Tornados ‘the new normal’
Americans were told that devastating tornados in the Midwest were ‘‘the new normal’’ after more than 100 people were killed and ‘‘thousands upon thousands’’ of buildings flattened by storms that tore through the region.
Kentucky bore the brunt of the destruction, including the longest tornado passage across the ground in US history, with more than 80 confirmed deaths including several dozen at a collapsed candle factory where rescuers toiled through the night looking for survivors.
Deanne Criswell, the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, blamed climate change. ‘‘This is going to be our new normal,’’ she said.
‘‘The effects that we are seeing from climate change are the crisis of our generation. It is incredibly unusual . . . It is also historic.
‘‘The severity and the amount of time these tornados spent on the ground is unprecedented.’’
The winds were fuelled by unseasonably warm weather in the South and Midwest, with one tornado beating a 96-year-old record, covering a distance of at least 362 kilometres.
Asked if the storms had anything to do with climate change, President Joe Biden said: ‘‘Well, all that I know is that the intensity of the weather across the board has some impact as a consequence of the warming of the planet and the climate change. The specific impact on these specific storms, I can’t say at this point.’’
Biden said he had asked the US Environmental Protection Agency for an assessment. ‘‘The fact is that we all know everything
‘‘The effects that we are seeing from climate change are the crisis of our generation. It is incredibly unusual . . . It is also historic. Deanne Criswell
Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator
is more intense when the climate is warming – everything. And, obviously, it has some impact here but I can’t give you a quantitative read on that.’’
John Gordon, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Louisville, Kentucky, said: ‘‘The worst-case scenario happened. Warm air in the cold season, middle of the night.’’
The storms struck on Friday evening, local time, across six states, including areas unused to such ferocious winds. Whole towns were laid waste.
Scenes of destruction in Mayfield, a small city of 10,000 in western Kentucky, were likened to wartime devastation. Andy Beshear, the state governor, said other towns had ‘‘gone ... just gone’’. He added: ‘‘You think you’ll go door-to-door to check on people and see if they are OK. There are no doors.’’
Asked on CNN how many Kentuckians were still missing, Beshear said that in Dawson Springs, a town of 2700, the list of people was ‘‘about eight pages single-spaced . . . pretty bad’’.
He added: ‘‘The devastation is unlike anything I have seen in my life and I have trouble putting it into words.’’
Michael Dossett, the state’s director of emergency management, said Mayfield was ‘‘ground zero’’ in the disaster. A train was derailed in the state, leaving a carriage 75 metres from the track.
After a wall at a Mayfield nursing home collapsed, Vernon Evans rushed to help firefighters pull people out, only to find a resident lying dead in a few inches of water, he said. ‘‘I never experienced nothing like this.’’
In Edwardsville, Illinois, at least six people were killed when the roof was peeled off an Amazon warehouse and a concrete wall fell into the building. Rescuers pulled 45 people out alive. Search efforts were to continue for several days. The number of people missing was uncertain because the tornado hit as shifts were changing.
In Arkansas, a nursing home in Monette collapsed, killing a 94-year-old resident. Two deaths in Missouri were also attributed to the storm. Victor Gensini, a weather researcher at Northern Illinois University, said the tornado was one of the longest in US history. ‘‘One word, remarkable,’’ he said. ‘‘It was really a late spring type of setup in the middle of December.’’