Menacing headline gives taste of tornado disaster

Here it is — Houstonist's favorite headline of 2007 (so far): "Thousands could die if a giant tornado ever hits Houston." Excellent stuff — it almost makes us feel like we're watching KPRC during sweeps week — well, or any other time, for that matter.

Seriously, though, there is a somewhat sobering article attached to the tornado headline: Storm researchers say a perfect storm making its way from southwest Houston across Montrose, River Oaks and the Heights could kill as many as 23,700 people, making it the deadliest natural disaster in Texas history (that potential death toll would put the 8,000 killed in the 1900 hurricane in Galveston to shame). The figure comes from the assumption that 10 percent of people in structures hit by the tornado would be killed, which may or nay not be accurate — actual tornado statistics show a much lower death rate, but the tornado in this scenario is really, really powerful.

So what are the odds that such a tornado could hit Houston? Pretty low, apparently, though we do have a lot of tornadic activity around here: The average number of tornadoes in Harris County is 6.4 times more than the national average, and more tornado warnings are issued here than in any other county. The real problem with an approaching tornado is that people generally don't have time to run away from it — and Houston doesn't have a network of tornado sirens to warn people if one is headed our way. Even so, experts say local officials should think about what they would do if a killer hurricane hit the city: "These are indeed unlikely events," Joshua Werman, president of the Center for Severe Weather Research, told the Chronicle. "But I think, given the consequences, it's prudent for emergency managers to think about what they would do if such a thing happened."

The research that gave Houston's potential death toll also looked at the effects of giant tornadoes in other cities. Chicago would potentially have the highest number of deaths, 60,000, and Dallas could have as many as 29,700.