I grew up on the southern tip of Tornado Alley and spent my childhood absolutely riveted by the thunderstorms that crawled across West Texas on a regular basis. I became equally fascinated by tornados, listening to my grandmother’s story of how she survived the 1953 Waco tornado, watching funnel clouds and tornados dance in the skies around my home, and later, chasing storms just for the thrill of watching their awesome beauty. I’m especially fascinated by the strong tornados, the F4s and F5s, and hope that I never, ever see one.
Unless you’ve been through that particular kind of hell, it’s very hard for the average person to get a sense of what happens when a tornado hits your area. Nancy Mathis' Storm Warning: The Story of a Killer Tornado gives you that perspective and a healthy dose of education as she recounts both the history of tornado forecasting in the United States and the horrific day of May 3, 1999, that saw 70 tornados rip across Oklahoma, including one tornado that was more than a mile wide and generated winds of more than 300 mph – the fastest winds ever recorded on the planet.
Through a back-and-forth method of storytelling, Mathis recounts the outbreak of that day along with a look at the history of tornado forecasting. She provides a fascinating (and sometimes surprising) look at just how far storm forecasting has come in the last half-century. She gives us a Cliff Notes version of the life of Tetsuya Fujita, the world’s most famous and successful storm scientist who created the Fujita scale for measuring a tornado’s intensity. Other snapshots of storm forecasting history include a look into how the National Weather Service was born, explanations of how storms and tornados form, and a glimpse into some of the deadliest tornados in history.
While the history of tornado and storm forecasting is a worthy subject entirely on its own, Mathis ties that history lesson into a gut-wrenching look at the havoc that these storms cause in real life. In Storm Warning, the story of those people affected by the tornado outbreak on May 3, 1999 is the emotional center of the story. For many people who have never seen a mesocyclonic storm or tornado, it’s nearly impossible to imagine the raw terror and helplessness that can turn people’s lives upside down in such a brutal and short time. Hurricanes, blizzards, floods – even your average thunderstorm squall line moving through the region – all have extended warning periods, even if it's just a few hours. Until as recently as the last decade, warnings for tornados amounted to just a couple of minutes’ warning (if any) before the tornado hit, barely enough time to grab your family and find a safe location. Even then, research at Texas Tech University has shown that the high-velocity winds associated with stronger tornados can destroy a house in just 25 seconds. In the blink of an eye, life can go from completely normal to utter devastation, as we are shown through the eyes of those living in the rural community of Bridge Creek, the town hit directly by the deadliest tornado in the outbreak, the F5 tornado referred to as the A9.
Mathis deals with this emotional devastation left in the wake of the A9 tornado with a deft touch. She gets out of the way of the story, letting the simple facts and comments from the survivors of the storms speak for themselves, with no embellishment required. It’s a heartbreaking story, with tragic victims and quiet heroes, that makes this one of the best books of its kind that I have read.
A side note: one of the things that has to come to light through this book (and a particularly gut-wrenching story of one mother who saved her child but lost her life in the storm) is that overpasses are not a safe place to hide during a tornado. The Weather Office in Norman, Oklahoma put together a slide series that serves as an educational tool as to why you should never take shelter from a tornado under an overpass. It’s worth a look, especially if you might find yourself driving the highways of Tornado Alley in the future.
- by Crystal Sarakas
