Questions remain in wake of recent tornadoes
President Joe Biden faced his administration’s first major natural disaster in the devastating tornado outbreak on Dec. 10. Now that almost a week has passed since the tragic event, the verdict is in on his initial response — and praise from Democratic Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell alike suggest the White House passed the test. The work, however, isn’t over.
The weekend’s storm cluster was brutal, with more than 30 separate tornadoes hitting 250 miles of land in Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri and Tennessee — felling trees, tossing trucks, obliterating buildings and claiming at least 70 lives. That number is still mounting; the horror hasn’t ended. Edwardsville, Ill., saw the roof and walls of an Amazon warehouse collapse (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post). A 94-year-old man was killed in a nursing home in Monette, Ark. The tragedy has taken the heaviest toll on Kentucky, where at least four counties noted deaths in the double digits. The oldest recorded of those killed was 86. The youngest was 5 months old.
One hundred ten people were working in a candle factory in Mayfield, Ky., when the crushing winds arrived to reduce the building to concrete rubble and rent metal. Remarkably, according to executives (officials are attempting to confirm the report) more than 90 of those are accounted for and alive. This sounds like a miracle, but thankfully it’s also due to the first responders as well as the family and friends of those buried in the wreckage who hurried to the scene in the rain and darkness to dig into the debris for their neighbors. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, too, deployed with alacrity.
Questions, and answers, are sure to emerge: Was adequate warning given to civilians where forecasters expected tornadoes? Were those warnings heeded by communities, individuals and employers? What role did climate change play in this horrific event? Experts say it’s difficult to link climate change definitively to an uptick in late-season tornadoes such as these — but higher temperatures could intensify future disasters. This might end up ranking as the longest tornado track in U.S. history and the only one to rage through at least four states. The storm could also be the deadliest outbreak ever to occur in December, perhaps one of the 10 deadliest in any month.
Continued leadership from the White House will be essential, not only while the damage is making headlines but afterward, too. Recovery, said the director of the Kentucky Division of Emergency Management, “will go on for years.” The president and the rest of the country should stand as willing to do what they can to aid the victims — in the same spirit with which the brave people of Mayfield who heard their neighbors were hurt and rushed out in the night to help.