Suburban Sprawl Like A Bullseye For Tornadoes: NIU Study
(CBS) -- Some blame climate change for the increasing number and severity of tornadoes, but a newly-completed Northern Illinois University study says suburban sprawl may be far more important.
Meteorologist Walker Ashley says that until 1985, dramatic improvements in severe storm forecasting and communications went hand-in-hand with lower death tolls. He says since then, the death and damage totals have held steady or increased.
"The acceleration of development and sprawl results in an expanding bull's-eye effect that will undoubtedly generate more frequent and higher impacts from tornadoes," he says.
As a result, he says, tornadoes that once upon a time would have damaged a handful of structures as they churned through open fields and prairie now destroy subdivisions and entire communities.
Ashley cites the EF5 tornado that struck Plainfield, Crest Hill and Joliet in August 1990, the strongest storm on record in the Chicago area, killing 29 people and injuring 353. Today, twice as many homes and businesses would be in its 16-mile path as existed in 1990. He says 50 years ago, it would have affected fewer than 100 buildings.
Moore, Okla., has been hit twice in recent years by devastating tornados. Ashley says, had it hit 50 years ago, it would have demolished fewer than four dozen structures. The 2013 Moore tornado damaged 4,000 homes.
Ashley says the widely held belief that urban construction and the proximity of Lake Michigan keep tornados away is a myth. He says a tornado hit what is today the Loop in 1876, and says tornadoes struck on the South Side as recently as the 1960s.
The December 2013 tornado that leveled much of Washington, Ill., churned northeast, along I-55, until it reached Will County.
Photographs, bills and other identifiable objects from Washington were found as far north as Coal City.
Ashley says Chicago and Rockford were "very fortunate" a year ago when a tornado flattened Fairdale, Ill., because the conditions were ripe for tornadoes across the metropolitan area.
He says Washington, Moore and other hard-hit communities have responded with stricter building codes, and says the city of Chicago, well-established suburbs and communities on the edge of sprawl should follow suit.
