User blog comment:Hurricane Layten/On this day:May 22, 2011/@comment-26014793-20170523002951

What's interesting is that this tornado's death toll would have been incredibly high even by 1800s standards. Other violent tornadoes have cut through large cities, like the 1999 Moore, OK tornado, the 2011 Tuscaloosa/Birmingham, AL tornado, and the 2013 Moore, OK tornado, and all three were at least as violent as the Joplin tornado itself. So why was the Tuscaloosa tornado's death toll less than half as high as the Joplin tornado's? I've done some research and I think I've found  a few reasons.

1. The tornado left no signs of EF3 or stronger damage until it was actually in the city itself. Because of this, no tornado emergency, or even PDS warning, was ever issued, and not many people realized how serious the situation was. The Tuscaloosa tornado, on the other hand, was at EF3-EF4 strength within 2 minutes of touching down, giving chasers time to report the severe damage and the NWS to issue one of the strongest-worded tornado emergencies ever given before the tornado hit Tuscaloosa itself, so people were well aware that the approaching tornado was not an "average" one.

2. Joplin was very liberal with sounding the tornado sirens, even setting them off for severe thunderstorm warnings before the tornado. On May 22, the tornado sirens had been set off three times earlier in the day and were set off for the parent supercell 20 minutes before the tornado actually touched down. Because of this, many people were desensitized and just continued their normal evening business. It was pretty much a classic, and tragic, case of "cry wolf syndrome".