road during severe weather events. Now I do have friends in town who say I can come to their place during a warning, but they really don't have much of a basement--and what if they are not at home when the siren goes off? During our last tornado warning (which turned out to be nothing, Thank God), these friends called me to say I could come over except they were not in town but at the home they were renovating in a nearby town 3-4 miles to the southwest. Which would mean driving INTO the storm, not knowing where it was and not really being able to see it. So I thanked them but told them no. So--ok what DO you do? You can't stay there but your vehicle isn't safe either. And what about those folks who don't have a vehicle and have mobility issues? I took one such neighbor to the store recently and getting her in and out of my car with her walker was very time-consuming. This was under ordinary circumstances. In a situation where both of us would need to move quickly her inability to do so could cost us both our lives. I really don't know what the answer is; I'm almost afraid to watch the mobile home video just from what you showed here. By the way, do you know what our wonderful Office of Emergency Preparedness advises? "Get in your bathtub and pull a mattress over you." In a mobile home! It's mindboggling.
I don’t believe so. A total loss is a total loss whether its an EF4 or EF5. I personally don’t see why classification of the event changes the claims on the damage itself.
Mobile homes should be outlawed in Tornado/Dixie Alleys. Being a person on a fixed income myself, I understand not having the money to own a better type of habitation, and outlawing mobile homes is a type of discrimination against low income persons. But the cost of cleaning up the damage and dealing with injury and loss of life is so much greater in neighborhoods with mobile homes, so it seems to make more financial sense to build stronger structures.
10 minutes into this thing and half of it has been this kid giving a government agency a hand job for doing their damn jobs correctly. Who the hell cares????
What breaks my heart about these mobile homes is they're often a less expensive option than a house. The person who owns a mobile home may not have the money to put in a proper storm shelter. The only option being to run is just terrifying for me. A friend of mine lives in a home with a slab foundation in OK. She has a relationship with her neighbors for tornado watches because THEY have a proper shelter. Bless those who lost their lives and their families.
What your saying is why I believe we need to mandate public shelters in mobile home communities and subsidize them. A lot of nuance is lost in the classifcation of tornado's and the damage they actualy do. An EF3 will still delete your house rendering it uninhabitable / making it not economically viable to repair, so if an EF3 can do that, maybe the money spent on building stronger houses is wasted and we should instead mandate that homes in these area's be built with proper storm shelters.
Also, one thing that confuses me about most of the US would be the among of single family housing and also trailer parks. I know that's often the case due to ridiculous zoning laws.
People would be much safer in well-built midrises with basements or underground parking that could double as easily accessible shelters. It wouldn't be more expensive either
Some people do have shelters around here, but a lot of factors steer the decision. Bassfield & the surrounding areas not only has a high water table, it also has many different types of soil to contend with. That makes any below ground construction a challenge & also makes for upkeep hassles. As mentioned before, Bassfield isn't exactly the Burbs, meaning that there isn't much industry to speak of, so most people don't have the financial resources to undertake such a luxury.
I do like the idea of public shelters, but that presents another problem: location. Bassfield & Soso, much like the rest of most of Mississippi, is rural. The boonies, if you will. Meaning it is a fair drive to the nearest town/community. Travel in these areas is done on haphazardly paved narrow roads through thick forested terrain. I foresee panicked people driving to the nearest shelter, congesting the thoroughfares, & never seeing the beast that is coming.
@@goose2090 You bring up very good points. I live in rural Iowa and visibility can be an issue since a lot of tornados end up rain-wrapped (like Parkersburg), but you at least know the direction where things are coming from because it's set up like a grid. Add curving roads and tree cover and things change drastically. I also know there are some pretty significant radar holes in the south that need to be contended with as well.
@@dornsmichel_1364 That's not feasible for most rural or suburban areas, and people typically don't want to live in shared dwelling spaces. Having your own property, being able to have a garden and a yard, not having to put up with noisy upstairs neighbors all have their own benefits that outweighs tornado risks for most people.
