NWS Releases Final Assessment Report On Joplin Tornado

Today the National Weather Service released its final assessment of the May 22 EF5 tornado that hit Joplin.  The days following the tornado, Jack Hayes, National Weather Service Director sent a team to examine the warning and forecasts for the tornado, warning communications and how the community responded.  The team interviewed more than 100 Joplin residents, local media, and emergency management.  They found that most people received the initial warning via sirens but didn't immediately respond to the warning.  Instead, people gathered more information from TV, radio, looking outside, or just ignored the warning.  The National Weather Service is considering adding specific wording in warnings that would distinguish significant threat tornadoes or events.  They also plan to work with emergency management at making a different tone or pulse to distinguish sirens for extreme events to warn the public of imminent danger.  They also found that the public had good plans and proper education in place before the tornado.  They also noted few people received the warning via mobile technology such as Twitter, Facebook and text messaging.  They plan to look into improving this technology.  Keith Stammer, Jasper County Emergency Manager, is requesting 10,000 weather radios and 4,000 in place shelters from FEMA.