Not politics, but we don't really have another 'state' topic area...
If anyone is so inclined, here is a kind of central location information source for Moore. As always, Salvation Army always works to funnel aid where needed....
guido, there is a law firm in OKC that is making a challenge - matching donations from any lawyer in the state up to $10,000!!
http://kfor.com/2013/05/21/tornado-relief-drop-off-locations-around-metro-okc/
In California & Japan they have Earth-Quake requirements and standards for buildings. In FL they have hurricane building standards. In the heart of the heart of "tornado alley" there are no standards for buildings when it comes to wind speed or tornados. Instead of building schools with all those fancy frills and cosmetic designs why not invest that money to make a school stronger and more storm resistant, one way would be to use steel frames instead of blocks and metal trusses, and use domes, studies show that a dome can resist more wind speed than a non-dome. Homes can have steel mountings on the foundation slab where the 2X4's are bolted on to - sure a severe storm can snap off the 2X4's from the steel beam, but it has to remembered that less than one percent of all twisters are F-4 & F-5. Stronger buildings won't hurt. Better Construction is a good place to start.
Quote from: sauerkraut on May 25, 2013, 04:41:15 PM
In the heart of the heart of "tornado alley" there are no standards for buildings when it comes to wind speed or tornados.
Actually, there are wind standards but they are not EF-5 tornado proof.
Quote from: Red Arrow on May 25, 2013, 10:25:50 PM
Actually, there are wind standards but they are not EF-5 tornado proof.
Nothing is, except perhaps a cement bunker. The nader pulled grass out of the ground.
Quote from: Gaspar on May 28, 2013, 07:55:51 AM
Nothing is, except perhaps a cement bunker. The nader pulled grass out of the ground.
You'd be a hell of a lot more safe however, even in a saferoom above ground, then in ANY room in your house during a tornado the size of the one last week in Moore.
Mother's condition makes it a bit difficult for me to consider an 'in ground' solution, so we will likely go with an above ground in the backyard somewhere.
Quote from: Hoss on May 28, 2013, 08:23:14 AM
You'd be a hell of a lot more safe however, even in a saferoom above ground, then in ANY room in your house during a tornado the size of the one last week in Moore.
Mother's condition makes it a bit difficult for me to consider an 'in ground' solution, so we will likely go with an above ground in the backyard somewhere.
I would be very interested to see if anyone in the area had one of the steel safe-rooms so popular with the builders now. I would assume after 99' that at least a few people in that area had such, yet I haven't heard any reports.
Anyone heard about a safe-room living up to "the test?"
Quote from: Gaspar on May 28, 2013, 09:04:36 AM
I would be very interested to see if anyone in the area had one of the steel safe-rooms so popular with the builders now. I would assume after 99' that at least a few people in that area had such, yet I haven't heard any reports.
Anyone heard about a safe-room living up to "the test?"
According to the emergency management director of Moore, since the 1999 tornado, about 10% of the homes in Moore had storm shelters or safe rooms. I had found this article last week, it's from late April 2013. Also goes into detail the role of FEMA in recovery efforts.
http://www.joplinglobe.com/cnhi_special_projects/x2002132914/Disaster-Dollars-Money-spent-beforehand-blunts-the-impact-of-disasters
I suspect many in Moore thought the 1999 tornado was a once in a lifetime event so they figured "what's the point in putting in a safe room or shelter?" Turns out it was not and I suspect as a result there will be brisk demand for safe rooms and storm shelters. I also suspect due to the deaths in the schools safe rooms or shelters will become design standards from now on out. I have also seen a number of RFQ's over the years for safe rooms in rural school systems. Seems like there was a spate of them after the porkulus bill of '09 was trotted out.
My personal preference would be in-ground with a sliding lid like people have installed flush with their garage floor. I'm claustrophobic so the idea of something landing in front of a swing out door and not being able to get out until help arrives really wigs me out. A guy I went to Jenks with lost his home in the Piedmont tornado and with it, his above-ground safe room. Yet his neighbor's safe room was still secured to the slab. No idea if it was inferior lagging used on Kelly's installation or quite simply the randomness of destruction we see with tornados you simply cannot engineer around.