This tornado was an absolute monster. People couldn’t see it for 2 reasons; 1. Trees all around and hills. 2 it was a rain wrapped mess. Thank goodness this monster of an outbreak remained over rural forested areas. It would be a catastrophe if it didn’t. I love the video! Keep doing this.
This one did not get nearly the attention it deserved. I remember hearing about this in real time and was shocked that no one was talking about it! Great video as always!
Well, when you have tornadoes like El Reno, Greensburg, Joplin, Moore and others, this tornado isn’t really that exceptional.
@@JustinLHopkins never really hear anybody talk about El Reno and Greensburg tbh
@@vasik2919 El Reno is the largest tornado on record and killed several storm chasers and Greensburg was the first EF5. The damage was so bad that the president himself visited. Both tornadoes made history. There are tons of videos about El Reno and Greensburg on RUclips as well. Maybe you just aren’t interested in them, but both were far worse than this EF4.
I'm starting to notice the way you explain things is getting more comprehensive! This video is amazing, you never fail to amaze me!
This comment made my day! I’m really glad that you are getting the most out of these videos!
Please do Cookeville EF-4 from 2020, those houses looked WELL built but received a 175 rating.
On the list!
I'm glad you're covering this one, not many seem to talk about the Bassfield storm.
i love how he actually spends time talking about the humanity lost, and not just the damage. i have never seen anyone who has emphasized how important these lives are.
thank you :)
I'm from MS, Jackson specifically, and I'm noticing a trend where we seem to be getting a lot more strong/violent tornadoes much more frequently. Look at these storms from 2020 and 2021 and then the one is Rolling Fork this year. I'm just hoping that we don't see a tornado like this one impact a densely populated area like the Jackson metro or tri-county or somewhere like the one in Hattiesburg in 2013 did. Great video again regardless.
It's also important to keep in mind that more and more people are moving out from cities. Also everyone has a video camera on their phone these days.
@@jacobthayer236thats the biggest reason. Also weather people did a horrid job detailing tornadoes for years. Dixie alley wasn’t even talked about until recently. They made it seem like tornado alley was it and anywhere else getting one was rare. Stats say otherwise. The midwest still is king but the south isnt far behind at all. Neither is the rust belt area. OH, IN, IL etc. they all get significant tornadoes yearly yet people still think tornado alley is it. Sad honestly.
Man from Brandon here. I agree completely
What you're seeing is much more comprehensive coverage of events. Strong and violent tornadoes are definitely not on the rise. Cases in point: the long-standing (albeit disputed) EF5 drought, and the super outbreak this year that had only 1 violent tornado and 11 EF3s. Even the outbreak in this video (4th largest ever) had only 3 violent tornadoes. Certainly, Dixie Alley is receiving much higher coverage than previously, most likely in response to the 2011 Super Outbreak.
These big SE US tornados were during a moderate/strong La Nina after a weak El Nino.
Honestly i’m obsessed with these videos. I wish someone would cover the van texas tornado but there’s not a lot of pictures or videos on it. It hit at 9:00 PM on mother’s day 2015 the first bit of warning we got was family calling us and telling us a tornado was on the ground. I just think it’s interesting how we weren’t informed until it was already hitting :/
Thanks for the comment!
Unfortunately, there are many tornadoes that are not well documented :/
One of my long term goals is to devise better tornado surveying practices that yield way more detail than current practices.
