(from Eric Berger of the Chron)
The worst-case scenario for a large tornado striking Houston makes a hurricane look like high surf.
Spinning at 225 mph, the tornado touches down in southwest Houston, skirting the Astrodome and barreling through parts of River Oaks, Montrose and the Heights before exiting the city's northeast edge.
At the end of its run, the tornado will have killed as many as 23,700 people whose residences and business cannot withstand the deadly wind.
That's the conclusion of severe storm researchers using new data to model the effects of large tornadoes striking U.S. metropolitan areas such as Houston, Chicago and Dallas. The researchers say there is little data to know for sure how many people would die in urban structures in a large tornado.
Great, and there's absolutely nothing that can be done about it, the chances of this "worst-case" scenario are slim, and this is pretty much speculation anyway.
What this really boils down to is that a group of climate scientists are running out of money and want another grant. The solution to this (in today's scientific climate) is to come up with a doomsday scenerio, and sell it to the media as scientific fact.
Could "thousands" die in a sustained tornado that ripped across Houston? Yes.
More likely any such funnel would be ripped to shreds by the large amount of ground clutter it would experience preventing such a strong tornado from causing much damage.
But that doesn't bring in the grant money as much as the Hollywood scenerio does it?
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2 comments:
Now, I like Eric, but like you I thought this was a bit over the top. I sent him this as an E-mail:
Eric, it must have been a slow news day for you. Anyone can come up with a scenario where thousands (or millions) die. But you have to ask
yourself how likely is it? Here is a scenario for you that will kill
hundreds of thousands, if not millions. A container on a container ship with a 20 KT nuke in it that is set off in Barbours Cut before it is even off-loaded and runs the minuscule chance of being scanned by DHS. The Port of Houston will be unusable for decades, >50% of the nation's refining capacity will instantly vanish, adding probably hundreds of thousands of tons of explosive energy to the explosion, and a good chunk of
the Houston population will die either from blast effects or from
radiation over the next few months and years.
Now I ask you, of the two scenarios, which is more likely? Don't forget that people are actively trying to bring my scenario into play, whereas
yours relies on random chance.
I agree, I think Eric is a great science writer.
I just think THIS particular story is crap.
I'm sure he thinks a lot of my blog posts are crap as well so I'm guessing I still owe him a few.
:)
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