2019 Lee County Tornado And Its Effect On People
On March 3, 2019, Lee County, Alabama, southern United States suffered from the severe disasters of the tornado and the tornado disaster had resulted in 23 deaths and dozens missing until March 5 (Alijah, 2019). In the case of this natural disaster, a large number of people have been directly and indirectly affected by tornadoes.
First of all, for local residents, tornadoes can bring them a great threat to life and property. Based on the official statistics after the tornado, except for casualties, most of the buildings in the area were destroyed by the tornado. In addition to that, the tornado also cut power supply in parts of Lee County, affecting the daily power supply and life of more than 7000 families.
In the meanwhile, the Lee County public school system announced that for safety reasons, the school closed for two days on the 4th and 5th which would make a negative influence on students’ study (Chip, 2019). Finally, the financial damage caused by the tornado to public property and the collective property is also the destruction of the wealth of national taxpayers and collective property owners. Prior to the disaster, local emergency departments had issued warnings for several days and gave advance notice of the location of shelters to those who might be affected. After the disaster, the government's disaster relief department immediately launched rescue work for the missing and injured. Relevant emergency agencies integrated law enforcement, fire, and other departments to try their best to ensure the safety of the lives and property of the victims.
The disaster relief department used police dogs and UAVs to cooperate with ground search and rescue personnel in carpet search and rescue (Alijah, 2019). In the meanwhile, the injured who were found were rushed to the hospital and homeless people could also rest and live in temporary shelters with the help of officials and volunteers. In addition, in order to ensure the safety of students, all schools were closed until the tornado of Lee County completely subsided. What’s more, The local government is also actively restoring power supply after the disaster and trying to clean up the debris on highways and urban roads to ensure the normal life of citizens and daily traffic and transportation.
Finally, officials and various volunteer organizations have also published online pages to receive donations from people in the affected areas, so as to gather more people to help the victims (Chip, 2019). Based on the result of tornado disease, although most residents survived, the death toll from the tornado was the worst since 2013 which means disaster warning systems have not been effective enough (Alijah, 2019). However, Government departments play an important role in personnel rescue, infrastructure reconstruction, people's life recovery and power, roads and schools were restored within a week. In the meanwhile, the victims have also been well accommodated. In order to avoid casualties and minimize property damage, all sectors of government related to natural disasters need to work together. For instance, the government natural disaster prediction department needs to improve the related technology of natural disaster prediction. Natural disaster prevention departments not only need to strengthen the publicity of natural disasters, but also need to implement a series of disaster prevention measures, such as evacuation and resettlement of people in areas that may be seriously affected by the disaster, and the establishment of shelters for people in disaster areas (Zahran, Tavani and Weiler, 2013).
After the disaster occurs, the disaster relief department should participate in the rescue in a timely manner and try to complete all relief work within the golden time of rescue. At the same time, government infrastructure construction departments should also more quickly restore roads, water, electricity and other normal living needs of residents.
