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A subvortex of the infamous El Reno 2013 tornado was responsible for the deaths of the TWISTEX head and probe team (Tim Samaras, his son Paul Samaras, and researcher Carl Young) as well as an amateur chaser (Richard Henderson.)

2 - The Dead Man Walking Legend:

Ok. Once upon a time, the people making a documentary about the 1997 Jarrell tornado needed a way to make the infamous Dead Man Walking photo even more ominous and after cursory research figured that people wouldn't look too hard if they termed it an "Indian Legend."

And like many things, there are some grains of truth hidden in there, but the whole of it is that no. This legend is made up. (Don't worry OP, it's not your fault that TLC is full of shit, especially as it's become harder and harder to find the original source of this.)

So what is true in the Dead Man Walking and Native American tradition and mythology?

2.1) The colloquialism for the "Dead Man Walking" itself is something I have struggled mightily to find the origin of. Nonetheless, based upon the research I have done, it seems the terming of the Scott Beckwith photo series as the "Dead Man Walking" did occur prior to the original documentary (aired in 1999), sometime in the immediate aftermath of the tornado itself. Further research indicates colloquial use of the term may potentially be older than this use, but I haven't got any concrete primary sources to back much of this up.

[Note: TLC appears to have eschewed this documentary from their history entirely. Possibly because of their bullshit. Information and history relevant to the documentary is very challenging to verify.]

2.2) Dead man walking, or more likely, an idiom which "dead man walking" is the idiomatic translation of, is potentially an actual phrase in Cherokee language, at least between some tribal elders. It has at least been recorded as a term regarding the stillness preceding violent storms, particularly tornadic ones. I've only found one good source for this, and while I do trust NPR and subsidiaries, I'm really inclined to take this with a grain of salt. If someone from the Cherokee Nation has more accurate and detailed knowledge than I do, I sincerely welcome their contribution. In fact, please correct me. I would genuinely like to know the answer to this!

2.3) The photo itself is part of an eight photo sequence of shots taken by Scott Beckwith of Jarrell, Texas [I cannot verify who this is exactly without digging into population rolls and census data which I simply do not care to do, but my guess is probably someone affiliated with either news or emergency officials given the location, positioning, and quality of the shots]. Despite popular belief, this is not a lost media from a video. It was a series of stills and captured much of the early life cycle of the tornado, and fuck yes, it's incredibly haunting. Here is the original TIME magazine spread.

2.4) While the Dead Man Walking legend is not real, there is a plethora of other Native American cultural associations, mythologies, and historical data regarding tornadoes and whirlwinds! I've found a variety of collections and news articles over time, and the most common mythology sources are the Kiowa Tribe, the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes, and the Shawnee Tribe. Once again, please feel free to correct or contribute to me!

3 - May 27th, 1997:

Ok OP, here's where I'm going to have to break with you on some accuracy notes. First, full disclosure, I do not have DAT [Damage Assessment Toolkit, available here] information on Jarrell, so I don't have a path map to share. Most EF5/F5 tornadoes are not recorded in the DAT for a variety of reasons, and the older the tornado is the less likely it is to be uploaded in the map. Nonetheless.

3.1) The Jarrell Tornado did not wipe the entire town of Jarrell off the map. It did, however, wipe out the entire Double Creek subdivision, where all of the 27 fatalities occurred. [I'm being a little pedantic here, but history indicates there were 38 single family residences in Double Creek at the time plus a plethora of mobile homes, a total of 40 "permanent structures" were wiped out.] First source here is the wiki page, the second is the official NCEI Storm Events record. For good measure, here is the NOAA Service Evaluation of the FWD and EWX offices of their responses on the day. Good stuff in there!

The particular degree of damage by the Jarrell tornado is indeed notable, even if partially due to the speed, or rather lack thereof, with which the tornado traversed the subdivision. Further examination indicated that many of these "permanent homes" were more equivalent to the modern manufactured home, which. Oh boy. I'll spare you the long rant, but suffice to say, they sure would not be much safer than a mobile home in a tornado. Anyway! It was indeed devastating, but to say Jarrell was wiped off the map is a severe over-exaggeration.

3.2) The Fujita Scale was already being discussed for revisions, and continued to be discussed for another nine years before the Enhanced Fujita Scale was finally revealed in 2006 and adopted in 2007.

It is CRITICAL to note that the EF Scale revisions included a DECREASE in the wind speeds estimated to have caused each successive category of tornado intensity. [The F5 Jarrell Tornado was rated as an F5 with wind speeds estimated at 261+ mph. Under the EF scale, an EF5 tornado has estimated wind speeds of 201+ mph.] Engineers found that that the wind speeds needed to attain various amounts of devastation were lower than the scale originally accounted for.

The Jarrell tornado did not rewrite the Fujita Scale. Revisions did not start until 2000.

And, though not particularly relevant to OP's points, the EF and Fujita Scales and subsequent tornado classification are entirely based upon evaluations of recorded damage, NOT wind speeds. The wind speeds are estimates. This is a fact that causes massive consternation among the younger third of the weather and storm-chasing community, and BOY is it equal parts entertaining and irritating.

