Posted on 05/21/2013 6:58:39 AM PDT by Biggirl
MOORE, Okla. (CBS Houston/AP) Search and rescue crews worked through the night after a monstrous tornado barreled through the Oklahoma City suburbs, demolishing an elementary school and reducing homes to piles of splintered wood. At least 24 people were killed and and that number is expected to climb, officials said Tuesday.
(Excerpt) Read more at houston.cbslocal.com ...
***The damage is severe but its relatively isolated,***
When I was young, almost everyone had a storm shelter. Back then there was no weather radar, and all the TV weatherman could say that there was a “possibility” of tornados. We were then on our own.
My mom said that back in the Depression, they lived in a house with a cellar. When the weather got bad they would all go into the shelter.
She said she did not know what she was more afraid of, the tornadoes or the lizards ad spiders in the cellar.
I should add that evacuations further out than 10 to 15 minutes wouldn’t help, because you don’t really know where the tornado is going to hit at that point. What I’m talking about is #1 cancelling school on days where the conditions are deemed high risk and #2 building better shelters in the schools.
FYI: If the drownings occurred due to burst pipes, ya’d think it woulda been prudent for maintenance to shut off the water at the main valve prior to the tornado hit ...
Maybe if we pass some more laws and regulations, this won’t happen.
I don't believe schools can keep you from your children. They have neither the authority nor the ability.
Some lady in the front office is not going to tell me I can't get my child when a tornado is approaching.
If only Marky Mark were there to turn off the water mains, like he would have stopped the 9/11 hijackers.
Whether or not local officials decide to officially shut down schools when dangerous conditions are predicted is not the problem. The problem is parents who GIVE schools the final say on whether or not their child will be in class. If the school had only had teachers in it, and all the parents had exercised their right to keep their children home, we wouldn’t be talking about dead children now.
I live in the New Orleans area- most parents don’t wait for schools to close in the face of tropical storms or hurricanes, they keep their children home and to hell with what the school system decides!
My child would stay home when I decide they will-and especially the day after a monster tornado hit the area( and more were predicted)what will the school system do? Prosecute everyone for keeping their children home in the face of dangerous weather in TORNADO ALLEY? Could the Moore school system DARE prosecute the parents of those children- after the school had been destroyed- if they had kept them home? DON’T give schools/the state control over your children! Parents have the power- use it! Stop being so meek and obedient! The laws are supposed to be FOR the people, not the people for the law.
RDdB: “We were then on our own.”
Now they can see the hook form as it starts to circulate, and they can even detect the debris field kicked up by a tornado. Not only that, but you’ve got live reporting on TV, radio reports, and streaming on the internet. In Oklahoma, they have storm trackers who actually drive all over the place in order to find and track tornadoes. We also have sirens that go off when a tornado is coming. It’s nothing like it was when we were children.
dead: “I have to believe that is a rumor.”
I personally know the father who went to the school to pick up his daughter. They wouldn’t let him take her. He stayed at the school and weathered the storm with his daughter in her classroom. They both survived. I haven’t been able to talk to him directly. This is what he’s reported on Facebook. I trust it’s accurate.
Parents always need to be pro-active. I always made the call on if or not I would send my kids to school when ice or severe snow storms were indicated....they always sent the kids back home those days...only twice did I miss call it in their entire years at school. Well worth it to be certain my kids were safe at home.
However in a Tornado belt I believe those who live there know what they need to do....but this tornado was much more than any had anticiapated....I give lots of room for parents who sent their kids to school that day....and nobody should be judging the parents call if they aren’t living there.
How did they physically prevent him from leaving with his daughter? I would have told them to eff off and walked out the door with her.
I don’t know the specifics beyond what he’s posted on Facebook. This is a family that has a home shelter, so the daughter would have been safer there. The father’s post implies he had plenty of time to safely evacuate her, but I’ll have to ask him next time I see him.
I just think people too willingly listen to functionaries who have no real authority.
Nobody, short of an armed policeman or soldier, can stop you from leaving any building with your child.
I have no source, nor know if it is accurate, but I had read that there was one teacher that they lifted a car off of that had 3 kids under her that she was trying to shield..
(If anyone has a link, that would help greatly).
I am not judging the parents. The other poster though was saying that parents went to school to get kids before the storm and the school would not release them. My point is that no school would have told me I could not take my kid home if I was there ready to pick them up
Schools have no right to tell parents what they can and cannot do! That is my point. Sick of schools thinking they are superior to a parent, etc.
Screw that.... That is Marxist thought.
The school did not have a basement. My wife used to teach there. There is no basement.
Wow that’s interesting.
You find out good stuff on FR - thanks.
To me whether a building has a basement or not is a fairly obvious call - even for a MSM reporter.
100% guarantee the school had no basement. I don’t know what killed the kids, but they weren’t in a basement.
If the media can get something so basic completely wrong, you can imagine the errors that get promulgated when there is nuance or opinion involved.
Yep... it’s amazing. I was talking to my mother on the phone a bit ago once phone service was restored. She was talking about the kids that drown in the basement. She knows my wife taught there. We tell her there is no basement..... but she heard it on TV.... and she’s 80 years old. I’m not sure I convinced even my own mother. Sheesh, I hope I don’t get that old.
>> Just an observations that in our society, SOME ONE is responsible. We have to blame someone and sue them. Liberals and conservatives seem to agree on this issue.
Definitely a pattern, but it’s a minority that doesn’t speak for the whole.
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