Gross! Oklahoma Municipal Public Tornado Shelter Was A Dangerous Cesspool.

Residents of Sulfur, Oklahoma in a
municipal storm shelter in foul water
and broken chairs as a tornado
roared through the city. Incident
shows public storm shelters should
be maintained, inspected to ensure
public safety in storm emergencies. 

 One of the worst hit towns in last weekend's tornado outbreak was Sulfur, Oklahoma, where the downtown was largely destroyed, as were numerous homes. 

Not everybody has a storm shelter at their house, so many - but not all - towns and cities in Tornado Alley have public storm shelters where anybody can go to seek protection from dangerous tornadoes. 

However, Sulfur was a case study in what happens when a city doesn't maintain a storm shelter. 

People who arrived at Sulfur's storm shelter had to go down a steep flight of stairs (normal) only to find three inches of foul water on the floor and unsafe, broken chairs.  

Because repeated waves of tornado-warned storms passed over or near Sulfur Saturday night, people who sought shelter in this awful place had to stay there for three hours. For the elderly and disabled, standing for so long is an impossible order. 

One group of people - including one in a wheelchair - arrived at the storm shelter only to realize they couldn't get down there as the tornado bore down. At the last second, the group was able to get into a hotel just as the tornado began ripping downtown Sulfur apart. 

Laura Carter, a private caregiver, was in that group, told 2 News Oklahoma: "There's three inches of water that they are standing in for hours....Most of the people that are down there are in sandals or barefoot, and the chairs that are down there are rusted and falling through. They're falling through, they don't even have a place to sit for hours, as a tornado is ripping through our town."

Carter continued: "I ran into a city worker the other day who was actually down there helping us, and I asked, I was like, 'has the shelter always been flooded like this?' He said, 'Yes ma'am, our boss told us last year to go down there and pump all the water out and just leave the rusted chairs down there. I highly doubt we'll ever have to use them.'"

Famous last words, indeed. 

For any weather emergency, if there's a low cost way to protect the public, there should be one, even if the chances of actually having to use it in any given year are low. In Oklahoma's case, not everybody has access or can afford their own tornado shelter, so these municipal ones can save lives.

The television station says towns surrounding Sulfur have workable municipal storm shelters. 

As for Sulfur, the city has since condemned the terrible storm shelter as unsafe. Local residents and activists plan to lobby for a new, better one for the next time. 

I just hate to think what would have happened to someone who, grossed out by this storm shelter, left to seek another one, but ended up getting run over by the tornado in the process. 

 I hope Sulfur never gets hit by another tornado like this. But I also hope they build a safe, clean public storm shelter,  just in case.  

Second Day Of Intense Tornadoes Take Toll On Oklahoma, Surrounding States

 The continuing siege of tornadoes in the nation's middle claimed three lives in Oklahoma last night, but this huge bout of severe weather is showing signs of slowing down a little. 

Tornado aftermath in Sulfur, Oklahoma today. Photo
from KayDubEll on Reddit 

At least for now.

It can't get any busier. As of today, there's 78 reports of tornadoes Friday, mostly in Nebraska and Iowa. On Saturday, there were 40 tornado reports from northern Texas to Missouri, with the bulk of them in Oklahoma. 

Tornado activity was somewhat at a minimum in central and eastern Oklahoma during the day Saturday, as atmospheric conditions didn't quite come together enough to set off the expected tornado outbreak. However, severe thunderstorms and tornadoes raked parts of Texas, southwestern Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri all day Saturday. 

Mostly after dark, the atmosphere over Oklahoma set itself up for dangerous, big tornadoes, and unfortunately delivered.

Nighttime tornadoes are especially dangerous because people are usually sleeping or otherwise paying less attention to weather warnings. Plus, many people wait to see a visual clue a tornado is coming, and that's usually hard to do at night. 

The three deaths in Oklahoma are horrific, of course,  but that death toll would have been much higher without the incessant warnings that issued last evening and overnight as twisters roamed the state.

Downtown Sulfur, Oklahoma was destroyed by a tornado. As first responders swarmed into town to help, they were told to take cover as another tornado lurked nearby. Later, at least 20 injuries were reported in Sulfur while rescuers continued to sift through the wreckage looking for other survivors. 

Drone video from Live Storms Media showed most buildings in downtown Sulfur at least damaged, with several completely collapsed. An apartment complex was torn apart, and numerous homes were roofless or otherwise trashed. 

Another tornado was reported in Norman, which is right in the Oklahoma City metro area. Ardmore,  Oklahoma also reported heavy tornado damage. 

Meanwhile, the cleanup started in earnest across parts of Nebraska and Iowa from Friday's intense tornadoes.  Locals marveled that nobody died in those twisters, which is a testament to the advance warning people received from the National Weather Service and local television stations. 

The outbreak was so intense and widespread that the National Weather Service office in Omaha, Nebraska had to issue a total of 42 tornado warnings. 

Nationwide, the National Weather Service has issued 250 tornado warnings are nearly 500 severe thunderstorm warnings since Friday, the Washington Post reports. 

Several interviews I saw included survivors who said they were in their basements or storm shelters when the tornadoes hit because the warnings gave them enough time to take shelter. 

In the coming week, severe weather and tornadoes will not be nearly as widespread as they were over the weekend, but will still be scattered around the South over the next several days. 

This afternoon, forecasters were watching an area where Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas meet for a risk of tornadoes.

On Tuesday, the same areas of eastern Nebraska and western Iowa that were hit so hard on Friday are under a tornado threat again.  But that threat at this point doesn't appear as horrible as it was on Friday.

During the upcoming week, there is a threat of severe weather in the southern Plains and Southeast, but forecasters are unsure how extensive that threat will become.