![]() Army Corps of Engineers to open spillways along the river, deliberately flooding rural areas in Louisiana in the hopes of sparing Baton Rouge and New Orleans. The most serious storm featured 178 tornadoes and killed at least 300 people, many of them in Alabama.Ĭommunities along the Mississippi River are dealing with a disaster of a different nature: severe flooding. This year was relatively calm, as far as natural disasters are concerned, until April, when a series of three severe storms ripped through the Southern states, causing up to $5 billion worth of damage. So far this year, tornadoes have killed 482 people in the United States. history, in what has been a particularly catastrophic year. The Joplin tornado is the single deadliest tornado in U.S. He said the true cost of the damage is unclear, since Eqecat does not have data for uninsured losses. “What we’ve said all along about building the reinforced room is that we don’t hold our facilities out to be storm shelters, but we felt it was appropriate given the events of the past at this store and the sentiment of the community.Miranda said the firm based its estimate on reports that up to 2,500 buildings in the city were destroyed and up to 10,000 were damaged, in a city with an estimated 25,000 buildings. When Home Depot rebuilt its tilt-wall store in Joplin, it included a reinforced room, company spokesman Stephen Holmes said. Instead, it was designed to handle 90 mph winds.Īfter examining what happened in Joplin, both NIST and the American Society of Civil Engineers recommended that storm shelters be installed in big-box structures because they lack the material strength to provide protection from tornadoes. That probe found that the building was actually overbuilt when it was constructed in 2001 under the 1996 BOCA Basic Building Code, which said the building should be able to withstand wind loads of 70 mph. In response to a Kansas City Star story a month after the tornado, the Tilt-Up Concrete Association formed a committee to examine the incident and challenge claims that the building was improperly constructed. Before they could get there, the building’s unsupported wall panels collapsed on them after the roof was ripped away by winds estimated at 165 mph, plus or minus 20 mph, according to a National Institute of Standards and Technology study.Ībout 30 people who made it to the training room near the store’s northeast corner survived because the panels fell outward, the NIST study concluded.Īfter the storm, engineers criticized the tilt-up wall method used to construct the store, saying such buildings are prone to collapse in high winds if the roof fails. The lawsuit alleges that as the tornado approached the store, Howard and his children were directed to Home Depot’s training room by employee Dean Wells. Construction of the Home Depot was finished around March 1, 2001, and the lawsuit was filed more than 13 years after it was completed, Casco said. Home Depot USA, which is based in Atlanta, and HD Development denied all of the allegations, calling the EF-5 tornado that killed 161 people and destroyed thousands of buildings an “act of God.” Because of that, imposition of liability on the defendants is prohibited, the company’s attorneys said.Ĭasco also denies all allegations, saying the plaintiff is barred by Missouri’s 10-year law of repose from suing the company. It names as defendants Home Depot USA, property owner HD Development of Maryland, Inc., and store designer Casco Diversified Corp., The Joplin Globe reported. District Court’s Western Missouri District. ![]() Housel filed the lawsuit in May in Jasper County Circuit Court, but it was moved last month to U.S.
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