[RayChuang88]

One of the great fears in the US Midwest is that the downtown of a large city such as Kansas City, Topeka, Wichita, St. Louis, Memphis, Little Rock, Oklahoma City, Dallas-Fort Worth, and so on is an F4 to F5 supertornado about 1.5 to 2 miles wide barreling through the downtown of the city.

Imagine a tornado with winds in the 250 km/h (155 mph) to 400 km/h (248 mph) range 1.5 to 2 miles wide. If if barrels through the downtown of a large city all the smaller buildings will be flattened, medium sized buildings will suffer substantial damage from flying debris and the windows in all the taller skyscrapers will be blown out, damaging the contents inside the taller buildings. It would be equivalent of the effects of a blast wave from a 1 MT nuclear blast about two miles from Ground Zero.

[Gvl_M3]

Atlanta had one go through downtown in March 2008. Luckily it was a “small” one. Lots of windows blown out, some structural damage, etc. They were able to warn far enough in advance that there weren’t many casualties.

http://www.atlantatornado.org/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/chriscorrigan/2362016875/

[NCC-1701]

Several years ago, a tornado, strength unknown, touched down in downtown Nashville. Did a lot of damage. Can’t recall if any deaths were caused by it. They were lucky. D@m*ed lucky.

[bigredkitty1]

An F-3 tornado hit Fort Worth ten years ago. It did some significant damage and it was by no means as strong as Saturday’s twisters. The damage to a major South Plains city is not just limited to the buildings. I shudder to think of a F4 or F5 hitting Dallas during rush hour. The fatalities would be in the hundreds if not thousands.