Random thoughts on ravaging tornados

The tsunami was new to us until 2004. A tornado was new to me until I saw the gravity of it a few days ago. It was not just a case of another natural disaster, but a flood of outpouring of humanity in the aftermath. Today’s column is all about the human factor in the recent Oklahoma tornado which I myself experienced, being just seven kilometres away.

What happened

Hearing the tornado siren and rushing to a shelter has been a common practice for Oklahoma citizens. I was in my office at Price College, Norman, Oklahoma, preparing for the evening lecture. Rushed to the basement of the building and with a gathering, I could see the live telecast of the most devastating tornado to strike the USA.

This was on 20 May 2013, early morning Sri Lankan time.  A massive tornado, with peak winds estimated at 340 kilometres per hour, hit Moore, a densely populated town. According to estimates, it has killed at least 24 people, including nine children, and injured more than 400 others. The children killed were from the Plaza Towers Elementary School in Moore who could not run to a sheltered place before the tornado struck.   

This tornado was part of a larger weather system that had produced several other tornadoes over the previous two days. Even last Sunday, we had to rush to a tornado shelter when a tornado struck a place called Suwannee, killing a 79-year-old woman. It is the annual tornado season and I could clearly see the preparedness of the people.

Tornado details

Before 2004, we did not know how to spell the word tsunami. I experienced the same with regard to my minimal understanding of a tornado. Through reading, I gathered that a tornado is a violently rotating column of air in contact with both the surface of the earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud. They are often referred to as twisters or cyclones.  

According to Wikipedia, the word tornado is an altered form of the Spanish word ‘tronada’, which means thunderstorm. This in turn was taken from the Latin ‘tonare’, meaning ‘to thunder’. It most likely reached its present form through a combination of the Spanish ‘tronada’ and ‘tornar’, meaning ‘to turn’. Yes, it turned an entire town into a pile of debris.  

Tornadoes are a worldwide phenomenon. They have been observed on every continent except Antarctica. However, the vast majority of tornadoes occur in the Tornado Alley region of the United States, including Oklahoma. Tornadoes can be detected before or as they occur through the use of Pulse-Doppler radar by recognising patterns in velocity and reflectivity data, such as hook echoes, as well as through the efforts of storm spotters.

The Fujita scale rates tornadoes by damage caused and has been replaced in some countries by the updated Enhanced Fujita Scale. An F0 or EF0 tornado, the weakest category, damages trees but not substantial structures. An F5 or EF5 tornado, the strongest category, rips buildings off their foundations and can deform large skyscrapers. What hit Moore was obviously an EF5 tornado.

This experience is nothing new to people in Moore. They were struck in 1999 – the Oklahoma tornado outbreak was a vigorous, severe weather event that lasted from 3 through 6 May 1999. As usual, it resulted in violent storms over Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas, Texas and Tennessee.

Tornado scare in Oklahoma

I remember that when I was first planning to visit Oklahoma, for my Fulbright Fellowship, someone in Colombo warned me of the threat of tornados. I did not realise the gravity of it until I had to wait in tornado shelters for hours. In fact, there is nothing wrong with Oklahoma or its friendly people. The issue in the USA is that every state is prone to some kind of natural disaster. In Florida, it may be cyclones. In California, it may be earthquakes. Obviously, Oklahoma has its high quota of disasters.

I recall that some local Sinhala media reported the tornado as the end of Oklahoma. I do not blame them because I myself did not know of a state called Oklahoma five years ago. It is six times bigger than Sri Lanka with one third of our population. It’s a conservative state located in what they call ‘West South Central United States’.

Oklahoma is the ‘land of the red people’. The state’s name is derived from the native Indian Choctaw words ‘okla’ and ‘humma’, meaning ‘red people’. In terms of size, it ranks 20th and in terms of population, it is the 28th among the 50 states of the USA. It became the 46th state of the USA on 16 November 1907. Oklahoma City is the capital of Oklahoma.

Moore is a city in Cleveland County, Oklahoma. It is a part of the Oklahoma City metropolitan area. The population was 55,081 during the 2010 census, making it the seventh largest city in the state of Oklahoma.

The city of Moore was damaged by significant tornadoes on 4 October 1998, 3 May 1999, 8 May 2003, 10 May 2010 and 20 May 2013. As scientists have observed, Moore is located in Tornado Alley, a colloquial term for the area of the United States where tornadoes are most frequent. According to meteorology reports, about 20 tornadoes occurred in the immediate vicinity of Moore from 1890 to 2013. The most devastating one was the latest.

People’s response

I travelled through the affected area last Saturday to participate in the Vesak celebrations at the Buddhist temple in Oklahoma City. The Sri Lankan student community had been instrumental in collecting needy items and handing them over to the officials. We were not allowed to visit the affected area as it was out of bounds to visitors. I felt that this was a good thing, rather than allowing the area to be flooded by spectators.

One thing that deeply touched me was the valour of the teachers in protecting the school children, despite not having sufficient tornado shelters. They had been singing and praying and had continued to keep the children calm. US media portrayed several such emotional stories.

As the US media reported, the citizens of Moore, Oklahoma were informed of the tornado only 16 minutes before it hit. It shows that despite the advanced technology, how unpredictable it is.

“The reason why it’s so difficult to give you that lead time is because we have to see the storm on radar, and once we see that, it raises a red flag and we look for a tornado vortex, also on radar”, explained a leading meteorologist.  

In fact, there was a strange parallel with a similar deadly tornado that hit exactly the same location in 1999. It was also an E5 (highest category) tornado with a similar speed, killing 36 people. One can observe the drop in the causality figure from 36 to 24. Preparedness is the key. I would imagine that if this had occurred in Bangladesh, the causality would have been far higher.

I remember what someone told me after the Central Bank bomb blast in 1996. An emergency preparedness program conducted two weeks ago had clearly instructed the employees not to go near windows and look out in the event of a bomb blast, and instead, to lie down on the floor. So many had looked out from the windows and had gotten severely injured from the falling debris. They did exactly the opposite to what was told.

The key lesson here is the application of lessons learnt in responding to the situational factors. The citizens of Oklahoma City were warned on Monday of the oncoming tornado via 181 emergency sirens that have been in place around the city since 2002. First installed around the US during the Cold War, sirens have been used to warn citizens of weather events and emergencies for decades. There are an estimated 20,000 sirens around the US according to USA Today.

Insights from incidents

In contemplating on the recent series of events, I tend to realise more about the mighty power of Mother Nature. The so called mightiest nation on earth could not match that at all. On one side, classical western science advanced to an extent to conquer the nature. On the other side, quantum physics advocated a more holistic approach with emphasis on harmony and sustainability. Ironically, both viewpoints were fostered in USA, a country prone to many natural disasters.

It can be a wakeup call for us to be proactive in the wake of disasters. Sri Lankan managers have to address risk management in a serious manner.  

Well, another siren ringing can clearly be heard. Have to rush to the basement once again. Hope I will survive to write the next column. It reminds me how lucky we are in Sri Lanka.