Chapter Hazard Analysis Overbank Flooding

2.3.Tornadoes

A
Fujita Tornado Scale

F0 Gale tornado 40-72 mph, chimney damage, tree branches broken

F1 Moderate tornado 73-112 mph, mobile homes pushed off foundations or overturned

F2 Significant tornado 113-157 mph, considerable damage, mobile homes demolished, trees uprooted

F3 Severe tornado 158-206 mph, roofs and walls torn down, trains overturned, cars thrown around

F4 Devastating tornado 207-260 mph, well-constructed walls leveled

F5 Incredible tornado 261-318 mph, homes lifted off foundation and carried considerable distances, autos carried as far as 100 meters

Tornadoes are classified as F0 through F5, based on wind speed and damage levels using the Fujita Tornado Scale

tornado is a swirling column of air extending from a thunderstorm to the ground. Tornadoes can have wind speeds from 40 mph to over 300 mph. A majority of tornadoes have wind speeds of 112 mph or less.

The hazard: Debris hurled by the wind can hit with enough force to penetrate walls. Tornadoes create localized low-pressure areas that can make a building explode. Windows, chimneys and roofs are the most vulnerable parts of buildings to tornado damage.

Tornadoes can move forward at up to 70 miles per hour, pause, slow down and change directions. Most have a narrow path, less than a 100 yards wide and couple of miles long. However, damage paths can be more than 1 mile wide and 50 miles long.

Late spring-early summer is the peak of tornado activity in the year. A


Chicago Area Tornadoes by Hour

Source: Illinois State Water Survey



Chicago Area Tornadoes by Month

Source: Illinois State Water Survey
s seen in the chart below left, April, May, and June have the most frequent occurrences of tornadoes in the Chicago area. Tornadoes peak in the afternoon, when convectional heating is at a maximum. As shown in the chart below right, the peak time for tornadoes is at 5:00 p.m.

H

Kane County Tornadoes Since 1950
Date	Time	Injuries	Fujita
April 28, 1955	2100	0	F1
August 23, 1956	1400	3	F1
August 23, 1956	1400	0	F2
August 06, 1958	1710	0	F2
August 03, 1960	1630	0	F1
April 11, 1965	1600	0	F1
April 19, 1966	2240	0	F1
April 21, 1967	1710	0	F2
June 09, 1974	1840	0	F0
June 20, 1974	1810	0	F0
June 07, 1980	1338	0	F0
July 16, 1980	0255	0	F2
May 15, 1982	1400	0	F0
May 05, 1991	1618	0	F1
July 02, 1993	1800	0	F0
May 28, 2003	PM	0	F0
Source: National Weather Service

istorical Events: In the past fifty years, Kane County has had 15 tornadoes. These are listed in the table to the right.

A detailed study of Chicago area tornadoes was conducted by the University of Chicago. The historical events are shown in Map 2-4. While this does not include all of Kane County, it does show that no area is safe from a twister.

The best known recent tornado in the area was the one that hit northwestern Will County on August 28, 1990. It was part of a storm that developed in Wisconsin at 12:00 p.m. At 1:42 a tornado was spotted northwest of Rockford. It was followed by a golf-ball size hail in Rockford and DeKalb County. At 3:30 the twister hit Plainfield and the Joliet area. The storm and high winds moved on into Indiana.

The tornado had winds up to 300 miles per hour, giving it a Fujita rating of F-5 (see box, previous page). It cut a path of destruction 20 miles long and from 200 yards to half a mile wide. Its impacts are highlighted on page 2-28.

In Kane County, storm damage was most severe at the Aurora airport, where winds of 94 mph were recorded. Planes were flipped over and hangers were damaged. The high winds toppled mature trees in Aurora.

Most of the damage, however, was to Will County and three schools in Plainfield. More than 1,200 homes and buildings and at least 50 businesses were damaged or destroyed. Damage to three schools in Plainfield left 1,600 students without classrooms. Luckily, the tornado hit after school had been let out, although there were some deaths among participants in after-school activities.

Map 2-4 and recent history make it appear that Kane County has no major threat from tornadoes. However, the County has been lucky. If the August 1990 tornado had struck 12 – 15 miles to the north and west, it would have hit the Aurora area where the higher concentration of development would probably have meant more deaths and destruction than what occurred in Will County.


Map 2-4. Chicago Area Tornadoes



Source: Prof. Ted Fujita, University of Chicago






Source: Chicago Tribune, August 28,1990



F
Map 2-5. Tornado Frequency



Source: Illinois Emergency Management Agency
requency: Approximately 1,000 tornadoes occur each year in the United States. Illinois is tied for 7^th in the United States with an average of 26 tornadoes per year. Tornadoes are most likely to occur in April through June, but a tornado can occur at any time. Over half hit between 3:00 and 7:00 p.m. There are no official recurrence intervals calculated for tornadoes.

Kane County has had 15 of the 1,472 tornadoes recorded in Illinois between 1950 and 1999. Kane County is classified as having a high tornado risk based on historic tornado wind speeds and the number of recorded tornadoes per 1,000 square miles.