And from this report investigating damage to engineered structures in the '99 Moore/OKC tornado it seems there's still quite a bit we do not know about engineering around these disasters:
QuoteUnfortunately, much is unknown about the nature of large tornadoes and the loads that they generate on structures. A better understanding of the tornadoes, the wind speeds, and the wind loads they generate is necessary for engineers to be able to design safer and more risk-consistent structures. It will also help to speed the acceptance of better building codes, and will allow better estimation of the true risk of losses due to large tornadoes.
Achieving this understanding will require considerably more data, as well as better methods of classifying tornadoes.
Interesting read:
http://fire.nist.gov/bfrlpubs/build02/PDF/b02166.pdf
Quote from: Conan71 on May 28, 2013, 09:35:50 AM
My personal preference would be in-ground with a sliding lid like people have installed flush with their garage floor. I'm claustrophobic so the idea of something landing in front of a swing out door and not being able to get out until help arrives really wigs me out.
I have an above-ground safe room in my garage. I agree that below ground is better, and I grew up with a cellar in SW OK and rode out more than a few tornado warnings in the 70's inside it, but I sit on solid limestone up here in Owasso and the cost to dig out an in-ground room was ridiculous. One point on the comment above, the above ground models (at least all that I looked at a few years back when we moved back up here) have doors that open in, not out. So that if debris lodges against the outside you can still open the door and get out.
Quote from: rebound on May 28, 2013, 12:26:02 PM
I have an above-ground safe room in my garage. I agree that below ground is better, and I grew up with a cellar in SW OK and rode out more than a few tornado warnings in the 70's inside it, but I sit on solid limestone up here in Owasso and the cost to dig out an in-ground room was ridiculous. One point on the comment above, the above ground models (at least all that I looked at a few years back when we moved back up here) have doors that open in, not out. So that if debris lodges against the outside you can still open the door and get out.
That is good to know, maybe I can breathe now when I think of an above-ground safe room! History tends to be on our side up in this area as far as the Tulsa area never having a recorded EF-5 event, and even an EF-4 is quite rare with only two events in the Tulsa area. That's not to say our luck holds out forever, but suggests an above ground shelter should be sufficient.
http://www.srh.noaa.gov/oun/?n=tornadodata-county-ok-tulsa
In-ground pools are common here, and a lot tougher to dig than a septic-tank-sized shelter.
Ive read the difference between being in a car and an above-ground shelter is that you have a chance of escaping in a car.
Joplin rescuers pulled bodies out of above-ground shelters that tore from their bolts, but by the same token, a man in a basement was killed when an airborne car sailed thru the floors to find him.
No perfect answer, but underground always has the advantage.
Quote from: patric on May 28, 2013, 02:29:21 PM
In-ground pools are common here, and a lot tougher to dig than a septic-tank-sized shelter.
Ive read the difference between being in a car and an above-ground shelter is that you have a chance of escaping in a car.
Joplin rescuers pulled bodies out of above-ground shelters that tore from their bolts, but by the same token, a man in a basement was killed when an airborne car sailed thru the floors to find him.
No perfect answer, but underground always has the advantage.
I wasn't doubting the veracity of your claim about Joplin, but rather looking for stats on above vs. below grade shelters and found this:
QuoteAt least 24 people are dead after a powerful tornado tore through Moore, Okla., Monday. "Numerous neighborhoods were completely leveled," Sgt. Gary Knight of the Oklahoma City Police Department told the New York Times. According to Moore resident Ricky Stover, the twister even tore open his locked cellar door. Is anywhere safe in such a powerful tornado?
