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The particular tornado that hit the metropolitan Oklahoma
City area directly killed 36 people, the most in the United States since the
10 April 1979 Wich ita Falls, Texas, tornado killed 42. The total
number of direct fatalities in the outbreak was 46, themost in the United
States since the Ohio–Pennsylvania outbreak of 31 May 1985 killed 76. Of the
36 fatalities in the Oklahoma City tornado, 11 occurred in mobile homes, and
18 of the 46 deaths caused by tornadoes in the outbreak were mobile home
residents. As we will discuss later, the problem of mobile home safety is
the biggest obstacle to reduction of tornado deaths in the United States.
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