Feb. 16, 2007 — There's no reason monster tornadoes couldn't hit large cities, killing thousands and causing widespread damage, say meteorologists in a new study that uses the latest tornado-chasing data to simulate the effects of a tornado outburst in Chicago.
Other cities threatened by tornadoes include Dallas, Oklahoma City, St. Louis, Atlanta and Houston.
"Fortunately 99.9 percent of tornadoes are happening in open areas," said tornado researcher Joshua Wurman of the Center for Severe Weather Research in Boulder, Colo.
But with about a thousand tornadoes happening every year in the United States, chances are high that sooner or later one will touch down in a densely populated neighborhoods with older buildings — with catastrophic results.
Wurman and his colleagues have published their modeling results in a recent issue of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.
"What we were simulating were denser areas," Wurman told Discovery News. In particular, the very densely populated older neighborhoods of two- and three-story wood frame houses that have long been ethnic enclaves in Chicago.
A tornado in such neighborhoods could cause destruction on a Hurricane Katrina scale, he said. What’s more, it’s not at all clear that emergency planners in Chicago or some other cities in tornado-prone regions are ready for that scale of destruction.
"Since it hasn’t been brought up in the scientific literature, they may not be aware of it," said Wurman. "What we are trying to do is give an alert."
As for newer buildings in dense areas, they may be stronger, but it’s hard to say until a tornado hits one.
"We actually think that new apartment buildings are probably modestly resistant to these things," reflected Wurman. "But who knows what will happen if it’s hit by a 300 mph wind?"
