Emergency communication system
161 people were killed and at least 990 injured when an EF5 multiple-vortex tornado hit Joplin, Missouri. Because Joplin is located in a tornado-heavy area of the country, many people considered the tornado sirens routine and ignored them. Instead, many residents waited until they received confirmation from another, non-routine, source, such as seeing the tornado, a radio or TV report, or hearing a second siren. In the aftermath, an assessment team recommended that emergency warnings take risk perception into account to convey a sense of urgency. NOAA Officials are considering ways to change the warning system to distinguish smaller tornadoes from more deadly ones.
Tornado outbreak sequence of May 7–15, 2008
The deadliest tornado and most notable tornado of the outbreak took place from a single supercell that tracked through Ottawa County, Oklahoma, Newton County, Missouri, and Barry County, Missouri, in the late afternoon of May 10. Twenty-one people were killed in the tornado – fatalities took place in Picher, Oklahoma (where six people were killed), and Newton and Barry counties in Missouri (where 15 people were killed). One other person was killed in Jasper County, Missouri from an EF1 tornado. Eight of the victims died inside their cars, troubling experts who say the inside of a vehicle is one of the worst places to be during a tornado. This was the second deadliest tornado of the year behind the EF3 tornado that affected areas northeast of Nashville, Tennessee, on February 5, 2008 and killed 22.