Talk:2011 St. Louis tornado

Page moved
Just leaving a note about why I moved the page from 2011 Good Friday Tornado to 2011 St. Louis tornado. First off, the original title is way too ambiguous for a single tornado. Unlike tornado outbreaks which occur over large areas, a single tornado is generally confined to a few counties (the ones that warrant articles) and the main area impacted is reflected in the title. Additionally, there were other tornadoes that took place on the same day elsewhere, so people impacted by those may think it's a completely different event. The change in capitalization is per WP:MOS. Cyclonebiskit (talk) 13:24, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Since many press sources, and the NOAA site, are referring to it as the Good Friday Tornado, I went ahead and added that as an alternate title to the lead. Once things settle down, we can see if the press settles on a formal name of the event. Then we can move the Wikipedia article, or not, depending on the consensus title of outside sources. --Elonka 19:36, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
 * The local press (St. Louis Post-Dispatch, KTVI, KMOV, KSDK and KPLR) have predominantly been using the name Good Friday Tornado since it is clear in context to people who live in the St. Louis, Missouri area. The Good Friday Tornado is likely to be the preferred local name since a number of churches were severely damages during Good Friday services. This tornado follows a major tornado that occurred in the St. Louis area on New Years Eve (December 31, 2010). The current name of the article should be clear unless the St. Louis area has another major tornado in 2011. --Dan Dassow (talk) 21:20, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

What Infobox are we using?
Are we using Template:Infobox tornado single since the article seems to convey that only the St. Louis tornado is notable, or are we using a tornado outbreak box? - Marcusmax  ( speak ) 13:58, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I think we should go with the single tornado infobox. The other four tornadoes were scattered across three other states and only one was above EF0. Cyclonebiskit (talk) 14:07, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Thats kind of what I think was thinking as well, were those tornadoes from yesterday part of the same system though? - Marcusmax  ( speak ) 14:35, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Yea but the article can just be focused on the single tornado rather than the overall event since it was many times more notable. Cyclonebiskit (talk) 14:37, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Sounds good to me. - Marcusmax  ( speak ) 14:57, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Marcusmax, thanks for pointing out the NOAA maps. It's not clear whether the Good Friday Tornado Event is one tornado that lost most of its strength after hitting New Melle, Missouri and reconstituted in Maryland Heights, Missouri, or two seperate tornadoes created by the same storm system. The path shown in the St. Charles County tornato and the St. Louis and Madison Counties tornado appear to be along the same path. --Dan Dassow (talk) 00:37, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

Storm path
Kent Ehrhardt on KMOV reported the following storm path. I will look for a citation to support this report. --Dan Dassow (talk) 15:02, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Warrenton, Missouri
 * New Melle, Missouri
 * Weldon Spring, Missouri
 * Creve Coeur, Missouri
 * Maryland Heights, Missouri
 * Bridgeton, Missouri
 * St. Ann, Missouri
 * Lambert-St. Louis International Airport
 * Berkeley, Missouri
 * Ferguson, Missouri
 * Dellwood, Missouri
 * Bellefontaine Neighbors, Missouri
 * Granite City, Illinois
 * Highland, Illinois
 * Saint Rose, Illinois
 * This map should be of help. - Marcusmax  ( speak ) 18:15, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Tornadoes damage hundreds of Missouri homes, force closure of airport
Some relevant material there ^. / ƒETCH COMMS  /  18:20, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Text from Late-April 2011 tornado outbreak sequence article
Here is the text that was split out of the tornado outbreak sequence due to consensus to break it up. - Running On Brains (talk) 11:10, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

St. Louis tornado
The most destructive tornado of the first part of the outbreak hit St. Louis, Missouri and surrounding suburbs on the evening of April 22. It was the strongest to impact St. Louis County or City since January 1967, was rated an EF4 at its strongest point with winds exceeding 165 mph. In its 22-mile track across the St. Louis metropolitan area, it damaged approximately two hundred homes, left thousands without power, and made a direct hit on the main terminal of Lambert-St. Louis International Airport, causing the airport to be completely shutdown for just under 24 hours.

