Going Forward: Using Societal Impacts Research to Reduce Tornado Risk

Abstract

In this book we have examined how tornadoes produce fatalities and injuries, how tornado warnings provided by the NWS affect casualties, how impregnable shelters can be built to prevent casualties, and examined patterns in property damage. We conclude in this chapter by bringing together the pieces of our analysis to estimate the overall societal impact of tornadoes and to examine how NWS warnings have affected and continue to affect this impact. We then offer some suggestions based on the vulnerabilities we have identified to reduce tornado-related casualties in the future. Normally, science proceeds by its own internal logic, with discoveries producing new puzzles but also pointing the way forward. Societal impacts research enters as an addendum, to try to determine the value to society of the next question that the scientific process will answer. Here we offer suggestions based on societal impacts for future directions in research. We conclude by considering whether the United States is approaching the optimal number of tornado fatalities that can be expected, and offering some lessons from our study for research on the societal impacts of weather generally.