Concerning the lack of storm shelters

Apr 30, 2018

Dear Sirs:

This report aims at drawing your attention to a problem that we have been facing here in Bowling Green. Namely, it is the lack of storm shelters. The ones that are still useful are few, rather old and mainly located downtown. Inclement weather has been causing both public health and economic problems to communities and municipalities in the whole Kentucky state. Many severe events can result in fatalities, injuries, and property damage, and preventing such outcomes to the extent possible is a key concern.

As will be further explained in this report, there have been several natural occurrences in the last several years. They go from hail to tornadoes and thunderstorms. If one consider how the situation has evolved in the last 70 years or so, the results are alarming.

Next we show some evidence of our concerns.

Data Processing

For this report, we will be using data collected by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA). Their database tracks characteristics of major storms and weather events in the United States, including when and where they occur, as well as estimates of any fatalities, injuries, and property damage.

The National Weather Service Storm Data Documentation can be found at this URL: https://d396qusza40orc.cloudfront.net/repdata%2Fpeer2_doc%2Fpd01016005curr.pdf.

The data is loaded as a .csv.bz2 compressed file which is directly loaded into R by means of the read.csv function. The date field is converted into R’s internal date type so as to be more manageable for our analysis.

library("ggplot2")
library("dplyr")
## 
## Attaching package: 'dplyr'
## The following objects are masked from 'package:stats':
## 
##     filter, lag
## The following objects are masked from 'package:base':
## 
##     intersect, setdiff, setequal, union
fn<-"stormData.csv"
if (!file.exists(fn)) {
    download.file("https://d396qusza40orc.cloudfront.net/repdata%2Fdata%2FStormData.csv.bz2",destfile=fn)
}
f<-read.csv(fn)
# preprocess data
# convert factor into date so we can work with it
f$year<-substr(as.Date(as.character(f$BGN_DATE),"%m/%d/%Y %H:%M:%S"),1,4)

Number of casualties per year

# find statistics about the data
minY<-min(f$year)
maxY<-max(f$year)
totI<-as.numeric(format(sum(f$INJURIES)/1000, digits=3, nsmall=2))
totF<-as.numeric(format(sum(f$FATALITIES)/1000, digits=3, nsmall=2))

The situation is dramatic. See, for instance, the number of fatalities/injuries in the whole country at all times. Since the data has been collected, 1950, to now (2011), there has been not less than a total of 140.53 thousand injuries and 15.14 thousand fatalities.

The number of casualties/fatalities per year is alarming as can be seen in the graph below.

g<-group_by(f,year)
su<-summarise(g,t=sum(FATALITIES+INJURIES,na.rm=T))
plot(su$year,su$t,type="l",col="red",xlab="",lwd=2,
     main="Fatalities and Injuries per year (US)",ylab="total number")

Fig. 1. Total number of fatalities and injuries per year (1950-1992). Source: NOAA.

Unfortunately, the situation is the same all around the country as the next graph shows. It brings the total number of events per state, including hail, tornadoes and thunderstorms.

f$one<-1
g<-group_by(f,STATE)
su<-summarise(g,t=sum(one,na.rm=T))
plot(su$STATE,su$t,type="p",xlab="",lwd=2,
     main="Weather-related events per state",ylab="total number")

Fig. 2. Weather-related events per state (1950-1992). Source: NOAA.

Results

# From now on, let's work with Kentucky only
k<-subset(f,f$STATE=="KY")
evts<-nrow(k)
evtm<-max(k$INJURIES)
evtt<-tolower(f$EVTYPE[which.max(f$INJURIES)])
inju<-sum(k$INJURIES, na.rm=T)
fata<-sum(k$FATALITIES,na.rm=T)
propdmg<-as.numeric(format(sum(k$PROPDMG,na.rm=T)/1000, digits=3, nsmall=2) )

# especifically with Bowling Green
bg<-subset(k,f$COUNTYNAME=="WARREN")
evtsBG<-nrow(bg)

Finally, speaking of our state, Kentucky is by no means free of storm complications. Since 1950 kentuckians have had no less than 22092 events reported, tornado being the most harmful one to population health with 350 injuries. The number of injuries skyrockets to 3480, along with 239 fatalities.

In terms of economic consequences, these events have brought a total of 242.19 thousand dollars in property damage. That is intolerable!

In Bowling Green alone we have had shockingly 3324 occurrences like hails, tornadoes and thunderstorms. These numbers are certainly partially due to the lack of proper storm shelters spread all over the Warren county.

Therefore, it is the duty of the municipality to seriously address the problem and bring a definitive solution to it.

Yours Sincerely,

Mr. John DOE
A concerned citizen of Bowling Green, KY