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In 1915, Snowden D. Flora of the U.S. Weather Bureau wrote, 鈥淜ansas has been so commonly considered the tornado state of the country that the term 鈥楰ansas cyclone鈥� has almost become a part of the English language.鈥�
Flora鈥檚 words still seem to ring true. Whether called twister, tornado, vortex or cyclone, these catastrophic events have shaped lives in the Sunflower State for generations. That, in part, was the inspiration for two 麻豆传媒 faculty and three graduate students to co-author the photo-based, local history book 鈥淜ansas 鈥� In the Heart of Tornado Alley.鈥�
Jay Price
Price: 鈥淭he inspiration for the book came about in the wake of the 2007 Greensburg tornado. And in the conversation with Arcadia Publishing, the decision was to look at Kansas as a whole, which was a good idea because if ever there was a state associated with tornadoes, it is that of Kansas.鈥�
Producing a book on tornadoes presented some challenges, as Price explains.
Price: 鈥淭he challenge was doing a photo history related toward tornadoes. Those are the types of photos that are available. Prior to really more recent innovations of camera technology and availability, the photos one had were of the destruction after an event. And after a while, photos of destruction and destruction and destruction can get a little repetitious.鈥�
Price has observed some similarities in how people view tornadoes and the sinking of the Titanic.
Price: 鈥淲hen we look at the sinking of the Titanic, there鈥檚 a lot of interest in the technical aspects of it 鈥� how did it break up, and how did it land on the seabed and so forth? And sometimes we get so focused on the technology side, that we forget the human story. And in some ways, the study of tornadoes has become that as well. We become so interested in the dynamics of the storm formation and even the destruction they cause, that we forget the lives that are disrupted because of it.鈥�
Price also says tornadoes are part of the Kansas DNA.
Price: 鈥淓ven if someone has never seen a funnel cloud, there鈥檚 something about tornadoes that鈥檚 in the state DNA.
鈥淯nlike hurricanes, who are named and are talked about almost as if they鈥檙e people that make conscious decisions, we tend to think about tornadoes more akin to wild animals in the sense that we watch them from a distance, hopefully a safe distance, and keep out of their way.
鈥淭he freakiness of tornadoes and tornadic destruction I think contributes to some of the interest in the phenomena. A tornado can devastate a house, but can leave a goldfish in a fishbowl untouched.鈥�
We may know a lot more about tornadoes now than we did 50 years ago, but there鈥檚 still a lot that we don鈥檛 know, according to Price.
Price: 鈥淭ornadoes are inherently unpredictable, and we鈥檝e been lulled into a sense of security that we can now understand the phenomenon thanks to the radar and all the technology out there. But there鈥檚 still an awful lot that we don鈥檛 know, and that鈥檚 why going out to chase tornadoes is exceptionally dangerous and is not something that the ordinary person should be doing.鈥�
The boundaries of Tornado Alley are debatable, but there is widespread agreement that the states of Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska and much of Texas form the core of the alley. Between 2000 and 2010, these four states experienced 3,908 tornadoes, with 40 percent occurring in Texas and 31 percent in Kansas.
Price says the greatest challenge for those who are responsible for alerting the public in times of severe weather is to encourage average citizens to adequately prepare for possible tornadoes and respond in ways that help rather than hinder relief and rescue efforts.
Thanks for listening. Until next time, this is Joe Kleinsasser for 麻豆传媒.