Winter is finally over. Even though the snow was bad, spring and summer has an even uglier face to show us. Many would believe that we are safe from tornadoes in an urban area however, this is a terribly false myth. March 14, an EF 2 tornado with winds around 120 mph ripped through the city of Atlanta causing widespread damage and leaving one person dead.
On the evening of March 14, there were about 60,000 college basketball fans watching the University of Alabama and Mississippi State battle it out in a close game. The game was into overtime when the tornado sirens blared outside. The 120 mph winds ripped a hole in the roof of the stadium sending debris in to the stands and dislodging one of the balconies that was left to dangle over the fans and players. Buildings in the city had their windows blown out and the streets were trashed. In spite of the debris in the stadium, fans were saved by the stadium’s structure and the teams’ competitiveness. If the game had not gone into overtime, those 60,000 fans would have been in the path of the tornado, in the streets of a large urban area.
Imagine if that were to happen here. Atlanta has a population of nearly 490,000. There are about 2.9 million people living in Chicago. Could a tornado rip through the Chicago Loop?
Chicago has flirted with disaster before. Roughly 30 years ago, a tornado ripped through the south side near Midway Airport. That tornado was part of an outbreak that caused $50 million in damage and killed 58 people. Two years ago, a line of severe storms passed over the north side over Loyola University campus and surrounding areas. One of those storms had signs of strong rotation and was nearly on top of the NEIU campus. The storm dropped a twister after it passed over Lake Michigan where a small EF1 tornado touched down over the lake. Gino Izzi, lead forecaster at the Chicago National Weather Service, said at the Fermilab / WGN-TV Tornado and Severe Weather Seminar on April 5, that if this storm had produced a tornado earlier, it would have ripped straight through O’Hare Airport and the Loyola Campus. He explained that 100 mph winds would have impacted the area severely.
Just five years after the Great Chicago Fire, in 1876, a tornado bulldozed through the Loop area killing two people and causing $4.5 million in damage with winds greater than 140 mph. This was before the skyscrapers dominated the Chicago skyline.
Greensburg, Kansas saw one of the most devastating and tragic tornados in history. On May 7, 2007 shortly after 9:30 p.m., a two-mile wide EF5 tornado, with winds greater than 200 mph, demolished the city of 1,500 in a matter of minutes. This storm killed 11 people and injured many more. A larger storm passed to the northeast of the city and killed a police officer that was in route to warn people of the storm. Reports of the event said people could not see the storm because of the darkness, but also pointed out that the storm would have looked like smoke plumes or low hanging clouds in the daylight. Either way, the citizens of that city did not see it coming.
Larry Ruthi, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service of Dodge City, Kansas, spoke at a Tornado Seminar and discussed the possible path that the May 2007 tornadoes could have taken had they gone further up into Illinois. She showed that the tornado would have ripped through Midway Airport and veered north over the Wrigleyville area. Chicago north-siders, Cubs fans, Midway travelers and everyone in between would have been in danger.
City dwellers are not as safe from tornadoes as they think. We can look at cities like Oklahoma City, St. Louis, MO, Brooklyn, NY, Dallas, Texas and Miami for examples that big cities can get hit by these storms. So go to www.crh.noaa.gov/lot to find out what the day will bring before setting up that barbeque, so you don’t find yourself being whisked off to the Land of Oz. Also you can find how to protect yourself and your family from the wrath of these twisters.