Latest Windstorm Headlines
All the headlines from our Windstorm Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Tropical Storm Chantal May Form in Atlantic This Week
Jul 7 2013 // Tropical Storm Chantal strengthened as it moved west across the Atlantic toward the Lesser Antilles, including the islands of Martinique and Saint Lucia, on a track that may take it east of Florida, the U.S. National...
Moore, Oklahoma Council Tables Storm Shelter Requirement
Jul 3 2013 // The Moore City Council in Oklahoma has tabled a proposal that would have required storm shelters for houses, apartments, mobile homes and group residential housing. Damage costs from the massive tornado that hit Moore on...
Alabama County Plans Site-Specific Tornado Warnings
Jul 3 2013 // Emergency officials in an Alabama county plan to sound tornado sirens in specific areas where storms are, and will no longer activate all sirens in the county with every tornado warning. Madison County’s system is...
Interest in Storm Shelters Rising in Texas Panhandle
Jul 2 2013 // In a region that frequently sees tornadoes, Texas Panhandle residents are considering storm shelters and other tools to stay safe in a twister as dangerous and deadly as the ones that have recently struck North Texas and...
System Planned to Warn Montana Motorists Of Dust Storms
Jul 2 2013 // State and local officials have developed a plan to warn motorists on Interstate 15 in Montana of blinding dust storms caused by white alkali dust blowing across the highway south of Sunburst. Montana Department of...
West Virginia Property Insurance Stable Despite 2012 Storm Payouts
Jul 1 2013 // West Virginia property owners in general didn’t see a huge uptick in insurance premiums after making claims from last summer’s massive windstorm, state data shows. Figures compiled by the state Insurance...
How Catastrophe Experts Model Hurricane-Induced Storm Surge
Jul 1 2013 // The 2004 and 2005 North Atlantic hurricane seasons were a turning point in the way the property/casualty insurance industry viewed hurricane risk. The needs of the insurance industry required catastrophe models to...
Weather Service Confirms Modest Oregon Tornado
Jun 28 2013 // A National Weather Service spokeswoman says a modest tornado did indeed touch down near the tiny Oregon town of Birkenfeld in the North Oregon Coast Range. The Tuesday afternoon tornado was classified as an EF-0, which...
Oklahoma Insurance Claims from May Tornadoes Top 75K
Jun 27 2013 // Insurance claims filed in response to a major tornado outbreak in May have jumped to 75,758 with insurance payments reaching $687,945,276, the Oklahoma Insurance Department announced. “The victims of these...
Georgia Estimates Insured Storm Loss at $50M
Jun 26 2013 // Georgia Insurance Commissioner Ralph Hudgens said violent weather that struck Georgia on June 13 caused an estimated $50 million in insured losses. The storm caused two EF1 tornadoes in Cherokee and Cobb counties. More...
Some Arkansas Cities Mapping Storm Shelters
Jun 25 2013 // Officials in at least two Arkansas cities are asking their residents to let them know if they have storm shelters, while a third says he wants to update his city’s maps of the shelters. City officials in Searcy have...
Tornado Cleanup Tab for Missouri’s St. Charles County: $2.4M
Jun 20 2013 // The tornado that ripped through Missouri’s St. Charles County in late May, and flooding that has ravaged portions of the county, are proving costly. KMOX Radio reports that cleanup costs are at $2.4 million and the...
Tropical Storm Barry Lands on Mexico Gulf Coast; Pemex Refinery Unaffected
Jun 20 2013 // Tropical Storm Barry made landfall north of Mexico’s major Gulf Coast port of Veracruz on Thursday morning and was heading inland, unleashing rain showers and wind gusts, but installations of state oil monopoly Pemex...
Oklahoma Insurance Claims from May Tornadoes Top 70K
Jun 19 2013 // Insurance claims filed in response to a major tornado outbreak in May jumped to 70,782 on June 18, with insurance payments reaching $561,976,781, the Oklahoma Insurance Department announced. The department broke the claims...
Texas Windstorm Insurance Group Expects Surplus
Jun 19 2013 // The nonprofit, state-supervised property insurance agency for coastal Texas counties is expected to shore up its finances by the end of the year, the group told a state House panel on June 17. Pete Gise, who handles the...
NE Kansas Counties Recovering After Tornado Damage
Jun 18 2013 // Northeast Kansas counties that were hit by a tornado and flooding in late May are waiting to hear if storms caused enough damage to make the region eligible for state or federal aid. An EF-2 tornado hit Marshall County on...
Claims Pros’ Own Survival Skills Tested in Oklahoma Tornadoes
Jun 17 2013 // Michael Pelonero came to Moore to help victims of the May 20th tornado. But he hadn’t planned on trying to outrun one. When a massive EF-5 twister cut a swath through the central Oklahoma suburb of Moore, it left 24...
More than 63K Insurance Claims so Far from St. Louis Tornadoes
Jun 17 2013 // The major insurance companies serving the St. Louis area have received more than 6,300 claims from residents with damage from tornadoes that struck the area on May 31, according to Missouri insurance regulators. The...
The Value of Storm Shelters
Jun 17 2013 // In the past month, storm shelters in Oklahoma have meant the difference between life or death for some people. The value of a storm shelter can make a difference when selling a home. “I think we need to get out to...
Deadly Oklahoma Tornado Widest on Record, Rare EF5
Jun 17 2013 // The deadly tornado that struck near Oklahoma City at the end of May had a record-breaking width of 2.6 miles and was the second top-of-the-scale EF5 twister to hit the area in less than two weeks, the National Weather...
