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Severe Threat May 15-16, 2025

L
zath said:
Is anyone familiar with the build quality of the homes in London, KY? I've been looking over the damage photos/videos from London and the damage seems pretty intense. But, when I look closer at the homes that have been leveled/wiped off their foundation, I'm not seeing much in the way of foundation anchors. Combine this with roof geometry (i.e. looking at Google Street View and a lot of the houses in the area are simple two-slope roofs which are some of the weakest roofs when it comes to tornadoes plus it seems common to have large covered porches which will act as an entry point for winds to peel off the roof) and it may help explain some of the more intense looking damage. Once you lose the roof, you likely lose the whole house, especially if the house is built with a timber frame and lack of anchoring.

Another inconsistency is the lack of cars rolled/damage. Once I saw the house destruction, I for sure thought there would be a lot of cars rolled everywhere, but I only counted 2-3 cars that looked moved, while the majority seem in the same place they were parked. The tree damage is also a little inconsistent compared to the house destruction. While there are numerous trees that have had most of their branches lost, it looks like a lot of those trees were pine trees. Pine trees are notoriously brittle trees.

I am not in any way trying to diminish the damage done and fully understand that these people's lives have been completely flipped upside down, but I would not be surprised if the tornado is rated more mid-range instead of high-end. Granted, I am not there in person so take this with a grain of salt too; I'm just going on the available photos/videos coming out of the area - some of which are not the highest quality.
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Eastern KY is unfortunately very poor.
 
Aaron Rider said:
Years ago I asked my co workers where we would go if a tornado showed up. This was no idle matter as one did occur in a nearby part of Maryland. Not only were they apathetic but they were very unaware of weather, especially considering they worked outside.

I am very interested in birds and tornadoes, among other things. A tornado fascinates me and seeing an oriole makes my whole week. Most people are not like us - weather, or birds, are very incidental to them.
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The reality is that some people won't ever take weather/tornadoes seriously unless something terrible happens to them or someone they love gets killed by a tornado.
 
ColdFront said:
To @Clancy ‘s point, a lot of these homes are older. Basically, large amounts of people just don’t move to eastern KY, so you really just get the churn of the people that do move here end up buying older homes. It’s pretty rare that you see new subdivisions being built here, but plenty of already built, older homes up for sale.
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A former boss moved to somewhere around London. He fits your description. I hope he's OK.
 
Aaron Rider said:
L

Eastern KY is unfortunately very poor.
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The Appalachian area of Eastern KY absolutely. It’s a bit of a misnomer because Somerset and London relatively would be considered “Eastern KY” but locally we have always used I75 as the demarcation point between “central” and “true eastern” KY. East of I75 is eastern KY, west of it is central KY. London lies right in the center of 75 and Somerset is to its West. Your point does stand though, you aren’t going to be seeing many affluent looking homes in London.
 
Aaron Rider said:
L

Eastern KY is unfortunately very poor.
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yep, most of that area unfortunately ranks very high on the CDC's social vulnerability index. this is going to be an area that both meteorology and social science need to analyze further: how to serve these more vulnerable areas specifically.

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ColdFront said:
The Appalachian area of Eastern KY absolutely. It’s a bit of a misnomer because Somerset and London relatively would be considered “Eastern KY” but locally we have always used I75 as the demarcation point between “central” and “true eastern” KY. East of I75 is eastern KY, west of it is central KY. London lies right in the center of 75 and Somerset is to its West. Your point does stand though, you aren’t going to be seeing many affluent looking homes in London.
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I always thought of eastern Kentucky as being the coal counties. Ofwhich there are many. Is that about right?
 
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