Great video as always, thing was nuts to track on radar with a 5 mile wide debris ball
Jesus crist A 5 mile debris ball!😮 my god
This was a great analysis. On that infamous day, Tenn was hard hit too. Chattanooga was hit by a EF3. And so was my town. On that day, 3 times, one was headed straight to me, but each one lifted, went overhead, but still done some damage to trees, and a little roof damage. In 2016, my home was hit hard by an EF3, same wind speeds as the one that hit Chatt that day. I lost my house that day. This young man was speaking of the damage to a trailer or manufactured home. Well this EF3 totally destroyed my brother-in-laws trailer, just as what you see on this video. Nothing, and I mean nothing left… except this, what I consider a miracle. This man and his wife was woken up by the Elbert on their phone. They had less than 4 minutes. They got up, went into the living room, set down on their black leather couch, turned on the tv, and it hit. They grabbed each other and held on each other. There was two, not one EF3 that hit our neighborhood. One 5 minutes behind the other. They were left, setting on the concrete that their trailer was on, setting on one of the black leather pillows from that couch. That was it. Nothing else there. They were not hurt, except for scratches and bruises! They heard the other one coming, got up and trapped onto the trunk that was all that was left of a big tree. They watched as the section one raised up, jumped over the house I was in, then set back down to flatten my barn, then precede to my house, doing even more damage than the first one did. I consider not only those two very blessed that night, but I certainly was also. I have watched videos of EF2’s completely demolish any kind of trailer or manufactured home, and do major damage to well built homes. God bless everyone, and stay safe
I find things like tree debarking and ground scouring frustrating in terms of what you can pull from them. I might have said this before, but there's just too many variables to try and think about how to model it in your head, and many different possible ways for that damage to be done. Analysis would most likely have to be done experimentally, maybe relationships could be developed from there, but who knows. Ground scouring in particular is especially weird because of all the variations in composition, and things like moisture could affect that. My general rule of thumb, is in places with relatively loose soil (Oklahoma, Texas, Dixie Alley) ground scouring is generally expected above 170 mph. It's indicative of a violent tornado, but that's really it. If you look at northern violent tornadoes, it's a lot more hit or miss. Compare something like the Barneveld F5 to Oakfield, to Plainfield, to Flint. Unless it's absolutely extreme (Think Bakersfield Valley, Bridge Creek, Philadelphia, Jarrell) you really can't use it to support a specific rating. Tree debarking is similar. Because of different species of trees, maybe how healthy those trees are, how much debris is in the air, its difficult to quantify. You can say "yeah, this was absolutely a strong tornado" but that's it. For things like that, you might be better off not trying to assign an overprecise wind value, maybe just a bulk EF rating like they did on the old Fujita scale. Very few tornadoes actually had precise wind estimates before the Enhanced Fujita Scale. Oakfield being the only one that comes to mind off the top of my head, rated F5 265.
I drove through the path of this tornado back in march of this year on the way home to Little Rock from Florida. Oddly, we stopped in Jackson Mississippi that night due to storms in the forecast. I was looking up information about this tornado as the Rolling Fork ef4 touched down. Had we continued, we would have been passing through Rolling Fork when the tornado hit. Then like a couple weeks later my town was hit by an ef3 that was on the ground for nearly 40 miles. It hit Little Rock, North Little Rock, Sherwood, Jacksonville, and Cabot, Arkansas. I've heard that the only reason they couldn't rate it higher was because the houses that were slabbed were not considered to be well built.
People mentioning injuries always confused me because I figured injuries just meant concussions, broken bones and some glass embeded into skin.Until I started looking into tornadoes I didn't realize they meant severe injuries people survived.Luckily I have never had to experience such injuries nor has my family.
We have a few trailer parks around here.Luckily we rarely get tornadoes but nasty thunderstorms and 70mph+ staright line winds have caused damage to my brick house.They are so vulnerable.
We have a mobile home park here in Fayette County
I live in a mobile home. I have a weather radio, I stalk the SPC website daily, and I leave my home if there is even a tornado watch... But it took almost getting hit by a tornado and watching my neighbor's trailer get ripped apart for me make these changes. I think the thought we all have that "it won't happen to us" is even more dangerous than a tornado.
Do you work for a professional agency doing damage assessments? This is the first time I've ever seen a video from your channel. You seem to be on point with what your saying. You explain things very good and make the information relatable to everyone .. 👍
The owners of the mobile home parks in tornado prone areas should by law have to put in a community shelter. I cant believe it hasnt been done, low income families are doing the best they can. Thank you for your soap box speech!!!
