“We are doing really well,” said Shanain Kemp, event coordinator at Orr Family Farm. “It was incredible that day to go into the shelter and walk out 20 minutes later to see the utter devastation. You never really think the storm will actually hit you. But thank God we were able to walk out, and […]
storm
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Dotted line
Fallin hasn’t directly opposed the initiative petition drive, but she doesn’t plan to endorse it either, according to her spokesman, Alex Weintz. Instead, the governor has commented that money used for storm shelters will reduce funding for other educational needs. “She’s just trying to inject some form of realism here,” Weintz said. However, storm shelter […]
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Hunkered down
Kristi Conatzer said the governor has created an unneeded public debate over keeping children safe based on comments she made opposing an initiative petition. Conatzer’s daughter, Emily, was one of the seven children who died at Plaza Towers Elementary School. “There shouldn’t be an argument over this,” she said. “We lost something on May 20 […]
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Nowhere to hide
State Rep. Joe Dorman (D-Rush Springs) said the statewide figure demonstrates a greater problem because more than half a million students and teachers are without adequate protection from tornadoes. “It’s shocking how many school districts are without shelters,” he said at a meeting last week, highlighting a report released the week of Sept. 23. “I […]
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Seeking shelters
Their wish is that storm shelters had been in place four months earlier as a powerful EF-5 tornado swept through southwest Oklahoma City and Moore, killing 47 people, including seven students at Plaza Towers Elementary. Among the students who perished were their sons — Nicolas McCabe, 8; Kyle Davis, 8; and Christopher Legg, 9. With […]
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BREAKING: Petition drive seeks storm shelter funding
Take Shelter Oklahoma is a movement that comes four months after a series of tornadoes ripped through southwest Oklahoma City and Moore, killing 47 people, including seven children at Plaza Towers Elementary. Twisters also struck Canadian Valley Vocational Technology Center on May 31 and leveled parts of Pottawatomie County on May 19, killing two people […]
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Resilient repetition
From our elected officials and our local celebrities to those survivors affected directly by the most current crisis, some version of these words gushes out each time: “You can replace things, not lives. We’re going to rebuild. Oklahomans are a resilient people.” The adjective “resilient,” in particular, has become the word du jour following a […]
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Seeking shelter for students
Now a discussion is under way to decide how to handle state assistance for shelter space. Like many Oklahomans, I knew many who were trapped in at least one of the major tornadoes that struck Oklahoma last month. One of my cousins is a student at Briarwood Elementary in Moore, where his mother, a schoolteacher, […]
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‘Into the Storm’
One man in Oklahoma doesn’t live in fear of tornadoes, hurricanes and other extreme weather conditions. On Tuesday, he’ll talk about devoting his career to studying dangerous weather patterns. One of the “Storm Chasers” of the Discovery Channel television series, Reed Timmer will discuss his new book, “Into the Storm,” at 7 p.m. at Hastings, […]
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Shelter from the storm
After the devastating tornado outbreak that killed 11 people and left more than 1,000 without homes and businesses, Trent said he felt he needed to do something to help. So he created the website shelterfinder.org, a map of public shelters and safe rooms in the Oklahoma City area. Some, like the Capitol, are open 24/7, […]