Yes. While there are several recorded instances of powerful storms ripping open the doors to storm cellars and other shelters, no such instance has been documented with a shelter tested and approved by the National Wind Institute (NWI) at Texas Tech University. While other storm shelters may be old or poorly designed in the first place, the shelters approved by the NWI are designed to withstand winds up to 250 mph, which includes nearly all recorded tornadoes (including Monday's) and most tornadoes rated as EF5s on the Enhanced Fujita scale. In the case of the EF5 tornado that touched down in Joplin, Mo., in 2011, the deadliest twister in decades, all 11 aboveground shelters in the area protected their occupants. In 1999, only one year after FEMA published its modern standards for in-residence shelters, an above-ground shelter survived the record-breaking F5 tornado around Oklahoma City, which also passed through Moore.
No idea if these were public shelters or safe rooms inside homes.
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/explainer/2013/05/oklahoma_tornado_storm_shelters_where_is_the_safest_place_in_a_tornado.html
Here's FEMA's codes regarding shelter construction:
http://www.fema.gov/safe-room-resources/fema-p-320-taking-shelter-storm-building-safe-room-your-home-or-small-business
Article I was reading with the link to FEMA which said the following:
QuoteI have friends in the area who said many homes in Moore, Oklahoma had been swept away down to the carpet with only a safe room left standing. Make sure whoever is installing your shelter builds it to FEMA P-320 Codes.
http://5newsonline.com/2013/05/28/garretts-blog-local-storm-shelter-companies/
And finally, an analysis by FEMA of the effectiveness of above-ground shelters. Lots of good tornado geek reading.
http://www.usfa.fema.gov/pdf/efop/efo32171.pdf
Here is a national Fox News story quoting my mother...it was also carried in hundreds of papers and TV broadcasts
http://www.foxnews.com/weather/2013/05/24/bulls-eye-for-awful-tornadoes-oklahoma-gets-outsized-share-natural-disasters/
Here is a report she did after the 2003 Moore tornadoes talking about surviving them in a residence...
http://www.colorado.edu/hazards/research/qr/qr163/qr163.pdf
I had not heard about the above ground shelters being pulled off the slabs. If that occurred I would think it more likely that a vehicle being blown at 200MPH the shelter and pulled it off the slab.
That's my biggest fear of those. I'm not a structural engineer so I don't know for sure but I have been in those and would be scared shatless sitting in while everything around me is destroyed. I would much rather be underground listening to everything above me being destroyed if I was ever unfortunate enough to be in tornado.
The fact the Moore tornado took down part of an old truss bridge is unusual as that is something else I have never heard of happening in a tornado.
On being in a car, whatever gets you to your afterlife quickest I guess.
On schools, I'm not sure where to find these stats. Does anyone here know?
What is the percentage of schools ever hit by a tornado?
Percentage of schools hit by a tornado during school hours?
Percentage of schools hit by a EF4-EF5 tornado(less than 1% of all tornados) during school hours?
Quote from: RecycleMichael on May 28, 2013, 07:43:42 PM
Here is a national Fox News story quoting my mother...it was also carried in hundreds of papers and TV broadcasts
http://www.foxnews.com/weather/2013/05/24/bulls-eye-for-awful-tornadoes-oklahoma-gets-outsized-share-natural-disasters/
Here is a report she did after the 2003 Moore tornadoes talking about surviving them in a residence...
http://www.colorado.edu/hazards/research/qr/qr163/qr163.pdf
Quoting Faux Snooze? Really?
I had no idea your mother is a disaster consultant. I need someone to follow me around and consult with me about all my little disasters on a daily basis. I'll be anxious to read her report on the Moore 2003 tornado you linked to.
Quote from: Conan71 on May 29, 2013, 01:55:15 PM
I had no idea your mother is a disaster consultant.
I wonder if raising Michael had anything to do with that.
;D
Quote from: Conan71 on May 29, 2013, 01:55:15 PM
I had no idea your mother is a disaster consultant.
Her whole career has been a disaster.
She is also founder of this disaster preparedness group... http://tulsapartners.org/tpi/
"Pervious Concrete" Isn't that what they build adult book stores out of?