They'll argue about cost / expense, if you want this (I want it mandated as well) you have to subsidize it and give tax credits for their upkeep.
Agreed.
I don’t live in a tornado prone area but a tornado went straight at our park in August. I think a better option would be expanding access to public underground shelters in general.
You know, the discussion of manufactured/mobile home survivability suddenly reminded me of something from my childhood back in the 80s--specifically, an episode of the sitcom "Mr. Belvidere" involving a tornado outbreak. The episode was terrible and clearly written by Southern California types who knew nothing about tornadoes (the "damage" shown after the tornado hit the family home was particularly laughable), and it continued to perpetuate the by-then debunked "open all the windows so the house doesn't explode" myth, but there was one line that *does* still resonate to this day. At one point, the family's ten-year-old son asked, after hearing a damage report on the news, why tornadoes always go after trailer parks. The response? "Because they know that a *real* house will fight back." Which is actually a really good summary of the situation...
Amazing as always man, looking forward to your manufactured home video and the references you plan on bringing to the table, and one tornado I really want a good indepth analysis of is the Piedmont EF5 and/or Phil-Campbell-Hackleburg EF5 (The "3ft" trenches it dug intrigued me so much).
I remember this day well. The conditions spooked me because of the high winds, temperatures and humidity. It’s the first time it felt like it did on April 27, 2011. I knew there would be a bad tornado that day somewhere.
You should do the Greensburg, KS EF5 from 2007.
Already on the list!
Please do more live streams, your breakdowns are top tier, love everything your doing
Would love to! Working real hard to turn this into more of a full-time gig. It’s tough to do everything I want part time.
Very informative I especially want to learn more about the dangers of manufactured homes and improving building codes in rural areas, I really think shelter either underground or above structure should be mandatory for manufactured or mobile homes in high tornado area.
It's just hard for me to believe this was an ef4. I like watching your content because it really puts more context or I probably wouldn't be able to underst 32:54 and. Have a safe season
There is a paramedic show video on youtube from the 1999 Moore F-5. That video really hit home what the human tradegy looks like for one of these huge tornadoes. It's horrible.
Excellent information, sir. This video should be reviewed by everyone in the Bassfield area. A couple of things. One, people built a lot of these structures with the resources they had. Unfortunately, Bassfield is historically poor, so a lot of corners were cut. Second, many who rebuilt ensured that the next one was gonna have its work cut out for it. They built some super solid homes after this.
Thats so scary to have a rainwrapped 2 miler especially in a forested area so you cant see it coming
Even if you could see it, tornadoes that wide begin to look less like tornadoes and more like heavy rain being whipped in the wind in the distance. Plus the whole thing might not even be condensed, so even if you could see it and think it's going to miss it could still hit you. It's incredibly terrifying and one of the reasons why people should always respect warnings even if they think it will miss them.
I have footage after it had hit my house, it was so wide that it barely looked any different from an ordinary cloud. Also while we couldn’t see it, we could hear and smell it. Just before it hit the air reeked of fresh pine.
For the back to school season i was thinking you could do a damage analysis on schools that got hit by high end tornadoes. Such as (briarwood elementary, enterprise highschool, joplin high school, etc.) its an interesting topic i havent seen done before
Take a look at the Parkersburg video I did. But that is a neat idea to investigate schools specifically
@@junefirst i will definitely take a look!
Just watched this video and man you did a great job. I actually live in the Bassfield area and the tornado left a path half a mile from our home. We live in a 70s/80s brick home on a concrete slab but with huge trees around us I’ve never felt safe there. So when a severe weather day is being forecasted we stay at my mom’s house where it’s a newer two story home with no large trees to add to the equation. Anyways I appreciate your video, I learned a lot and I plan to watch more of them. If you ever want some pictures or anything of the area let me know and I’d love to help!
Please do the Alonsa EF4, rated EF4 despite showing EF5 damage to houses and trees
Thank you for your hard work you put into your work! Great video
I live in a mobile home. We have a deal with the local fire department to shelter there (1 mile south east) and also the option to run south to a rest area (3 miles by highway) or my parents’ house 18mi away. If things look bad we just stay at my parents’ until it passes.
