Deadly Oklahoma Tornado

I have a lot of expenses (who with a filmmaking habit doesn't :)), but I want to donate what I can afford (not much!) - what is the best way? Red Cross?
 
Wow, thanks! :thumbsup:

You can text a $10 donation to Red Cross, here is the info:

RED CROSS

The Oklahoma Red Cross is asking people to donate by texting Red Cross to 90999 which will be a $10 donation, spokesman Ken Garcia said. Garcia said the donations allow the Red Cross purchase needed supplies.
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More info: http://www.ok.gov/okstrong/
 
Terry_Lasater said:
If you look, you'll find photos showing nothing but foundations where homes once stood. No little piggy could build a house that could withstand this big, bad wolf.
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Thanks for your work and posts here.

You made several great points, homes can be built to withstand hurricanes and tornado's but few folk would want to pay the extra it costs. The most expensive part would be the roof. I would estimate maybe just an "investment" of 40% more in the whole cost of the home.

On the other hand, I just heard an assessment by a Civil Engineer who was talking about how many of the destroyed buildings he inspected were not even constructed to the building codes which were in place at the time. His statement shocked me (supported by a number of details), and my concern is even the rebuilds will not meet current codes. I am also in the building safety business and this type of stuff really irritates me. Examples for the curious, no anchor bolts, no hardware to tie the 2x4s to the plates, and on the school very little reinforced masonry. He did say a lot more storm shelters have been built since the last tornado.
 
There is a company in the area that builds safe shelters,bunkers. I saw him interviewed on CNN. Sorry, I didn't take notes.
Basically he's saying that the shelters they build are poured all as one piece concrete, roof and walls, no seams.
He sais that if you have any seams in the shelter it will be ripped apart.

Thier company is currently working on designing a method/process to do the same thing on a large scale for school shelters in the area.
 
Hey, sorry for the delay. Everything is good on our end. I just moved from Mustang to Yukon, which is just a little further away from Moore. Maybe a 5 mile difference. We had a storm shelter in our old house. We had it put in. It's just a prebuilt metal box that they slip into a hole they dig. It only takes 4 hours, but it's about 3500 dollars or so. The bad thing is there isn't one here, and we have to pay the other one off before we can buy another one. Sure it's only a couple thousand compared to lives, but some people just can't justify the cost. We looked at 30 to 40 houses before we moved. 1 had a shelter.

The other video producer where I work lost his cousin. He was a third grader in the school.

(sorry for typos. I'm on my phone)
 
Forgot to mention: I grew up on the east coast and went through a share of hurricanes. I knew hurricanes were much bigger than tornadoes, so I figured it'd be no big deal. I was very incorrect in that assessment. I'd take hurricanes any day over tornadoes. Hurricanes make a grande entrance aannouncing themselves a week out. Tornadoes give you only a few minutes sometimes.
 
Glad you landed safely, Hawk! Hope you can manage a shelter at your new place at some point (Kickstarter? :happy:)
Condolences to your co-worker.

Agree on 'nado vs 'cane-warning vs no warning.

Some differences for our friends overseas...

Tornado: The "good" (relatively) news- narrow path, short-lived.
The bad news- stronger, incredibly tightly focused winds up to 200+ mph. Little warning.

Hurricane: The "good" (relatively) news- fairly accurate (and improving) advance warning of 12- 24 hrs. Winds of "only" 65- 200+ mph, but can be 150 miles wide...
The bad news- often slow moving, so whatever winds you have keep pounding repeatedly. Storm surge (see: Katrina, Sandy).

The deceptive thing about hurricanes is when people have experienced a Cat 1 or just the edge of a stronger storm.
Having covered Cat 5 storms Hugo (160 mph), Gilbert (185 mph) and Andrew (175 mph), I respect the destructive power of large hurricanes.

I think the visual experience is markedly different, too. The dark, focused funnel sucking up things in its path, vs the "bad thunderstorm" blowing palm trees, etc.


And then there's earthquakes...
 
Hawk Teflon said:
We had a storm shelter in our old house. We had it put in. It's just a prebuilt metal box that they slip into a hole they dig. It only takes 4 hours, but it's about 3500 dollars or so. The bad thing is there isn't one here, and we have to pay the other one off before we can buy another one. Sure it's only a couple thousand compared to lives, but some people just can't justify the cost.
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if i lived in oklahoma i'd definitely get one of those shelters. they offer offer piece of mind and protection from tornadoes and terry lasater.
 
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