By State › Missouri

Missouri: Risks & Trends

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Same standard as every other page on this site: every figure below is independently sourced, and figures that vary across sources, or measure genuinely different things, are flagged as such rather than collapsed into one number that looks more precise than the underlying data actually supports.

The Joplin tornado (2011): the deadliest since modern record-keeping began

MetricFigure
Peak rating EF5
Deaths 158 (some counts up to 161 including additional indirect deaths)
Injuries 1,000+
Total path length 22.1 mi
Length of path through dense Joplin ~6 mi
Peak winds >200 mph
Damage ~$3 billion, the costliest tornado on record
Business structures damaged 553
Residential structures damaged ~7,500 (3,000+ heavily damaged or destroyed)
National ranking Deadliest single U.S. tornado since modern record-keeping began in 1950; 7th deadliest in all of U.S. history

Joplin surpassed the June 1953 Flint, Michigan tornado, which had held the modern-era record at 116 deaths, by a wide margin, and its combination of maximum-width, maximum-intensity winds passing directly through a dense urban area is part of why it remains the reference case for EF5 tornado risk in a populated area.

New Madrid: where the earthquakes that named the zone actually happened

MetricFigure
First major earthquake M~7.5, December 16, 1811
Second major earthquake M~7.3, January 23, 1812
Third major earthquake M~7.5, February 7, 1812
Impact on the town of New Madrid Largely destroyed; residents were still camped in open fields when the final quake struck

Why current probability figures aren't repeated here

Illinois’s and Tennessee’s pages on this site already cover the New Madrid Seismic Zone’s current earthquake probability data (the same USGS figures apply regardless of which state within the zone is asking) and their own state-specific exposure. Missouri’s distinguishing fact isn’t a different probability number, it’s that the zone’s namesake and historical epicenter sit within the state itself.

Sources