Have also sprinted North in an emergency once because that was our best option and holed up in a Costco food court because it was 10 miles north of the storm. Night is scariest for us, because very little is open and afternoon options (like the library basement or stores) are not available.
Fortunately I used to chase so I am better at predicting this than most people, but we had a tornado touchdown and head directly at our house before lifting this past August. Fortunately I saw the storm on radar, thought it looked bad, and had us 1 mile from my parents’ basement (25 miles south of the tornado) before any part of the storm hit us.
by the way the march 31 - April 1 2023 tornado outbreak would surpass this outbreak I believe in terms of tornado activity
Fantastic analysis!
Already now this will be a banger can’t wait for the mobile home video
I've been learning a lot more about tornadoes lately, and it's truly frightening yet fascinating to see what they can do. This series makes that very clear. I must ask, where do you find the tornado damage paths with the indicators? It seems you're using Google Earth for that, and I have been trying to find it to no avail thus far. Keep up the good content!
I export a KML file of the path and DIs from the NWS Damage Assessment Toolkit.
@@junefirst Great! Thanks for the answer. Have a nice day!
Hey June First, There's a tornado that I've always wonder how it got its maximum wind speed, and it's Cookeville with 175 mph, and imo I think it would be 190 or possibly more, if you could do a Analysis on the Cookeville Tornado (3-3-2020,), Please and thanks!
Cookeville has been on the list for awhile, you’re definitely not the only one to request it! Probably will cover it sooner rather that later.
It wasn’t quite a damage analysis, I felt like the story deserved bigger, but check out my latest video 😉
@@junefirst I am watching it right now! I'll tell you how good I think it is.
Pretty interesting twister huh?
I just wish folks would take initiative and learn to use a radar app that can tell you basically real time exactly where a tornado is instead of relying on luck or nws warnings. It truly is easy people, this way you have PLENTY of time to get out of the way.
Would love for you to do damage video on the f5s from april 27th
Have you guys ever noticed how both tornado super outbreaks happened for years after the creation of a new tornado rating scale for example the f scale was created in 1970 and then 1974 tornado super outbreak happen in 1974 the EF scale was invented in 2007 the tornado super outbreak of April 27th 2011 happened four years after prove me wrong
You're not wrong. It does seem to be a coincidence though. The EF scale was invented in response to protest by engineers who say that not all structures are built or anchored equally and that the windspeed measurements (which were based on an imaginary scale) were unrealistic. It's possible the US will eventually adapt the International Fujita Scale (which frankly isn't good but solves some of the problems of the enhanced Fujita scale and probably can be improved upon when combining damage assessment techniques.
@@trollerjakthetrollinggod-e7761 yes just a funny coincidence I noticed
You ain't wrong
@@trollerjakthetrollinggod-e7761 Of course, the EF scale has since been misapplied, since it was meant to be a useful research tool in tornado climatology by having a one-to-one correlation between F-scale and EF-scale ratings. That can only realistically be done by having the required level of construction quality be the same for an EF5 as Ted Fujita required for an F5 in his final revision of the F scale in the 90s. The problem is that most (all?) WFOs are now demanding that construction quality for an EF5 rating be the best possible quality now, thirty years later, which includes technologies that Fujita could only dream of. For example, the anchor bolts and stripped plumbing examples here--in 1992, Fujita's ratings wouldn't take anchor bolts into consideration (they were a brand new technology with no real data behind them yet), and a slabbed house with plumbing still sticking out of the slab was the norm for an F5 rating; one of the reasons that Jarrell was seen as so extreme was that it did rip plumbing out of the foundations.
In my opinion, EF5 should require construction standards matching those of Fujita's era; structures built to even higher standards should be considered "superior" construction (as opposed to the "well-built" construction in EF5 criteria) and used to determine an even higher rating of EF6 damage for the most violent storms. (Remember, Fujita always reserved the right to assign an F6 rating, and although he never did assign a *final* rating of F6, there were two cases where he assigned a preliminary F6 rating--Lubbock, TX, in 1970, and Xenia, OH, in 1974.)
