Expert: Mobile homes at more tornado risk

NORMAN, Okla., March 2 (UPI) -- The sharply increased numbers of people who live in mobile homes are 20 times as likely to die in tornadoes as occupants of fixed dwellings, a severe wind expert said Saturday.

Harold Brooks of the National Severe Storms Laboratory said that in 1960 only about 2 percent of people in the southeastern United States lived in mobile homes. By 1990 it had increased to 13 percent. In the rest of the country, mobile home dwellers increased from 1.5 percent to 6 percent.

The Census Bureau has not yet released the 2000 figures, he said.

"The death rate of people in mobile homes and in permanent homes has stayed roughly the same for years," he said. "But now as we get larger numbers of people in mobile homes we're seeing more deaths in them."

Brooks, a speaker at the 2002 National Severe Weather Workshop, said 25 years ago one-fourth of tornado deaths were in mobile homes. In 1990 it was one-third and today it is about half.

Statistics from the May 3, 1999 tornadoes that killed 36 people in Oklahoma City alone illustrate the peril, he said. Eleven of the direct fatalities were in mobile homes, but there were only 100 mobile homes hit by the twisters while 8,000 permanent homes were damaged.

"Everyone knows it," he said of the danger. "But it is much less expensive to live in mobile homes, especially in rural areas. If I built my little house out in the country it would cost 30 to 40 percent more to get some construction guys to haul the material out there and go build the house. It's a socio-economic thing."

Being "very conservative," he said, someone might estimate the increased death chances in mobile homes at only 10 times higher but that would be by allowing every possible counter assumption.

Ironically, a winter storm forced the director of the National Weather Service to miss the conference. Retired Brig. Gen. Jack Kelley had been scheduled to speak Saturday on "Working Together to Save Lives." A spokesperson said snow in Chicago prevented his flight to Oklahoma.

More than 300 people from 27 states registered for the two-day event, held as snow and winds of 25 to 35 mph raked the state.

The highest frequency of winds of 65 knots or more in thunderstorms is in the plains area surrounding Oklahoma, Brooks said. Southwest Ohio has the greatest distribution of winds of 50 knots, but it is rare there to see them reach 65 knots, he said.

The Rocky Mountains account for the high winds in the plains, he said, causing air to rise and dry. It then cools very quickly, plummets in strong downdrafts and spreads out in high surface winds.

"The Rockies are the best mountain chain in the world at this," he said. "Just about any air aloft over us has to come over the Rockies, unless it comes straight down from the pole."

"There is a way for air to go around the Himalayas, but there's no way to get around the Rockies," Brooks said.

Saturday's program included training as storm spotters for the National Weather Service. Attendees at the event were primarily emergency managers, broadcast meteorologists, storm spotters and weather enthusiasts.