Tornadoes

[Coladar]

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Do not rebuild there at all.
Do not use taxpayer's money to rebuild there, not one penny.
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Insurance companies were finally allowed to refuse insurance to people who kept rebuilding in the flood areas of the Mississippi River.  If you want to rebuild in a known disaster area, do so at your own risk.
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In the DC area, Charles County Maryland (near LaPlata) is where most tornado warnings come up, and that's where damage has occurred. 

The first F4 occurred on November 9, 1926. This tornado killed 16 people, 13 of them in the La Plata Elementary School, which was destroyed. On April 28, 2002, an F4 tornado cut a 24-mile-long (39 km) swath through Charles County, with areas around La Plata damaged most severely. This tornado caused four deaths.

The 2002 F4 was near Indian Head, just across the river from Quantico and Woodbridge, Virginia. This link has pictures and maps:
http://www.erh.noaa.gov/lwx/Historic_Events/apr28-2002/laplata.htm

An elementary school was hit again in 2002. Even Colonel Sanders was hit; at the Kentucky Fried Chicken:
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See the Charles County tornado history map here:
http://www.tornadohistoryproject.com/tornado/Maryland/Charles

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Wow, didn't realize Maryland had seen F4s in the past century. Crazy.

But the staying and rebuilding thing - it's an oddity of human nature. We get kicked down, we get right back up. The same thing that makes us so great also leads to people rebuilding on beaches after a hurricane wipes them out time and time again.

That's one reason I love this area - on the grand scale of things, we're pretty damn safe as far as natural disasters go. That minor earthquake two years back blew all of our minds, but wouldn't even evoke a raised eyebrow from an LA native. We have the threat of hurricanes, but for hundreds of years it seems like the DC area is relatively protected from the worst of the worst, unlike just a bit to our south and the Outer Banks.

I can't imagine ever moving to the mid-west in Tornado alley, because eventually crap like this will happen. In California, eventually they will get rocked by a devastating earthquake. The SE seaboard, eventually hit by an apocalyptic hurricane. Near a volcano, eventually it will erupt. Because things happen rarely, maybe once in a lifetime if that, we seem to feel like they can never happen to us. While it'd be even crazier to do something like abandon the entire mid-west because of falling in 'Tornado Alley', quirks like this where the data indicates a particularly dramatic and frequent amount of natural disasters for which there are no safeguards...

Well, like I said, if they have to rebuild, at the very least they should take that into account to prevent future loss of life. Maybe Moore doesn't get hit by even another F1 tornado for another century. But if we can prevent losing hundreds of children if they should be hit by another F5 in the next decade, I'd hate to see that headline when it could have been prevented by rebuilding the schools with significant shelters built in, or underground entirely.

[tomterp]

Do not rebuild there at all.
Do not use taxpayer's money to rebuild there, not one penny.

Insurance companies were finally allowed to refuse insurance to people who kept rebuilding in the flood areas of the Mississippi River.  If you want to rebuild in a known disaster area, do so at your own risk.

Now wait a minute.  I've never heard of a tornado zone before.  Are you saying nobody should be allowed to build in the Texas panhandle or in Oklahoma? 

There's virtually no comparison in risk level between a flood zone (almost certain to incur a loss) versus a random place in Tornado alley, where the fact that a tornado might pass through a couple of times is simply a random occurrence, as far as the current state of science can inform us at present.

[Terpfan76]

Sans building underground, what can you really do to "tornado proof" anything. They are perhaps the most destructive natural disasters. The ate encompassed is smaller than a hurricane, making the damage costs smaller, but the immediate aftermath is unparalleled.

[tomterp]

Sans building underground, what can you really do to "tornado proof" anything. They are perhaps the most destructive natural disasters. The ate encompassed is smaller than a hurricane, making the damage costs smaller, but the immediate aftermath is unparalleled.

Most homes in this area have basements, and apartments & office buildings often have "safe" areas away from windows. 

