Words: The Internet

I know the people of Moore are now looking at making storm cellars and/or basements mandatory for new homes now. I can’t understand why they aren’t required state-wide in the Tornado belt. I realize people don’t want to be legislated, but this is one of those few types of natural disasters that science has managed to help us understand enough to be warned about with enough notice to seek shelter, if only we would PREPARE for it.

If it saves one person, it would be worth it, don’t you think?

“Albert Ashwood, director of the State Department of Emergency Management, said the two schools that were hard hit — Plaza Towers in Moore and Briarwood Elementary in Oklahoma City — did not have safe rooms because the appropriate state financing had not been sought. The presence of safe rooms, he said, did “not necessarily” mean that more students would have survived, but it is a “mitigating” factor. “This was a very unique tornado,” he said. Despite being in a region prone to tornadoes — and being heavily damaged by one in 1999 — the City of Moore, according to its Web site, has no ordinance requiring storm safe rooms in public or private buildings, and the city itself lacks a community shelter. Plaza Towers had no underground shelter. A state lawmaker whose district includes Moore, Representative Mark McBride, said the deaths should force an examination of whether schools in Oklahoma should be required to have storm shelters.”