It is believed that the tornado that struck St. Louis' main airport also struck the community of New Melle, located in St. Charles County, about thirty miles to the west of the airport. High winds also damaged approximately fifty homes in Maryland Heights, a suburb of St. Louis.

At approximately 8:10PM, the tornado struck Lambert-St. Louis International Airport, the state of Missouri's largest airport. When the tornado hit, there were three aircraft on the tarmac with passengers on-board, as well as numerous passengers and other individuals in various locations inside of the airport's terminals.

Lambert Airport released surveillance video showing debris swirling inside the airport. It was reported that an aircraft was moved away from its jetway by the storm, with passengers still on-board. One plane from Southwest Airlines was damaged when the wind pushed a conveyor belt used for loading baggage into it. American Airlines said that four of its planes were damaged, two of them significantly. One was buffeted by 80 MPH crosswinds while taxiing in from a landing when the tornado hit and the other has possible damage to its landing gear. On April 23, the tornado was rated an EF2 storm at the time that it struck the airport.

As a result of the storm, the airport was temporarily closed by the FAA on Apr 22 at 08:54 PM CDT. The airport reopened, albeit at lower capacity, on April 23 and was expected to be at 70% capacity on April 24.

More than 54,000 customers of the utility company, Ameren, were left without power after the storm; more than 47,000 in Missouri and approximately 7,000 in Illinois.

By 5:40am on April 24, just 21,667 customers were still without power in Missouri and 131 in Illinois.

On April 24, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported over 2700 buildings severely damaged in St. Louis County, including 900 in Bridgeton, 450 in Berkeley and 1170 in Maryland Heights.

There were no deaths and relatively few injuries, which has led many to say that it was a "miracle." Losses from the tornado exceeded $40 million, most of which took place at the airport.

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Does this tornado really need its own article?
It's a question that's been on my mind for some time. While this tornado was notable and would warrant an article had it occurred as an isolated event, we already have an article about the outbreak that produced it. Generally, we've only split a tornado off from its outbreak article if it was exceptionally devastating such as the 1999 and 2013 Moore tornadoes. So should this tornado be merged with the outbreak article? TornadoLGS (talk) 22:58, 27 November 2018 (UTC)
 * I agree. I am proposing it to be merged for the same reasons you listed above. This is much better off as a section, which there is none, as it would keep it in one place and not violate WP:CFORK. 68.129.11.36 (talk) 16:54, 19 April 2022 (UTC)


 * Oppose Merge – This tornado was notable enough and encountered enough media attention that it should remain as a standalone article. This is not a WP:CFORK because it covers information not present in the other article. United States Man (talk) 17:18, 19 April 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm more neutral to weakly opposed now, in part because I found the initially reported damage cost was actually much lower than the actual cost. TornadoLGS (talk) 18:00, 19 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Oppose - if we can't have an article on an EF4 hitting St. Louis, then we're really narrowing down the list of tornadoes articles we can make. There's not too much more notable. TropicalAnalystwx13 (talk · contributions) 19:40, 19 April 2022 (UTC)
 * We already have an article on the event, Tornado outbreak sequence of April 19-24, 2011. When this doesn’t even have a section in that article, having a standalone article violates WP:CFORK, as it is forcing readers to click into another article to find information on this tornado. Fails WP:SPINOFF. --69.112.204.237 (talk) 21:14, 19 April 2022 (UTC)
 * You seem to know a lot about policy for an anon editor. Are you a registered editor editing anonymously under different IP addresses? United States Man (talk) 22:16, 19 April 2022 (UTC)
 * My first suspicion is that this is, but I'm not quite sure. TornadoLGS (talk) 01:07, 20 April 2022 (UTC)


 * Weak oppose. The tornado was notable enough that a standalone article could go into detail warranted for an online encyclopedia not subject to space constraints of print but which might be overly long in the main article. A section summary in the outbreak/sequence article linking to this tornado for those wanting more information seems prudent. Evolauxia (talk) 23:35, 24 April 2022 (UTC)