Is it just me, or are these dumb questions?

 

It seems as if in today's society, there must be someone to blame for everything that happens. Even an act of nature spurs calls for investigations and finger pointing. And the cry is usually for the government to "do something."

 

Kurt Hochenauer takes that attitude with the recent devastating tornadoes in Oklahoma. He thinks every structure in the state should be required to have an underground storm shelter. He thinks there should be more public and community shelters. Sounds like a great idea, but who will pay for them? Some of those citizens, probably even some of them who lost their homes in the recent storms, will probably balk at a tax hike. U.S. taxpayers have already paid for 500 Oklahomans to build storm shelters at their homes. You know what? We have tornadoes where I live, too, but the government didn't offer to build me a shelter. Additionally, money was held out of my paycheck to pay for shelters for someone else, so that left me fewer discretionary dollars to maybe build my own shelter.

 

Kurt wants to know why we don't build our schools with stronger materials. Well, Kurt, it really doesn't matter how strong the materials are. When an EF5 tornado passes through, the building is probably going to get blown away.

 

Kurt says that people should be able to afford shelters. It's not that expensive, he argues. Construction of an 8 foot x 8 foot safe room ranges from $6,600 to $8,700. Is that too high a price to pay for lives, he asks. Well, Kurt, it's not; however, some people just simply do not have $6,600 to $8,700 lying around. And I'm sure that estimate is for new construction -- I feel sure it would cost more to incorporate a safe room into an existing structure. In fact, I recently saw an article about a company who does safe rooms, and they said they range up to $15,000 or more

 

Kurt wants improvements to our warning systems. If the people in Moore didn't know a tornado was coming, they must have been deaf and blind. The National Weather Service had been predicting and warning for days that the potential for extremely violent storms was there. They encouraged people to keep an eye on the weather and the media. They issued a tornado warning that included the probable path and time estimates 16 minutes before the tornado hit. Sixteen minutes is not long, but if the residents were monitoring conditions, which they should have been if they were heeding the warnings of several days, 16 minutes should have been sufficient to take cover. If the local TV stations there are like they are here, I'm sure there was non-stop coverage of the weather situation. Many people have weather apps on their iPhones. The outdoor sirens wailed.

 

Kurt wants to know if the tornado's strength was related to global warming. I doubt it, Kurt. Sometimes, big tornadoes form and hit. They've been doing it for millennia. And they will continue to do it until Jesus comes back. Man should not be so arrogant as to think he can somehow control the weather.

 

Kurt wants to know why so many homes have been rebuilt in an area known for destructive tornadoes. Well, Kurt, for the same reasons homes are built on the coasts and homes are built in the far north and homes are built in California. People have a reason to be in that part of the country, and they have to have a place to live. How about some lessons from NOAA, Kurt?

 

• Tornadoes are not limited to any specific geographic location. In fact, tornadoes have been documented in every state of the United States, and on every continent, with the exception of Antarctica (even there, a tornado occurrence is not impossible).
• The U.S. has an average of 1000 tornadoes each year -- 62 of those occur in Oklahoma.
• Overall, most tornadoes (around 77 percent) in the U.S. are considered weak (EF0 or EF1) and about 95 percent of all U.S. tornadoes are below EF3 intensity. The remaining small percentage of tornadoes are categorized as violent (EF3 and above). Of these violent twisters, only a few (0.1 percent of all tornadoes) achieve EF5 status.

So, Kurt, when you can nail down exactly where and when that next EF5 is going to hit, maybe we won't let people build houses there anymore.

 

Kurt says that climate change might have played a role in the extreme weather in the Plains over the last few years. Interestingly, I heard a meteorologist on TV recently say that we've not had more extremes -- we've had better reporting, better media coverage, and better weather forecasting tools. The extremes have always occurred -- we just weren't as aware of them as we are now.

 

"Underground shelters should be a priority." The Dallas Morning News; May 28, 2013; p. 15a.