Quote from: Conan71 on May 28, 2013, 03:56:50 PM
I wasn't doubting the veracity of your claim about Joplin, but rather looking for stats on above vs. below grade shelters...
What should have been an easy-to-find citation two years ago must be buried under the debris of countless tornado shelter sales pitches.
I cant even find the account of the people who perished in the Pizza Hut walk-in freezer, but I did find a valuable lesson we apparently haven't learned:
The video cameras in Joplin High School and East Middle School enabled administrators to see what would have happened in those designated shelter areas had students been there. Large debris, from street signs to car bumpers, was effortlessly tossed down the halls by the tornado. In some areas, classroom walls fell into the hallway. Each hallway literally became a wind tunnel.
Needless to say, many lives would have been lost in the school hallways had the storm came through during school hours. Equipped with that knowledge, Joplin Schools no longer utilize hallways - period. http://www.campussafetymagazine.com/Blog/Campus-Command-Post/story/2012/01/Don-t-Use-Hallways-As-Tornado-Shelters.aspx
Tulsa Public Schools say they have a plan, but good luck figuring out what it is:
http://www.tulsaworld.com/article.aspx/TPS_has_disaster_plans_in_place/20130522_11_A5_Tornad94602
Quote from: Weatherdemon on May 29, 2013, 01:13:56 PM
I had not heard about the above ground shelters being pulled off the slabs. If that occurred I would think it more likely that a vehicle being blown at 200MPH the shelter and pulled it off the slab.
That's plausable. If someone were to drive a car at 200mph into an above-ground shelter, coming off it's anchor bolts would seem the least of their wories.
Oh, and the 1999 tornado was 318mph. It broke the Fujita Scale and still stands as the fastest wind speed recorded on the planet.
Quote from: patric on May 29, 2013, 06:42:40 PM...snip...
Oh, and the 1999 tornado was 318mph. It broke the Fujita Scale and still stands as the fastest wind speed recorded on the planet.
It was pretty much the driving force the scale was changed to the "Enhanced Fujita" Scale.
Quote from: Conan71 on May 28, 2013, 09:35:50 AM
My personal preference would be in-ground with a sliding lid like people have installed flush with their garage floor. I'm claustrophobic so the idea of something landing in front of a swing out door and not being able to get out until help arrives really wigs me out. A guy I went to Jenks with lost his home in the Piedmont tornado and with it, his above-ground safe room. Yet his neighbor's safe room was still secured to the slab. No idea if it was inferior lagging used on Kelly's installation or quite simply the randomness of destruction we see with tornados you simply cannot engineer around.
And from this report investigating damage to engineered structures in the '99 Moore/OKC tornado it seems there's still quite a bit we do not know about engineering around these disasters:
Family has an above ground in garage. Door swings in, with 3 or 4 HEAVY deadbolts to lock. Looks substantial, but so far not tested. Thankfully.
If you think a swinging door wigs you out, I saw one of the news guys talking to one of the underground sliding door people - when the house fell on them, they couldn't slide that door until people came and dug them out. Heads you lose, tails they win....
There is a company in OKC making a shelter designed specifically for the oil fields - it is "portable", on a skid. They guarantee it to 500 mph winds. Won't blow over or have anything get in. Impressive looking thing. Wouldn't mind having one in my back yard in this state!!
http://www.reddogmobileshelters.com/
Got back to visit Moore yesterday after two weeks away. Pictures don't come close to showing the horror!!
Has to be taken in small doses.
Quote from: heironymouspasparagus on June 03, 2013, 08:18:01 PM
Family has an above ground in garage. Door swings in, with 3 or 4 HEAVY deadbolts to lock. Looks substantial, but so far not tested. Thankfully.
If you think a swinging door wigs you out, I saw one of the news guys talking to one of the underground sliding door people - when the house fell on them, they couldn't slide that door until people came and dug them out. Heads you lose, tails they win....
I dont think that above/below ground determines which way the door opens, if that's what you were getting at.