With 15 occurrences over 50 years, the likelihood of a tornado hitting somewhere in the county is 0.3 (30%) in any given year. Assuming a tornado affects one square mile and there are 524 square miles in Kane County, the odds of a tornado hitting any particular square mile in the County is 1 in 1,750 each year or a 0.0006% chance.

Safety: Although recent tornadoes in Kane County did not kill anyone, tornadoes are still killers. The August 1990 twister caused 28 deaths. The table below shows the tornado related fatalities in the United States for the last five years and where they occurred. The number of people who live in mobile homes is far smaller than the number who live in permanent homes, however they have practically the same number of deaths.

The table shows that the residents in mobile homes are at the greatest risk. There are seven mobile home parks within Kane County.

Tornado Fatalities in the United States
Year	Vehicle	Permanent Home	Mobile Home	Other	Total
1995	4	15	8	3	30
1996	2	8	14	1	25
1997	3	38	15	11	67
1998	16	46	64	4	130
1999	6	39	36	13	94
2000	3	6	18	2	29
2002	3	15	17	5	40
Totals	37	167	172	39	415
During this period, four people were killed in Illinois, two in mobile homes and two in vehicles. Source: National Weather Service

Health: The major health hazard from tornadoes is physical injury from flying debris or being in a collapsed building or mobile home. Based on national statistics for 1970 – 1980, for every person killed by a tornado, 25 people were injured and 1,000 people received some sort of emergency care. The August 1990 twister injured 350 people.

Within a building, flying debris or missiles are generally stopped by interior walls. However, if a building has no partitions any glass, brick or other debris blown into the interior is life threatening. Following a tornado, damaged buildings are a potential health hazard due to instability, electrical system damage, and gas leaks. Sewage and water lines may also be damaged.

Building damage: Although tornadoes strike at random, making all buildings vulnerable, three types of structures are more likely to suffer damage:

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  Mobile homes,
  
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  Homes on crawlspaces (more susceptible to lift), and
  
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  Buildings with large spans, such as airplane hangers, gymnasiums and factories.

  Structures within the direct path of a tornado vortex are often reduced to rubble. However structures adjacent to the tornadoes path are often severely damaged by high winds flowing into the tornado vortex, known as inflow winds. It is here, adjacent to the tornado’s path where the building type and construction techniques are critical to the structures survival.

  In 1999, FEMA conducted an extensive damage survey of residential and non-residential buildings in Oklahoma and Kansas following an outbreak of tornadoes on May 3, 1999, which killed 49 people. The assessment found
  

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  The failure for many residential structures occurred where the framing was attached to the foundation or when nails were the primary connectors between the roofing and the walls. A home in Kansas was lifted from its foundation where the addition of nuts to the bolts anchoring the wood framing to the foundation may have been all that was needed to have kept this from happening.
  
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  Roof geometry also played a significant role in a building’s performance.
  
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  Failure of garage doors, commercial overhead doors, residential entry doors or large windows caused a significant number of catastrophic building failures.
  
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  Manufactured homes on permanent foundations were found to perform better than those that were not on solid walls.
  

Critical facilities: Critical facilities are discussed on pages 1-10 – 1-19. Because a tornado can hit anywhere in the County, all of them are susceptible to being hit. Schools are a particular concern, though for two reasons:

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  They have large numbers of people present, either during school or as a storm shelter, and
  
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  They have large span areas, such as gyms and theaters.
  

The 1990 Plainfield tornado was an unfortunate example of this. It struck the Plainfield High School, Grand Prairie Elementary School, St. Mary Immaculate Church and the gymnasium to the Church’s elementary school. Cost to repair the two public schools was estimated at up to $35 million. The cost for the church and its school was $5 million.

Large span buildings were also affected in 1990. In addition to the schools and their gyms, hangers at the Aurora airport and Joliet’s Essington Road Fire Station were damaged. At this time, we do not know which critical facilities in Kane County may have large span structures.

Economic Impact: The major impact of a tornado on the local economy is damage to businesses and infrastructure. A heavily damaged business, especially one that was barely making a profit, often has to be closed. The post-disaster damage report stated that at least 50 businesses were destroyed by the 1990 tornado.

Infrastructure damage is usually limited to above ground utilities, such as power lines. The 1990 tornado knocked out two 345,000 volt transmission towers, leaving 65,000 Com Ed costumers without power. Damage to phone lines left 14,000 customers without service. Damage to utility lines can usually be repaired or replaced relatively quickly.

Damage to roads and railroads is also localized. If it can’t be repaired promptly, alternate transportation routes are usually available. Transportation was disrupted when highways were closed during the August 1990 storm due to high winds and debris.

Public expenditures include search and rescue, shelters, and emergency protection measures. The large expenses are for repairs to public facilities and clean up and disposal of debris. Most public facilities are insured, so the economic impact on the local treasury may well be small.

Clean up and disposal can be a larger problem, especially with limited landfill capacity near the damage site. Preliminary damage assessments for public expenditures after the 1990 tornado totaled $4 million, 2/3 of that for debris clearance.