Unacceptable the schools kept the kids on lock down and forced them to ride out a large and destructive tornado in HALLWAYS!

Agreed.

I thought they were in a shelter. Doesn't the schools there have shelters?

Had to have a death count to get support for terrorist tornado legislation.

Who wants to take bets that Westboro Baptist will show up at the childrens' funerals with thank god for dead children signs...

You assumed they were in shelters? If there were shelters we wouldn't be having this conversation. Excellent question

^^^ and one for the shelter idea ^^^

And what if they sent the kids home and their parents were still at work, what then if the parents couldn't get to their kids? Perhaps more kids would have died by themselves in their houses, alone?

Wow, isn't hindsight so marvelous.

There should be a nationwide reassessment of what is structurally strong enough to be used as a tornado shelter. The roof of the school was blown off and the wall crumbled, according to reports.

I feel what you are saying, but I dont know if I agree. Not only am I a Storm Chaser, Im a Meteorologist. I was in Moore today and watched the horror.
This was a HUGE tornado. I have never seen anything like it, and I was also in Joplin. But this was also a very rare tornado. This might go down as the largest ever.
For the most part, schools are pretty safe places when it comes to tornadoes. If you chase, as I do, you know that most tornadoes arent of the EF5 catagory like this one. Its VERY RARE that a tornado will kill kids at a school. In fact, a lot more kids are killed at their homes than at their schools.

Todays set up was a very large risk area. And there are 10s of 1000s of schools that were located in that tornado risk area. If people in tornado alley kept their kids home from school every time we had a tornado risk day, they would spend half their springs at home and would most likely have to go to school all year.

How many days do they issue watches and nothing happen? How do we set a benchmark for letting school out IF we MIGHT have a tornado.

Trust me, If it was my child.. I would wish the school had done something else. However, nothing will ever be 100%. We do what we can with the tools or data we have.

I grew up in "tornado alley" the hallways were the safest places in schools.

Other than Amarillo, TX the school was underground halfway and that was the hiding place

I live about a mile or so as the crow flies from their house, which is all it is, a house. I tell people I'm waiting for the day when I have to crawl under my table to duck and cover when something happens there.


The story I've heard is back in the early 80's Freddy started his cult as an anti-govt group. Later, when the internet came along, the group evolved somewhat into an anti-gay group, but much of what they do comes from their anti-government mentality. Freddy knocked a wall out of his house and added a room which he calls his church. If you want to be a deacon, usher, board member etc., people say you have to be a member of the Phelps family.

The solution is investing in EF-5 rated tornado shelters. PERIOD

idk how they do things in OK but here in new york we used to have high wind drills and they would put us in hallways away from windows, besides not much you can do during an f5 tornado

Agreed. Someone karma this guy

Don't complain. Donate to your money to build shelters if you feel strongly about it.

If the place has a name = tornado alley
Then the people in charge should have setup emergency procedures including shelters long ago.

In Oregon - the coastline sits on the fault line - or close to it and all along the coast are tsunami warning signs with escape plans - all the coastal communities have tsunami sirens
and they do tests regularly. it's a little scary visiting seeing all the preparations they have - but it would be allot scarier being caught in a tsunami without any warning or escape/evacuation route clearly mapped out.

Donate? that's what we pay TAXES for you idiot!

Agree 100%

Why a school in Moore, Ok is not equipped with safe rooms is beyond comprehension and borders on criminal, as a comparison my old school district in Choctaw, about 15 miles from Moore has a tornado safe room in EVERY school. Some serious questions need to be asked over this.....



This grade school had a frigging swimming pool but no tornado safe rooms?

So, you put them in houses and trailers instead that are completely destroyed? Or, risk having them on the road in a bus. Or, at home alone while their parents are at work?

Now, with that said, I agree with you in that I don't send mine to school on days when they are predicting tornadoes and when there have been violent tornadoes with the same storm system.

It costs about 6 grand to build a tornado shelter that holds about 4 people. How much do you suppose it would cost to build one that will hold a whole school full of students and teachers? And who would pay for that?

