Weather Disasters And Coronavirus: It's Complicated, For Sure

Hundreds of houses destroyed by an Oklahoma tornado in 2013. How
would you shelter all those people during and after a similar tornado
during the coronavirus pandemic? Emergency officials in much
of the nation are mulling that questio. 

Severe thunderstorms and tornadoes are still a good bet later today in and around Illinois, which means people will have to take shelter.

But where?  The coronavirus has us hunkered down in our houses already.

Of course, houses with basements are fine. You get a tornado warning and head for the basement. But lots of homes and entire neighborhoods rely on community storm shelters when tornadoes threaten.

The risk, aside from the actual tornadoes, is that some people who think there are available storm shelters for them when there might not be.

Some community storm shelters might be shuttered because of the coronavirus threat.  The pandemic has altered the entire world, so all the familiar rules are gone. It's up to local officials to decide which shelter is open and which is closed, so everybody will need to check.

The situation in Illinois is particularly dangerous today.  NOAA's Storm Prediction Center is considering whether to upgrade the risk to its highest level because of the possibility of very strong, long lasting tornadoes in Illinois later today.

People have been advised to figure out by this morning where to take shelter before by this morning to know where to go when the severe weather starts. By the time tornadoes form and warnings are issued, it's too late to begin considering where to take shelter.

This is especially true with this potential Illinois outbreak: Any tornadoes that form are expected to have a forward speed of 60 mph. That's awfully fast. Warnings won't be issued much in advance of the tornadoes hitting, and you won't be able to outrun them in a car.

Assuming community shelters are open, people might be hesitant to crowd into these places with lots of other people. After all, the experts unanimously tell us to stay home, and if we must go out, remain at least six feet away from other people if at all possible.

That's impossible in storm shelters. It's not a great choice, but the bigger danger is the tornado. The National Weather Service advises people to take the shelter from the tornado, and then worry about coronavirus after the storm.  The tornado, when it's happening, is the more dire of the two events.

It's only late March, so the tornado season is just beginning in earnest. It peaks from April to early June. Today's situation in Illinois will almost certainly repeat itself pretty frequently in one fashion or the other over the coming weeks.

Lots of places are already thinking about this, which is good. For instance, officials around Kansas City, which is definitely a tornado-prone area of the nation, said they have contingency plans for a weather disaster atop of the coronavirus outbreak, according to local news station FOX4

The pandemic makes things much more complicated, though.  How do you treat people injured in storms while avoiding Covid-19?  What about people whose homes have been destroyed by a tornado? Where do you put them and keep them safe?  What about cleanup and recovery? Rebuilding? Insurance and government permits for that rebuilding?

According to FOX4 in Kansas City, the planning continues.

"'Unfortunately, Mother Nature doesn't slow down because of Covid-19,' Matt May, the emergency management director of Wyandotte County, told FOX4. 'People are having those conversatios about what we woul do if we had a tornado now.'"

An even bigger problem could unfold in the late summer and autumn if the coronavirus pandemic in the United States remains uncontrolled. By then, it will be hurricane season.  Landfalling hurricanes in the U.S. and elsewhere require mass evacuations often involving tens or even hundreds of thousands of people. You end up with thousands of people packed cheek to jowl in emergency shelters.

People can only hope that the coronavirus pandemic fades out by August, when hurricanes really begin to crank.  Otherwise, that'll be yet another reason why we're really screwed.

Meanwhile the severe weather this weekend in the Midwest is just beginning to crank up, and will only get worst later today Some video:

Here's some hail damaging cars in Jefferson City, Missouri last night, as viewed by someone on their apartment balcony.  Some understandable NSFW language in here.