(5 of 5)
Ramping up the computer power of the Weather Service by 30 times undoubtedly saved lives in Moore and will save many others from storms to come. But it's not enough. "What we really need is to be 100 times better than what we were," says atmospheric-sciences professor Cliff Mass of the University of Washington. "We have to do much better."
The same can be said of the shortage of safe rooms and shelters in Tornado Alley. A combination of environmental factors--from a close-to-the-surface frost line to the red clay soil--make basements expensive to dig in Oklahoma. And while Moore's city website recommends that residents have protected storm shelters, the municipal code does not require them in homes, businesses or schools--something Moore's mayor proposed requiring in all new buildings following the tornado. The absence of safe rooms inside area schools has become a flashpoint for parents.
Carrie Long's home was among the many lost to the surging winds. Her two children, a 13-year-old in middle school and a 14-year-old in high school, rode out the storm inside their schools. "If I'd gotten my kids out and taken them home, they'd be dead," she said while clutching a garbage bag full of muddy clothes, her eyes welling up. "There's just nothing left of our home."
By the time Smith left the office at 11 p.m., jangled and exhausted by the 16-hour, white-knuckle day, he had seen on television the massive manifestation of the "tornado emergency" he had pictured hours earlier. The dark and swirling column flinging debris as it slowly chewed through Moore could just as easily have come through Norman and wrecked his life instead of theirs. Even a weatherman can't stop or steer a twister. But his team had done the next best thing. They had given the people of Moore 16 precious minutes, and that made it a good day's work.
Maybe someday it can be 30.
The original version of this article incorrectly stated that one child had died at Briarwood Elementary.