As sad as it seems, you cant be reactionary in situations like this. Like I stated before, schools are usually very safe places when it come to almost ALL TORNADOES, even without storm shelters.
Instead of being reactionary to todays horror, after the fact, you really have to do a COST/RISK analysis when it comes to tornadoes, shelters and schools. There are 100s of 1000s of schools that could be hit by a tornado in this country. Very very few of them will ever be hit by a tornado. And those that are hit by a tornado, in almost all cases, the children are perfectly OK. The chance of your kid being killed at school by a tornado are about like Powerball odds. It could happen, but chances are it never will. Now are local taxpayers willing to shell out the millions in tax dollars do build those shelters when the ODDS OF SOMETHING LIKE TODAY HAPPENING ARE LIKE POWERBALL ODDS? I dont think so.

One up you. My family will never been near the path of an approaching tornado. We go on a road trip well in advance. 11years now and my family knows the safest place to be is out of the path. Its actually quite nice. Out of the blue middle of the night trips to McDonald's are great! Haven't done that one in years. When my family isn't in danger I'm out chasing and spotting for local skywarn wherever I'm at. Have yet to come across damage with injured people. I'm ready if it happens. After storms I help people restore their homes for living. Trust me I'm doing my part.

If I were a parent I would be pretty upset with the school system. If it were apparent that a massive storm was brewing and capable of producing a tornado then everyone had some warning. I would say with this storm it was being discussed ahead of time. People did have some warning that it was going to happen. Kids are supposed to be safe at school. If the school is aware that kids are not going to be safe even in the hallways, the best they could do is to try to call off school that day. Then at least you don't have kids all sheltering in one location.

Many people all over town may have been hurt or died, but at least you don't have one location that is unsafe and hundreds of kids in this one place.

Then at least the school would not have the kid's blood on their hands. The parents or guardians of these kids would have to find a place to shelter. The school should contact the parents for them to pick their kids up from school. The school can then suggest a route to take out of town or a place in town with a basement to shelter in. Parents would have to decide then where to take their kids. They should be given lists of places to go or some suggestions.

It isn't safe to just let kids go home if their home is a trailer park. In this case the school could bus kids some alternate place.

"In fact, a lot more kids are killed at their homes than at their schools."

Perhaps because there are hundreds of kids, with hundreds of homes ... and there is only one school ...

.......

Where were the shelters? There is sufficient technology for shelters that can withstand this tornado NO PROBLEM. Politics and people were caught sleeping on their job. I do everything I can all the time.

That's why I'm calling it out. Unacceptable.

BS, your costs are for a company to come out and build one for you, building shelters in new constructions is far cheaper


See my above post of my old school district building tornado safe rooms in EVER School in the district, its called bond money

Homes were completely destroyed also. They said that many homes don't have basements, so the kids might not have been any safer in their own homes. They even reported that a woman and her child were killed in a hospital.

I haven't heard anything about them having a swimming pool. I did look at pics on Google maps, and Plaza Towers looks to be a pretty old building, although there are a few newer buildings on campus (and what looks to be like a few portable classrooms). The other school that was hit - Briarwood - looks like it was a newer building. This could be why all of those kids survived and Plaza Towers had numerous fatalities.

I rode out many tornadoes in a school hallway. In high school, however, all of our classrooms opened up to a quad area outside. There were no hallways. I remember sitting in the classroom in our "safe position," which was merely to sit against the wall closest to the interior quad and put a book on your head, and watched a tornado touch down on the football field. In elementary school, we had one hit and blow the windows out of the classrooms. And, another time in elementary school, one sucked the doors out closest to where I was sitting. Turns out the teachers forgot to chain them like they were supposed to. That was pretty scary because you could feel the wind blowing through the hallways. I think I was in 5th grade for that one. Second grade for the one that blew the windows out. And, 10th grade for the one in high school. And, in 7th grade when one hit my house and 1st grade when one hit my grandparents place while I was there. Apparently I'm a tornado magnet. (Also had one go over my house when I was in my 20s).

That's just sad. Words can not cover it.