Community Corner

Florida Tornadoes are the Deadliest, Study Concludes

The state tops all-comers in the number of deaths per mile a twister travels.

Florida has a new No. 1 ranking, but that’s not a good thing in this case.

The Southeast Regional Climate Center has concluded the state’s tornadoes are the deadliest, topping even Kansas and Oklahoma, according to USA Today. The figure is calculated by the number of deaths per mile a tornado travels along the ground. As it turns out, the state’s death rate 2.4 deaths per 100 miles of tornado is two-and-a-half times greater than Oklahoma and almost five times of Kansas.

The center’s director, Charles Konrad II, said Florida ranks so high because the state has a number of risk factors that make it vulnerable to tornadoes: lots of mobile homes and lots of elderly.

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“People are just much more vulnerable in a mobile home than they are in a regular home,” Konrad was quoted as saying.

The Florida Climate Center notes that tornadoes are most common in the state during the spring and summer and tend to be the most powerful in the spring. The state also has the highest frequency of tornadoes per 10,000 square miles than any other state in the nation.

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“The coast between Tampa Bay and Fort Myers has a particularly high incidence,” the center’s website states.

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