2017 U.S. Tornado Deaths Top Two Dozen, and the Majority Have Been in Mobile Homes

Chris Dolce
Published: April 4,2017
The tornado death toll for 2017 has risen to 27 after an EF1 destroyed a mobile home and killed one person Monday in Union County, South Carolina. This happened a day after another EF1 tornado killed two people in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, Sunday morning.
Most of the fatalities from tornadoes so far this year occurred during a Jan. 21-22 outbreak that killed 20 people in the South. The other four additional tornado-related deaths were in Illinois and Missouri on Feb. 28.
(MORE: Tornado Central)

Map showing location and dates of all tornado deaths in 2017 through April 3.

This year already has had more tornado-related deaths than all of 2016 – a total of 17 people were killed by tornadoes last year. That was the second-fewest tornado deaths in a year on record dating to 1940. For comparison, an average of 70 tornado-related deaths occurred annually from 1986 to 2015, according to NOAA.
(MORE: Most Active Tornado Year Since 2008 as of Mid-March)
This week's tornado deaths in Louisiana and South Carolina illustrate the extreme danger of being inside a mobile home during severe weather, including tornadoes and even damaging straight-line winds.
Reinforcing this is the fact that 18 of the 27 tornado-related deaths this year, or about 67 percent, have occurred in mobile homes.
That toll could have been even higher had an Arkansas family not gone into a storm shelter during a tornado in early March that destroyed their mobile home. The National Weather Service (NWS) said the damage to the mobile home was "likely not survivable."

The site of where a mobile home was destroyed by a tornado early March 7, 2017 in Searcy County, Arkansas. The NWS says a family of five received a tornado warning and went to a shelter before it was destroyed which likely saved their lives.
(National Weather Service - Little Rock)

About 96 percent of tornado-related deaths 1950-2011 were from EF2/F2 or higher rated tornadoes, according to tornadoproject.com. But weaker tornadoes can also be deadly if you are not in the interior of a sturdy structure as we've seen this week. The other 24 deaths this year occurred in strong EF3- and EF4-rated tornadoes.
The NWS says that nearly 40 percent of all tornado deaths have historically occurred in mobile homes. Residents of these types of homes should abandon them in favor of a sturdy building during severe weather. This alternative structure should be a part of a severe weather plan that is identified well in advance.
(MORE: The Future of Tornado Warnings)

MORE: Severe Weather in the South

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