Quote from: Hoss on May 29, 2013, 07:05:28 PM
It was pretty much the driving force the scale was changed to the "Enhanced Fujita" Scale.
We set another record, this time for the width of the funnel at 2.6 miles wide.
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/files/2013/06/el-reno.jpg)
My thoughts on getting out from under a larger tornado in a car involved driving at a right angle probably no more than a mile -- certainly not getting on the expressway nor trying to flee the city in general. Underground shelter still looking like best option; wish I had one at home.
Damn fortunate most of that was over farm-land and not heavily populated. So now they say EF-5, eh?
Quote from: Conan71 on June 04, 2013, 02:03:19 PM
Damn fortunate most of that was over farm-land and not heavily populated. So now they say EF-5, eh?
Yup. Just a hair under 300 mph.
Here's what it's like to be caught off guard by a twister that unexpectedly changes direction:
Would be a first-rate video if it weren't for the little screaming biitch in the front seat.
Quote from: patric on June 04, 2013, 02:35:51 PM
Yup. Just a hair under 300 mph.
They based that on the mobile doppler RaxPol images. Seen here:
(http://fbcdn-sphotos-a-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn1/184411_669221029761530_1190302018_n.jpg)
Quote from: patric on June 04, 2013, 02:35:51 PM
Would be a first-rate video if it weren't for the little screaming biitch in the front seat.
Wife told me that if that had been me screaming like that on national TV, I would be looking for a new home.
I like the mild look of calm irritation from the driver.
Quote from: Gaspar on June 04, 2013, 03:30:31 PM
Wife told me that if that had been me screaming like that on national TV, I would be looking for a new home.
I like the mild look of calm irritation from the driver.
That guy in the front seat is how i see you typing about obamacare.
Quote from: CharlieSheen on June 04, 2013, 03:57:01 PM
That guy in the front seat is how i see you typing about obamacare.
No. It's more of a calm smirk as I watch a slow-motion train wreck, with all of the passengers screaming "it's supposed to do this!"
Quote from: Gaspar on June 04, 2013, 05:43:00 PM
No. It's more of a calm smirk as I watch a slow-motion train wreck, with all of the passengers screaming "it's supposed to do this!"
Nice way to illustrate. Unfortunately, no one understands your approach to this is based in reality not bias.
But when they finally do get what a massive screwing this is on productive Americans, they will use their own biases to blame it on whomever the bogeyman MSNBC, HuffPoo, or Koz tells them it is: the 1%'ers, obstinate Republicans in the house, or the ever powerful GOP minority in the Senate, greedy doctors, Monsanto, or maybe it will finally be the San Berdoo Chapter of the Hell's Angels. Anyone but the architects of this massive disaster.
The El Reno storm proved that even experienced chasers that have 30 years of experience, can get caught off guard. Sad loss for the true researcher community.
"Tim Samaras, 55, his son Paul, 24, and crew member Carl Young, 45, died in El Reno on Friday"
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2335431/Tim-Samaras-dies-Tragic-words-father-son-storm-chasers-killed-tornado-threw-car-somersaulting-half-mile.html (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2335431/Tim-Samaras-dies-Tragic-words-father-son-storm-chasers-killed-tornado-threw-car-somersaulting-half-mile.html)
Quote from: patric on June 03, 2013, 11:46:19 PM
I dont think that above/below ground determines which way the door opens, if that's what you were getting at.
Conan was worried about a door swinging out may get blocked by debris and keep him trapped in the small space. I think that is why they swing them in...at least I hope that much planning went into the room....
The garage floor sliding one could also have debris land on it that would prevent opening, keeping him trapped in the small space. He is claustrophobic....
Quote from: heironymouspasparagus on June 06, 2013, 03:25:14 PM
Conan was worried about a door swinging out may get blocked by debris and keep him trapped in the small space. I think that is why they swing them in...at least I hope that much planning went into the room....
The garage floor sliding one could also have debris land on it that would prevent opening, keeping him trapped in the small space. He is claustrophobic....
Jeez, don't even talk about it, it's making me short of breath!
