<p>My understanding is that it i sveryhard to build basements around that area because it is mostly rock and has to be blasted which is very costly. But a small shelter still should be feasible/required.</p>
<p>The main reason that many homes in OK do not have basements is that the soil is too rocky–nearly impossible/very expensive to dig into. (ditto Barrons)</p>
<p>When I heard that schools had been hit, my first thought was, “I can’t believe they have schools without basements–in OK!”
Then I realized that only 1 of the 3 schools my kids attend in KS has a basement. (And almost all homes in the area DO have basements.) Students have gone into their safe areas only once in 5 years that we’ve been here, and even then, there was no serious threat. (Very small twister in area but not that close to schools.) </p>
<p>The chances of a tornado hitting any one particular building are very small–people think it that being in a building without a basement, even during tornado season, is a reasonable risk to take. Even in tornado alley, we have a much greater chance of dying in a car accident than in a tornado. We still drive cars, but we wear seatbelts, have airbags, drive defensively, and constantly try to improve our roads/signs/laws to minimize the risk. For tornadoes, we have forecasts/sirens/warning systems/shelters.
Just like the seatbelts, etc.–these warnings/shelters save lives, but there is still a risk. </p>
<p>Whenever anything terrible happens, people try to improve devices/procedures to prevent a similar event in the future. What are the chances of a school shooting like Sandy Hook happening at any particular school? Pretty small and unpredictable. Yet since last Dec.'s tragedy, our district has tightened its security, is remodeling the entrances to several schools, and has asked teachers/counselors/students to increase awareness of/outreach to those at risk of “social isolation.” All this to minimize a very tiny risk–which was always there, but not brought to mind recently until Sandy Hook.
I suppose the district will now consider underground shelters in schools that don’t have them.
BTW, as we listened to the radio during and immediately after the tornado,(we were in Moore) the local OKC reporters were offering their prayers at that time. (Not praying on air, but asking people to pray, or telling the audience they were praying for those suffering, etc. ) This is just what is done in a crisis there, vast majority of the people are religious, so it would seem strange if they didn’t say these things.</p>
<p>After watching the video of that monster storm, the last thing I want to do is arm chair quarterback a community that took enough precautions to keep the death toll so low. And though one child is one child too many —I am sure no one feels that pain more than the folks in OK. New precautions will be made. I shudder to think what will happen when we in Southern California eventually experience a monster quake.</p>
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<p>1.That would give us very few places to live. No way is that a feasible point of view.</p>
<p>2.We can do things to protect our individual safety, but there is no way to make all of our homes impervious to disaster. If an EF-5 tornado hits your house, there will be nothing left of it. Period. That is assuming you are the average American who cannot afford to build a house-sized tornado shelter. Just not feasible for most people.</p>
<p>By the way, while there is a Tornado Alley where tornadoes are more likely to occur, tornadoes have occurred in every single state. No one can say it could never happen to them.</p>
<p>Two interesting pieces from CNN:</p>
<p>[Basements</a> scarce in Moore, Oklahoma - CNN.com](<a href=“http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/22/us/oklahoma-tornado-basements/index.html]Basements”>http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/22/us/oklahoma-tornado-basements/index.html)</p>
<p>And also this:</p>
<p>[Moore</a> mayor: New law needed to keep people safe - CNN.com](<a href=“http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/22/us/oklahoma-tornado/index.html?hpt=hp_t1]Moore”>http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/22/us/oklahoma-tornado/index.html?hpt=hp_t1)</p>
<p>And on the subject of God and prayer during these kinds of events:</p>
<p><a href=“http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2013/05/21/who-hears-prayersforoklahoma/?hpt=hp_c2[/url]”>http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2013/05/21/who-hears-prayersforoklahoma/?hpt=hp_c2</a></p>
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<p>SE Michigan. I was just telling my children how odd it is that we are not much at risk of a major natural disaster.</p>
<p>Tornadoes are not common, deadly ones even less so. No hurricanes. No earthquakes worth mentioning. No forest fires. We don’t even get the lake effect snows that other parts of the state get.</p>
<p>No dustbowl droughts. No widespread flooding. No swarms of locusts. I can’t think of a natural disaster that is likely to hit this region. So come to SE Michigan, but bring your jobs with you.</p>
<p>^^^^^So is there room there for the multi-, multi-millions of us who can’t say no natural disaster could possibly occur where we live? :)</p>
<p>VM, I’ve been through a tornado in Monroe County. There was also one near my school in Garden City about ten years ago. We are NOT immune. </p>
<p>However, I’ll agree that we’re mostly protected. Tornadoes are more common here than people think.</p>
<p>According to the NYT article, they mostly build on slab for the same reason they build on slab elsewhere: the ground stays warm enough that the risk of frost heave isn’t great. It may have been difficult to build a basement by hand in clay, but it isn’t with a digger. And basements can be waterproofed, same as anything else - and the water table is generally not at the surface in OK, which is mostly parched. It is at the surface in parts of Florida or Louisiana. </p>