@@natasharufe5180 there's going to be a major overhaul to the Enhanced Fujita scale.
Oh God.
It's important to note that structures aren't airtight and the pressure change isn't instant. The total size of all combined gaps in a house can be anywhere from golf ball to basketball sized. So the pressure gradient isn't as bad as the calculations there.
For sure. These are idealized scenarios.
Editing is getting much better. Your little voiceover is still a little hesitant sounding but it’s still an improvement.
I know your list of tornadoes to cover is long, and I don’t know where else to put this comment, but it would be awesome to see what kind of mechanical forces were at work in the Smithville tornado to knock that Ford Explorer into the water tower 150 ft in the air.
Smithville, Philadelphia, and Hackleberg/Phil Campbell got their EF-5 ratings, but I still think the estimated windspeeds given are low. They're all on the shortlist for nastiest ever. And Tuscaloosa almost certainly had 200+ winds at some point, just not when it hit areas where the damage would give it a 5. I hate to say a catastrophe like that one could have been "worse" - but if it had hit the city at the same power as the Smithville storm...
Saw a trailer home with insolation coming out on 2 full sides same length. A small weak tornado produced damage nearby with several small trees cut off at the top and a dead tree and literally a slapped together shed destroyed.
"Manufactured homes/trailer homes are not suitable shelters when it comes to tornadoes." Great. Now, tell the Van Buren County Michigan Sheriff's Department and the Office of Emergency Preparedness that, because what THEY are telling people who live in mobile homes is to get in the bathtub and pull a mattress over you. I am not kidding here. I called them and asked them and that was their answer. Also there are NO public tornado shelters anywhere in this county (so if a tornado happens at night when everything is closed you are SOL), but they will kindly open one for survivors after the fact. Unbelievable!
Quick question regarding the engineering of the cabin;
Would that not be straight-nailing rather than toenailing? it seems the nails were nailed from the bottom of the sill up into the studs from what i can see in those images, probably allowing the studs to just slide off but im just confused as it didnt really look like toenailing to me at first. I've also not seen a lot of examples of how toenailing is affected by tornado damage but i assume the nails are just ripped out?
Great video as always, man!
I love these types of videos (I'm a big nerd I know) and I've been interested on how houses with basements vs no basements fair. I wonder why some with basements end up having them exposed by upper-end tornadoes.
I was there when the tornado started going between collins and seminary, I was a eighth of a mile from it and was apart of the disaster relief effort it was rough.
I would love to see you crunch the numbers on million lbs+ oil rig that got tossed in the Piedmont-El Reno EF5. If I'm not mistaken, that oil rig is the highest rated damage indicator in the history of the EF scale era at >210 mph
That tornado has been on the list since the start of the series. These take a lot of time to make, but I will get to it eventually!
I wish all offices were as thorough as Jackson
Excellent as always
Amazing work
I LOVE THESE! please do mayfield/ Dawson springs ky tornado.
It’s on the short list to be covered, be on the lookout!
Tree damage can very greatly just like vegetation/ground scouring damage. If the area is moist and not loose with strong vegetation around it then we could probably know how strong a tornado would be if it would go through the area compared to another area thats drier and less sturdier and gets easily destroyed and scoured. I do hope we get better information on vegetation damage and how tornadoes can do this damage to it
do cookeville 2020
On the list!
The ef4 house with the plumbing still there...looks to me like that was the hot water heater closet and those are 3/4" lines that would have attached to the heater. If you look to the back right corner you can see where the pec tubing is sheared off at the foundation...just food for thought
My sister was visiting her inlaws in soso thank God they survived in the mobile home and it was headed for my house and missed us to the north by about 10 miles
this one destroyed my childhood home on Lyons Rd just west of the chicken houses
I notice that contextual damage seems to be becoming a major thing in rating tornadoes as of late. It certainly seems to have been the downfall of a few would-be EF5 ratings.
