Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Mobile home destroyed in Kentucky (AP Photo/The Paducah Sun, John Wright)
Reinforcing the commonly held assumption that mobile homes are not safe in tornado country, a disproportionate number of tornado victims in both recent and previous disasters were occupants of the lightweight housing.
During the recent storms on March 2, two-thirds of the 34 people killed by tornadoes in Kentucky and Indiana lived in mobile homes. The percentage of people who live in these homes is only 14% in Kentucky and 6% in Indiana.
According to the National Weather Service’s National Severe Storms Laboratory, mobile home dwellers are 10 to 20 times more likely to be killed in tornadoes than those in conventional homes.
Over one five-year period (2006-2011), 31% of the 823 people killed in tornadoes in the United States died while in or escaping from mobile homes, even though only 8% of the country’s housing consists of this type of structure.
In Kentucky and Indiana, newly-built mobile homes are only required to withstand winds of up to 90 miles per hour, whereas this month’s tornado winds reached 175 miles per hour.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
To Learn More:
Tornado Deaths Raise Questions About Mobile Home Safety (by Andy Wolfson, Louisville Courier-Journal)
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