<p>The main reason no underground shelters are mandated: about $4k per new home for a prefabricated sunken shelter. The key in there is the $4k. </p>
<p>And the other reason: quoting a builder, “Most homebuilders would be against that because we think the market ought to drive what people are putting in the houses, not the government.” In other words, if you can’t afford a house with a shelter, you’re out of luck because the market says you can’t have one.</p>
<p>And that is why I’m mad at having to watch video of people discovering a dead child … when they won’t mandate a $4k basement … but they want poor people in other states to pay for their inaction.</p>
<p>BTW, if you want to live where you don’t have disasters hitting you, you have many options. You could, for example, live where I do. We get hurricanes and sometimes blizzards. That is why they have building codes to protect us. If you have money, you could afford to build a shelter underground and live in OK. This is a point of government: assuming the “market” is going to provide extra sturdy houses to protect against hurricanes or shelters against tornadoes only works for people with money and government acts to protect the people who don’t have. So you can live anywhere, but I’d suggest a place where the government makes it safer.</p>
<p>I think the greater reaction to Sandy on this board than the tornado is natural-more people who frequent this site were personally affected by Sandy than the devastation in OK. Part of the process of recovery is talking through what you’ve seen and experienced, so while people may have just as much empathy for those whose homes were destroyed by the tornado they may have had more to say about Sandy.</p>
<p>I feel horrible for those in the tornado’s path. Recovery will be long and the community will feel the loss of both lives and property for a long, long time. I haven’t posted before now because I didn’t have any information to add and to simply post to say, “wow that’s horrible” seemed unnecessary.</p>
<p>Romani, I knew you’d have some input. :)</p>
<p>I live near Dexter, which was hit by a tornado last spring. Thankfully it was isolated and no one was killed. Also thankfully, most houses in this region have basements.</p>
<p>I’ve got nothing against people living in higher-risk areas. I’d have a house on the Gulf Coast in a second if we could afford it!</p>
<p>But we would absolutely have hurricane/flood insurance or a basement, if we moved to Tornado Alley… even if that meant having a smaller home to compensate for the cost. The odds of a tornado striking our particular house might be small but they would feel big enough to me. They don’t call it Tornado Alley because it’s all sunshine and blue skies.</p>
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<p>They can mandate shelters to protect lives, but there is no way to ensure that property won’t be damaged-particularly in the event of an EF-4 or EF-5.</p>
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<p>Also, this tornado decimated one smallish town. Sandy hit a very large area. Just goes to figure it would affect more people and get more conversations going.</p>
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<p>If it had hit 9-10 miles to the East on the other side of I-35 it would have hit Norman Oklahoma where Oklahoma University is located. If it had decimated the football stadium no telling how many more conversations would have started.</p>
<p>^This is a good opportunity to discuss disaster evacuation plans with your students. The sort of advice given by school administration is not always the best. When D was studying in pre Katrina New Orleans her school advised students who lived off campus to get to the Superdome stadium rather than evacuate the city. Thank God her voice teacher told her to get the heck out of town instead. So if your student is in a disaster prone area(storms or earthquakes)…do your own homework and have a plan that can be implemented in a moments notice.</p>
<p>My elementary school was a very tiny Catholic school that had walls of windows in every classroom. We did the drills and everything but when the real sirens came, they kept us in our classroom. Luckily, the tornado was quite a ways away but parents were furious. As they had every right to be. I don’t know how many of us would have been killed in those glass rooms. The hallways were windowless that’s why we were supposed to go there.</p>
<p>VM, the one that I saw in Monroe County came from the same system that destroyed the water park (Dundee?). They seem to get more than their fair share of tornadoes.</p>
<p>I remember the tornado drills of elementary school life. Always unnerved me. But I did know where to go in the event the sirens started going off. Never happened, luckily.</p>
<p>I remember the drills in elementary school in case of an A-bomb attack!!! Under the desk, duck and cover.</p>
<h1>94–you mean a few miles to the south? (U. of OK is SSE of the area of major damage, and due south of significant damage on the east side of the highway).</h1>
<p>I live in SE Michigan too and vaguely consider seeing if I can have a tornado shelter dug every time we have a severe storm. Seems for some reason there aren’t too many companies out here who have experience doing that, do you think maybe I’m crazy?!</p>
<p>I spent a frightful night in Washtenaw County a few years ago hiding in a hallway in a dorm as cell after cell after cell hit all night long, with twisters not far away. The sirens were on all night. If it can happen to somebody, it can just as easily happen to you. And it’s just not practical to drive someplace with a basement every time there’s a thunder storm, and by the time the sirens are on it may very well already be too late.</p>
<p>Fun fact, the weather channel website had a top ten tornado states list a few months ago, and number one was not a tornado alley state, it was Florida.</p>