CHRON.COM - The first ever multi-vortex F5 tornado on record spurred life-saving advancements in weather science.
...“It very much resembled a movie set of a bombed city during World War II.” - Robert
Taylor, CEO of United Supermarkets; Texas Tech student...
...“This was the tornado Dr. Ted Fujita used to create and to theorize his Fujita
scale, which is used to determine the destructive capacity of cataclysmic wind events,
particularly tornadoes,” said Texas Tech historian Monte Monroe. “That's where we
get the F1 Through F5 scale, and now the EF 1 through 5 scale. The 1970 tornado was
the first documented multi-vortex F5 Fujita Scale tornado in history.”...
...The Fujita Scale wasn't the only technology born from the destruction. The Texas Legislature and Governor Preston Smith had granted University status to Texas Tech in 1969, and after the tornado, Texas Tech President Grover Murray created the Institute for Disaster Research (IDR)...
...Texas Tech researcher, Dr. Ernst Kiesling created the first above-ground residential storm shelter and developed the National Storm Shelter Association, earning him the nickname of “Father of the Safe Room.”...
...Dr. Richard Peterson helped create IDR's Wind Science and Engineering (WISE) Research
Center at Texas Tech University, which positioned the university as an international
leader in disaster and wind-related research...
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