Three weeks ago we had an extensive discussion of the relationship between tornado fatalities and manufactured housing (see Many of These Are Preventable Deaths, 4/28). At that point in time, the National Weather Service had not yet examined the string of tornadoes that blew through the South on that day.
The data is still coming in, but as of today, the National Weather Service has analyzed 112 of the 309 deaths attributed to the April 27-28 storms. Sixty-three, or 56%, of the tornado fatalities examined occurred in manufactured or mobile housing.
More Blogosphere/Press discussion on this topic:
- Mobile-Home Deaths Raise Issue of Safety (Wall Street Journal)
- The Flat Rock Mobile Home (Highly Allochthonous)
- Natural disasters may not always hit hardest where you’d expect (Dan’s Wild Wild Science Journal)
5/16 discussion update:
- In Tornado Zones, Seeking Shelter From the Storm (New York Times)