[Terpfan76]

Most homes in this area have basements, and apartments & office buildings often have "safe" areas away from windows. 

oh I get that, I'm just I guess replying to the idea that people should be forced to not live there due to an off chance they'll get hit by a tornado. This isn't a case of new Orleans where massive hurricanes are bound to happen eventually.

[tomterp]

oh I get that, I'm just I guess replying to the idea that people should be forced to not live there due to an off chance they'll get hit by a tornado. This isn't a case of new Orleans where massive hurricanes are bound to happen eventually.

Agreed.  I would go so far as to say that if people can afford it, let them live where they want.  And by afford it, I mean no subsidies for insurance, or any other heroic measures to make a place habitable that are funded by others.  Beach replenishment, for example.  If Ocean City wants to replenish its beaches funded by a tourist tax, fine.  But they should not have their hand out for Federal or State programs and assistance. 

[Coladar]

oh I get that, I'm just I guess replying to the idea that people should be forced to not live there due to an off chance they'll get hit by a tornado. This isn't a case of new Orleans where massive hurricanes are bound to happen eventually.

I'd hope nobody thinks that people should be forced to not live somewhere due to tornadic threats. Even Moore, hit repeatedly with big bad f4s, you're looking at, at worst, one to two mile wide paths. They can travel quite some distance, sometimes even 60+ miles, but even the worst of the worst have relatively small areas of total destruction width-wise. Certainly nothing like what one finds with hurricanes or earthquakes where entire cities, states even, can get wiped out.

But for Moore, since they will rebuild, I just think going to the extreme to safeguard future events isn't uncalled for. At least not for schools, a rare example in that area of a densely populated structure. Beyond hitting downtown of a city, you mainly see sparsely spread out homes/farms. But with a school, hundreds of kids in one building... in the unlikely event a tornado did hit one, you're looking at a huge loss of life.

On a similar note to this topic of rebuilding and whatnot with regards to tornadoes, maybe for a place like Moore you just dramatically spread things out. No one would ever do this, but if you don't have buildings within feet of each other, or non-farm homes built close by one another, you could really mitigate the damage and deaths if a tornado does hit. The closer people are to each other, the worse things will be if they do get hit again. So definitely don't force anyone to leave/not rebuild, but even with the absolute destructive force of F4-F5 tornadoes there are ways to prevent or lessen any losses.

[HalfSmokes]

I wonder what the mortality rate is in moore via tornado vs here via car accident?

[tomterp]

maybe for a place like Moore you just dramatically spread things out. No one would ever do this, but if you don't have buildings within feet of each other, or non-farm homes built close by one another, you could really mitigate the damage and deaths if a tornado does hit. The closer people are to each other, the worse things will be if they do get hit again. So definitely don't force anyone to leave/not rebuild, but even with the absolute destructive force of F4-F5 tornadoes there are ways to prevent or lessen any losses.

It would increase the likelihood of any given tornado hitting meaningful population areas, given the greater geographical spread.

[DPMOmaha]

On a similar note to this topic of rebuilding and whatnot with regards to tornadoes, maybe for a place like Moore you just dramatically spread things out. No one would ever do this, but if you don't have buildings within feet of each other, or non-farm homes built close by one another, you could really mitigate the damage and deaths if a tornado does hit. The closer people are to each other, the worse things will be if they do get hit again. So definitely don't force anyone to leave/not rebuild, but even with the absolute destructive force of F4-F5 tornadoes there are ways to prevent or lessen any losses.

Spreading things out wouldn't really help anything.  Storms like this gather strength because there's nothing to impede them, break up the wind and such.  That's why you rarely see storms like this in densely urban areas like a city center or major downtown area.  The storm is never able to gather unimpeded airflow.  Tall buildings break up the air flow and don't let it get as strong as the storms in Moore.  But these storms built in the prairie, and moved into town where there was very little to slow it down.  It just kept getting stronger and stronger and stronger.  Had it come in the opposite direction, it would have still been a strong, damaging storm, but you likely wouldn't have seen a tornado or it would have been much weaker, in the F1 range than what they had.  Spreading things out isn't the answer.