Hey June I was wondering what website your using for the damage paths?
Wow look how many major towns this beast just missed to the north of major cities
I feel lucky I live near Seneca SC where that ef3 hit I had a ef1 to my south almost a mile away these are from the same storm two ef1s then the ef3
what bugs me is u leave your trailer home and go to a neighbor or friend house and it is no stronger than the house you just left and u die doing what you was told to do as the right thing and I get it most people are not structural engineer or have built a house I hope you address this in that next video so people don't get a false sense of hope not ranting at you I agree don't shelter in a mobile home love the information you provided this channel need to be seen by more people
I live in a mobile home park, no shelter, lots of trees. The only relatively safe spot is approximately 3/4 miles south, which involves navigating two roundabouts and an Interstate overpass, and right now there is construction along the route. North and east, there really isn't anything and west is out for obvious reasons. There are no tornado shelters of any kind within my county although the Office of Emergency Preparedness will kindly open a shelter after the fact. The park does not want to put in a shelter, and the village I live in isn't really interested (cost). The police chief said he did not want people out on the road during severe weather events. Now I do have friends in town who say I can come to their place during a warning, but they really don't have much of a basement--and what if they are not at home when the siren goes off? During our last tornado warning (which turned out to be nothing, Thank God), these friends called me to say I could come over except they were not in town but at the home they were renovating in a nearby town 3-4 miles to the southwest. Which would mean driving INTO the storm, not knowing where it was and not really being able to see it. So I thanked them but told them no.
So--ok what DO you do? You can't stay there but your vehicle isn't safe either. And what about those folks who don't have a vehicle and have mobility issues? I took one such neighbor to the store recently and getting her in and out of my car with her walker was very time-consuming. This was under ordinary circumstances. In a situation where both of us would need to move quickly her inability to do so could cost us both our lives. I really don't know what the answer is; I'm almost afraid to watch the mobile home video just from what you showed here. By the way, do you know what our wonderful Office of Emergency Preparedness advises? "Get in your bathtub and pull a mattress over you." In a mobile home! It's mindboggling.
Could insurance policy’s have something to do with not rating tornados ef5 as much as they do ?
I don’t believe so. A total loss is a total loss whether its an EF4 or EF5. I personally don’t see why classification of the event changes the claims on the damage itself.
i see why its a ef4 not ef5 now thx
What website did you use for the map with satellite imagery, width, and path?
Its an KML export of the survey data from the NWS DAT that I import into Google Earth Pro.
@@junefirstwhere do I go to get the survey data?
@@WeatherIQ2007 apps.dat.noaa.gov/stormdamage/damageviewer/
@@junefirst thanks!
Mobile homes should be outlawed in Tornado/Dixie Alleys. Being a person on a fixed income myself, I understand not having the money to own a better type of habitation, and outlawing mobile homes is a type of discrimination against low income persons. But the cost of cleaning up the damage and dealing with injury and loss of life is so much greater in neighborhoods with mobile homes, so it seems to make more financial sense to build stronger structures.
In Case of a Violent Catastrophic EF4 or EF5, The only place to Survive is to get Below Ground or a Storm Shelter and that will saved lives.
Your link to Cameron's stuff doesn't work just FYI
Oops! Just fixed it, let me know if there's any further issues :)
@@junefirst Hmm, for some reason, when i click on the link, it says the page doesn't exist. Not sure what the problem is here.
Concrete?
I was speaking into my phone, so there are words that do not fit!! Maybe anyone reading will get what I meant!!!😊
this reminds be of m
I just pooped a little, excited to watch.
Sooo scary
10 minutes into this thing and half of it has been this kid giving a government agency a hand job for doing their damn jobs correctly. Who the hell cares????
Just for clarification sake, it’s pronounced puh-choo-tah
Your videos should be 40 min long. Also please make a all video Playlist so we can binge your videos plz. Thanks from Iowa
Not enough showing the destruction and to much taking and maps