2011 Joplin tornado
Overall, the tornado killed 158 people (with an additional three indirect deaths), injured some 1,150 others, and caused damages amounting to a total of $2.8 billion. It was the deadliest tornado to strike the United States since the 1947 Glazier–Higgins–Woodward tornadoes, and the seventh-deadliest overall.
1932 Deep South tornado outbreak
Outside Alabama, six people were killed near Pulaski, Tennessee, in Giles County (just north of the Alabama state line). 13 people in the state died from this and six other strong tornadoes. In Georgia, a large tornado near the Tennessee-Georgia state line left a mile-wide damage path, and killed 15 people from Beaverdale (Whitfield County) to Conasauga (Polk County). Two other tornadoes in Georgia killed a combined 16 people and were on the ground almost simultaneously. On March 22, tornadoes continued after midnight EST (11:00 p.m. CST/0400 UTC) as four more strong tornadoes struck Georgia and South Carolina until 3:00 a.m. EST (2:00 a.m. CST/0700 UTC). One of them passed near the University of Georgia in Athens and killed 12 people.
At least 25 cities and communities in Alabama reported one fatality or more during the day, including Demopolis, Union Grove, Linden, Plantersville, Sycamore, Northport, Huntsville, Marion, Stanton, Scottsboro, Paint Rock, Columbiana, Faunsdale, Bethel Church, Jemison, Falkville, Sylacauga, Bridgeport, Lineville, Gantts Quarry, Cullman, and Corinth. Eleven counties were particularly hard hit, with 7,000 homes and businesses destroyed statewide. Seven tornadoes each caused at least 100 injuries in Alabama and Tennessee, with a total of 1,750 injuries in Alabama alone. Seventy-eight percent, or 262, of all 334 fatalities in the outbreak were caused by F4 tornadoes; of these fatalities, 91% were in Alabama alone. In all, the 36 recorded tornadoes caused at least $4.34 million (1932 USD) in damages for the entire outbreak.
The March 21 outbreak is also nicknamed the "Super Outbreak" by the National Weather Service office in Birmingham. While Alabama was the hardest-hit state with 86 fatalities, 75 of which were tornado-related, during the 1974 event, there were nearly three times as many fatalities in the state on March 21, 1932. Also, many tornadoes in rural areas this day likely caused more injuries and probably higher fatalities than reported, as newspapers paid little attention to the deaths of Black sharecroppers, whose families and identities were often unknown. Such a racial aspect was common during natural disasters in the South before desegregation in the late 20th century. The 1932 outbreak was also known for its violence: it set a 24-hour record for violent touchdowns in a single state until the 1974 Super Outbreak produced 11 F4 or F5 tornadoes in Kentucky.