Tri State Tornado: The Causes And Effects Of The Tri-State Tornados

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The “Tri-State tornado” was a tornado that occurred on March 18, 1925, that struck three different states beginning with Missouri then through Illinois, and ending in Indiana. (JOHNS, R. H., BURGESS, D. W., DOSWELL III, C. A., GILMORE, M. S., HART, J. A., & PILTZ, S. F. 2013). There were officially 695 people killed and approximately 2,000 injured from the deadly tornado. The destruction spanned 219 miles, destroying 15,000 homes and other massive destruction for three and a half hours (Pinkley, J. 2013, April 25). This deadly storm struck in an ERA before Doppler Radar and other modern technologies and forecasters had to rely on witness accounts of the storm to determine its path and times it was on the ground. In 1925 there was no warning …show more content…

There were fewer telephones or other forms of communication in 1925, Weather forecasters didn’t have modern technology like satellite images or Doppler radar. This tornado even killed farmers which were extremely rare, farmers are very familiar with tornadoes and it was believed that from the size of the storm they simply didn’t know it was a tornado until it was too late. In comparison to Joplin which had advanced warning systems and several sophisticated communications systems such as trained meteorologists on TV, Social Media, and audible alarms such as tornado sirens. These were all non-existent in 1925. I believe that it is these advancements is what ultimately saved many more lives than the one in 1925. I also believe that the advancements in technology is what sped up the response and recovery efforts in Joplin. Had the storm of 1925 occurred today there would have been several warning systems in place that could have prevented many of the tragedies that occurred during that time. The major problem that was reported in Joplin was the need to develop a more sophisticated warning system that can warn people of immediate danger such as tornados. Even as advanced as technology has become today, there still is no system in place to detect and accurately predict the path that a tornado can take. Weather meteorologists can predict but it’s mainly an opinion based on science. Even my family and I have been guilty of ignoring sirens during storms that usually always turn out to be false alarms. One final note was the recovery efforts were far greater in Joplin. The Tri-State Tornado only mentioned aid from the American Red Cross and the National Guard. In Joplin, it was combined effort of government agencies as well local businesses and nonprofit

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