OP, that's all for you! You honestly did pretty good given the information available to you. Now I'm going to turn over to the tags, and the things in those I am pretending not to rage over, and among others... Oh joy, Merry Christmas to me!

4 - I Live in X, Therefore:

4.1) No, where you live is not "safe from" or "never has" or any other variation of not experiencing tornadoes.

Antarctica remains the only continent to not have seen a tornado in recorded history. The Arctic and Antarctic Circles tend to be the rough boundary lines where tornado formation becomes improbable to impossible. Unless you live there, pipe down, because one day you will have your never.

4.2) First one I saw (paraphrased): "We [Cherokee] didn't live anywhere with common tornadoes before Andrew Jackson"

This is a misconception. Dixie Alley, the colloquial term for the US Southeast, has higher rates of long-track violent (EF4/EF5) tornadoes than Tornado Alley. In particular note are Mississippi, Northern Alabama, and Northern Georgia. 4/27/2011 should ring a few bells. There's also the fact that hurricanes do like to bring tornadoes, and the Gulf states (Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana...) are vulnerable to those.

The increased frequency of tornadoes in Dixie Alley in recent years can be at least partially attributed to better radar and spotter network coverage.

4.3) Next one: "Tornado Alley is shifting more South-Central Texas because of climate change"

I honest to god do not know who gave you this information but they are very wrong, and I am sorry that you were told this. I'm guessing it was a news org.

A common one you'll see is that Tornado Alley is shifting eastward, but data indicates a considerable portion of this "shift" is due to an increased awareness and capability to see tornadoes occurring via radar (or in person) in more rural areas of the Mississippi River and Tennessee Valleys. There is some evidence to suggest that the southern portions of the "classic" Tornado Alley, ie Texas, are potentially experiencing a lower frequency of tornado occurrence in more recent years.

South-Central Texas is at a particular local risk because storms like to jet off of the Edwards Plateau and Balcones Escarpment. Unfortunately, this process conveniently also works in reverse and can be a storm murderer, which makes forecasting a pain in the ass. Trust whoever your local office is!

4.4) "I'm glad I don't live in the US"

Oh buddy, have I got news for you. Canada is a frequent flyer, particularly in Manitoba, Alberta, and Ontario. Quebec and Saskatchewan also like to join in.

The UK is well known as being the most tornadoes per unit of land area per year, which is a fact that people seem to be frustrated by but makes perfect sense when you consider that the US is forty times the size of the UK.

Across Europe, Germany, France, Italy, the Czech Republic, Belgium, and even Russia (historically, anyway, we don't have a lot of recent data on that for obvious reasons) have some of the most deadly European ones on record, and the proliferation of waterspouts sends the tornado count for Europe absolutely soaring.

Asia, well. Bangladesh is known for some of the deadliest tornadoes in the world, and China tends to have quite a few yearly. I could keep going on but I'm sure the idea has been gotten at this point.

[I'm getting lazy with sources because it's 2:30 AM and I've been working on this since 9:30PM. This last set is verifiable on like, any national climate website for any country, and you can find easy links to those through the wikipedia page for tornado climatology.]

5 - Fear, Anxiety, Stress, Concern:

Ok, seeing as everyone was sufficiently scared even before I started griping, this is my time to remind everyone that if you live in the US, you have a handy system built into your phone to let you know about this. Your WEA alerts are built in and if you turned them off to avoid a National Test, you not only did not understand the assignment (The test supersedes the WEA settings), you took away your ability to receive alerts from the National Weather Service about exactly these situations. Go turn them back on, fools.

The next step is that when you hear/see one of those warnings issued, Do Not wait for the sirens to go off. They don't work indoors. Unless you're right next to one, you probably won't hear them. Then, Do Not wait until you see the tornado. I swear upon a stack of Bibles. It's not worth it. As someone who has seen them, I swear it's so not worth it.

Finally, just be safe about it, follow the directives, yes there is a high rate of false alarm but we're not issuing warnings because it's funny. Tornadoes move erratically and in frequent cases can "spin-up" in a matter of minutes, sometimes even before we can catch radar or spotter proof of one. Be proactive, be safe. If no basement or shelter, go for central rooms, no windows, pillows and bike helmets if you're at home, and always stick to the ground floor. The more walls between you and the storm, the better your chances are.

The good news is that Significant tornadoes [EF2+] are comparatively rare, I did all the math for it once, vague memory is telling me something like 6% of tornadoes in a given record are SigTor. The percentages for the previously described Violent tornadoes, EF4/EF5 categorized? Tenths of percentage points. The US averages around 1200 tornadoes per year last I checked. And we haven't had an official, unrevised EF5 tornado since May 20th, 2013, though there have certainly been storms that would fit the bill if construction wasn't shoddy. (No manufactured homes, folks!)

All this to say, you're not likely to directly experience a Jarrell in your lifetime. So you can rest a little easier knowing that.