Tornadoes Leave 39 Dead in Midwest and South
March 5, 2012
Deadly storms blew across the Midwest and South on March 2, spawning dozens of tornadoes that left at least 39 people dead amid the rubble of destroyed buildings and overturned vehicles. The storms touched down in at least a dozen states, killing 21 people in Kentucky, 13 in Indiana, 3 in Ohio, and 1 each in Alabama and Georgia. According to the National Weather Service, the four tornadoes that hit Kentucky with winds of up to 160 miles (358 kilometers) per hour were the worst in the region in 24 years. In Indiana, an EF-4 tornado–the second highest on the Fujita scale–slammed Henryville with winds of 175 miles (280 kilometers) per hour, then mowed over southeastern Indiana for more than 50 miles (80 kilometers).
The governors of Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio have declared states of emergency. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) announced that it was in contact with officials in the affected states. The administration of President Barack Obama issued a statement that the “extent of the damage may not be known for days” and “that the administration, through FEMA, is closely monitoring the storms and their impacts.”
A tornado's winds can swirl at speeds of hundreds of miles or kilometers per hour, hurling debris in all directions. The tornado appears in this photograph as a white funnel above a darker cloud of debris. © Gene & Karen Rhoden, Peter Arnold Images/photolibrary
The storms on March 2 were the second in the region in little more than 48 hours. The more-than 50 tornadoes in Kansas, Missouri, and Illinois on February 29 combined with the more-than 85 tornadoes that touched down on March 2 set yet another record for unseasonably severe weather in the region. In 2011, the United States experienced 14 natural disasters that each caused at least $1 billion in destruction, 7 of them involving tornadoes.
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