Associated Press
A deadly tornado blew through a heavily polluted former mining town where lead-filled waste is piled into giant mounds, sparking the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to check for high lead levels on Monday.
The tornado was one of several that combined to kill 22 people in the Midwest and the South over the weekend, raising the nation's 2008 total to about a hundred, the worst toll in a decade.
This year is on pace to see the most deaths since 130 people were killed in 1998, the eighth highest total since 1950, according to the National Weather Service. The record is 519 tornado-related deaths in 1953.
(Related news: "Strange Winter-Tornadoes Tear Through Midwest, Kill One" [January 8, 2008].)
Toxic Hot Spot
In Picher, the devastation was complicated by the town's status as one of the most polluted hazardous-waste sites in the nation.
Miles Tolbert, the Oklahoma secretary of the environment, said he did not think there was an immediate public health hazard to the town's 800 residents, but more testing is needed to be certain.
On Saturday, a tornado with the second-strongest rating killed six people, destroyed a 20-block area, and blew dust off mountains of mining waste, or chat piles.
"You can look at the chat piles and see that a lot of the material has blown off," said John Sparkman, head of the Picher housing authority. "We went up on a chat pile an hour and a half after the tornado hit, and you could see dust blowing fine material all over the place from that vantage point."
Long-term exposure to lead dust poses a health risk, particularly to young children.
Rare Strength
National Weather Service assessment teams determined the twister that hit Picher had an EF-4 rating, the second highest rating, and was 1-mile-wide (1.6-kilometer-wide) at its widest point, meteorologist Mike Teague said Monday.
