The National Weather Service just released a 48-page report that contains the details of their service assessment of the Super Tuesday Outbreak of February 5-6, 2008. And it appears that they will be making some big changes as to how they conduct their operations in the future, including changes to the wording used when issuing warnings in an attempt to get more people to pay attention and take shelter during emergencies.

The event at the center of the report was the second largest tornado outbreak since 1950 (the start of the record keeping tornado database) in terms of fatalities and the largest since May 31, 1985. There were 5 violent EF4 tornadoes reported out of the total 87 tornadoes that occurred in 5 states and killed 57 people as well as injuring hundreds more.

They found that all tornadoes had occurred in tornado watch boxes issued by the Storm Predication Center and each tornado was properly warned with an average lead time of 17 minutes (that’s incredible!).

So why did people lose their lives? This event occurred in February at a time when most people are thinking about their sweethearts and dead presidents and not focused on the possibility of severe weather – so they simply were not paying attention.

The NWS further found that 2/3 of the deaths occurred in mobile homes. And nearly every person killed did not have “safe shelter”. The report details that NWS conducted hundreds of surveys and interviewed survivors to find out what more they could do to help people heed to the warnings when they are issued.

“In reviewing the public response, the team found that two-thirds of the victims were in mobile homes, and 60 percent did not have access to safe shelter (i.e., a basement or storm cellar). The majority of the survivors interviewed for the assessment sought shelter in the best location available to them, but most of them also did not have access to a safe shelter. Some indicated they thought the threat was minimal because February is not within traditional tornado season. Several of those interviewed said they spent time seeking confirmation and went to a safe location only after they saw a tornado. Many people minimized the threat of personal risk through “optimism bias,” the belief that such bad things only happen to other people.“

The report states that the NWS will “improve wording and call-to-action statements to more effectively disseminate the urgency and immediate danger of the situation.” The NWS will also use social science research to understand how the general public interprets and responds to severe weather warnings.

The full report can be downloaded from weather.gov at this location: http://www.weather.gov/os/assessments/pdfs/super_tuesday.pdf

Tags: news, safety, tornadoes