[BC] Tornado hits ERI's old area

[Phil Alexander]

On 7 Nov 2005 at 8:04, Mike McCarthy wrote:

> Problem is the CO switch probably could not handle tens of thousands of 
> calls at once. Limited call outs like the FD example are limited to maybe 
> 100 calls.  Then comes the who gets called first and how that is determined 
> on less than a few seconds questions.
> 
> I'll be really interested in reading NOAA's disaster assessment report to 
> see just how much time passed between when the WSR88D near Evansville 
> detected the TVS, when the warnings were issued, when the first spottings 
> occurred/reported (which is really hard to do at night) and when 
> the  tornado actually touched down.
> 
> Sirens are still the best way to do warnings. Problem is they are genrally 
> spaced too far apart to be effective.  Anything more than a couple blocks 
> and with newer homes being so well insulated, their wail doesn't penetrate 
> walls as well as before.

According to the Vanderburg Co. Sheriff, the warning time was 11 minutes
but the principal problem was it came at 3 AM. The "mobile" home park where
19 of the victims died (the present total is said to be 23 but may climb)
was in a rural area with no available shelter nearby. 

Essentially, what the Sheriff said was these people had no safe place
nearby to seek shelter.

The footage I saw showed a swath across one part of a flat area cleaned 
down to the concrete pads, with untouched double-wides and manufactured 
housing on similar pads elsewhere. Unofficially, it has been reported as 
an F3 with confirmation of that expected to come today. It is clear that
this was an extremely strong tornado, especially for this time of year
and hour of the night. Nothing above ground was safe from its path.

In this situation, it appears the only action the residents might have
taken was to get in their cars and drive away, so it may not have been
so much a matter of warning as a matter of the time it hit and the limited
shelter and/or escape routes. Preliminary reports on Indianapolis TV, where
the story has been heavily covered as a "local" story, indicated residents
received the warning, and followed directions to shelter in the interior,
IOW bathrooms, of the mobile homes/manufactured housing, but that did not
provide adequate shelter for those in the middle of the storm track.

Looking at the footage of the aftermath, it is rather clear that only
evacuation would have been lifesaving given the circumstances of storm
intensity and available shelter.


Phil Alexander, CSRE, AMD
Broadcast Engineering Services and Technology 
(a Div. of Advanced Parts Corporation) 
Ph. (317) 335-2065   FAX (317) 335-9037





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