By State › Missouri

Missouri: Overview

Download all of Missouri as PDF Print

Everything in the main manual and the skill guides applies in Missouri exactly as written. What’s different here is the specific hazard profile and the state, local, and legal context around it. This page is the starting point; the other three pages under Missouri go deeper on laws, local resources, and the data behind the risks named here.

Joplin: the deadliest U.S. tornado since modern record-keeping began

On May 22, 2011, an EF5 tornado tore a 22-mile path through Joplin, cutting a six-mile stretch of destruction directly through a densely populated part of the city with winds exceeding 200 mph. It killed 158 people, the deadliest single tornado in the United States since official record-keeping began in 1950, and caused roughly $3 billion in damage, the costliest tornado on record. See the Risks page for the full data.

New Madrid: the town, and the fault zone, share a name for a reason

Illinois’s and Tennessee’s pages on this site both cover the New Madrid Seismic Zone from their own state’s exposure. Missouri is where the name comes from: the town of New Madrid itself was largely destroyed during the 1811-1812 earthquake sequence, and the zone’s epicenters sit within or near Missouri’s own borders. This page doesn’t repeat the probability figures already covered on those two states’ pages; the underlying risk and data are the same regional hazard.

What this means for how you use the rest of this manual

The manual’s Tier structure and the skill guides apply without modification. What’s different in Missouri: tornado season preparation (a safe room, a weather radio, a practiced shelter plan) deserves the same weight here that this manual gives it anywhere in Tornado Alley, Joplin demonstrates the outer edge of what’s actually possible, and southeastern Missouri counties near the New Madrid zone should treat earthquake preparedness as a real, not abstract, consideration.

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