Quote from: patric on June 04, 2013, 02:35:51 PM
Would be a first-rate video if it weren't for the little screaming biitch in the front seat.
If he is gonna whine that much, he better find another hobby! He will never get those shorts clean - better just buy new ones!
Few years ago, when the tornado came across Norman and blasted the Love's out east on I-240 in OKC, I happened to be in the area and went chasing it. Was stopped for a couple minutes going across an overpass near Crossroads, looking east, then looked forward as I started to go on. Right in front of me was a smallish funnel, about 3 football fields distance away. Could tell it was small, 'cause I was at the edge of the debris field and it was mostly limbs, leaves with only occasional bigger chunks. So, I 'welded' the brakes stopping and just sat there to wait a while....big adrenaline rush!
Quote from: Conan71 on June 06, 2013, 03:32:39 PM
Jeez, don't even talk about it, it's making me short of breath!
Remember how when we were kids, we would climb down into the storm drain grates at the street curb....then crawl through those 18" pipes across the street to the next one, then the next...it was always sooo cool to feel the rumbling of the cars going over while crawling along!!
You go in at one persons house, then came out 3 blocks away at the friends house. A no one knew how you got there, unless they just happened to see you crawl out!
And the big excitement was if you and 2 or 3 friends were traversing the neighborhood and it started to rain....!! Not just a sprinkle, but one of our big thunderstorm fronts moving through, with lots of hail and maybe a tornado even...??
How cool was that to be living in the city!!!
Or did you miss all that fun?
Quote from: heironymouspasparagus on June 06, 2013, 03:41:32 PM
Remember how when we were kids, we would climb down into the storm drain grates at the street curb....then crawl through those 18" pipes across the street to the next one, then the next...it was always sooo cool to feel the rumbling of the cars going over while crawling along!!
You go in at one persons house, then came out 3 blocks away at the friends house. A no one knew how you got there, unless they just happened to see you crawl out!
And the big excitement was if you and 2 or 3 friends were traversing the neighborhood and it started to rain....!! Not just a sprinkle, but one of our big thunderstorm fronts moving through, with lots of hail and maybe a tornado even...??
How cool was that to be living in the city!!!
Or did you miss all that fun?
I grew up first 11 years around 25th & Delaware then 81st & Yale area before a lot of that area was developed. Lots of creek and storm drain exploring in my youth!
Gov. Failin not supporting School Tornado Shelter funding
http://www.tulsaworld.com/article.aspx/Monday_Fallin_not_endorsing_statewide_ballot_on_school/20130929_12_0_OLHMIY451194?subj=12
Quote from: patric on September 29, 2013, 06:08:38 PM
Gov. Failin not supporting School Tornado Shelter funding
http://www.tulsaworld.com/article.aspx/Monday_Fallin_not_endorsing_statewide_ballot_on_school/20130929_12_0_OLHMIY451194?subj=12
As we have seen over an over from Mary Failin', there is never gonna be a "best way" to do anything as long as it involves the state actually spending money to make it happen - unless that money can go to one of her big contributors with a private prison company! From health care to state roads, no matter what, she is all about making it NOT happen! She "encourages" schools to build shelters when 'possible' an yet has presided over a real 25% reduction in school funding in this state.
What she really wants is to make sure we don't protect our children from being killed or injured.
Naw...we here in the literal heart of tornado alley aren't "laughingstocks" around the nation...
Quote from: heironymouspasparagus on September 30, 2013, 01:07:32 PM
As we have seen over an over from Mary Failin', there is never gonna be a "best way" to do anything as long as it involves the state actually spending money to make it happen - unless that money can go to one of her big contributors with a private prison company! From health care to state roads, no matter what, she is all about making it NOT happen! She "encourages" schools to build shelters when 'possible' an yet has presided over a real 25% reduction in school funding in this state.
Maybe she can convince her for-profit prison klan that school shelters can be used to house prisoners in-between EF-5's.
Were gonna need space quick for all the incoming fair carnies.