As pretty much everybody with access to national news knows, there was a massive tornado that ripped through central Oklahoma recently resulting in the deaths of 21 people including 9 children at Plaza Towers Elementary. While there has been a lot of support and sympathy, I want to take a moment to address some of the issues I've seen pop up from other people and explain why, even with the rather ridiculous and extreme weather patterns we live with, this state really is a great place to live.
Let me preface this with a few things. I'm an Oklahoma native. While I grew up in the Northeast part of the state, I've been in the Oklahoma City area for about six years since I moved down here to attend college. So when I say that Oklahoma is the best place to live in the history of ever, I am a bit biased. Still, in an attempt to explain why people here are not insane for living here, and a bit out of a good, old fashioned desire to prove people wrong, here are my thoughts on some of the responses I've seen to the recent tornado in Newcastle, Moore, and Shawnee.
First, people saying that the reason they don't feel sorry for us is because we're basically asking for it by living here.
I'm not sure why people feel like they need to feel sorry for us. We aren't soliciting their pity. Their pity isn't going to directly help us in any way, so most of us don't really care. My issue is with the idea that it's "our fault" for living here or that we were "asking for it" because this is such a tornado prone area. What is the most ironic to me is that most of this type of attitude is coming from areas like New England or the East Coast. Places that have their own natural disasters like hurricanes. When Sally caused so much destruction and damage in the Northeast, did anybody say that it was the fault of the people there because they live on a coastline? Or when Katrina effectively destroyed New Orleans, were the people there asking to lose everything when they decided to live in a hurricane prone location in a city that was built partially below sea level? Is it ever the public's fault when an earthquake hits in California? or a wildfire? or any natural disaster for that matter? Of course not. Nobody ever "asks for it" when a natural disaster hits. I don't understand why people blame others for something like this.Now, if the people of central Oklahoma chose to live in this area and then take no precautions at all, I could see this point of view being partially justifiable. However, that is simply not the case. Let me give you some examples from my own life. Growing up, from the time I was in kindergarden, my school had fire drills twice a year like most other schools in the country. We also had tornado drills. Every school in Oklahoma does this for every grade. We leave the classrooms (they have windows and are often on outer walls that would be the first to turn to debris) and crouch down in a hallway on the first floor. We are literally educating our children about tornadoes from their first year of school.
Furthermore, the public sirens are tested every single Saturday at noon (provided there's not already a storm going on) to make sure they are working properly. And when I say every Saturday, I mean every single one. The siren tests went off earlier today while I was driving to go pick up some food for lunch. And they'll go off next Saturday too. This kind of frequency in testing would be over the top for almost any other kind of disaster. Other places test their sirens once a month or so, but Oklahoma takes tornadoes seriously and literally tests them once a week. Also, many of our public areas have designated tornado shelters. The shopping mall in my hometown has theirs clearly marked in the middle of the complex, and every shopping mall I've visited in Oklahoma City has them as well. We also have some of the most advanced weather tracking systems and best meteorologists in the country. When bad weather is coming in, we have Gary England (Oklahoma City's resident Weather Oracle). While he's one of the most authoritative figures on severe thunderstorms and tornados, the biggest reason he is so well respected in this area is because of how calm he stays during the storms. Gary England is able to give updates on the progress of a storm while keeping his voice at a level that would be more appropriate for crumpets and tea than telling people their lives are in danger. So when weather like the tornado on Monday come through, and Gary England's voice raises a bit, you pay attention and you do what the man says when he says it. Which is exactly what happened. That's a considerable part of why there were so few casualties. When Gary England says to get underground or out of the way, that's what people did.
This brings me to my next point: people wondering why there were "so many" casualties.
This issue is less frequent, and admittedly more prominent in the international community, but is still absurd.Let's take a look at a few things real quick when it comes to tornado casualties. First, this list of the Top Ten Worst U.S. Tornados from The Weather Channel (go ahead, it's a quick read). You know what state doesn't show up on that list for the "Worst Tornados" ever? Oklahoma. Even though we have had some of the strongest twisters in history, including one that generated the highest recorded wind speed on the planet and literally redefined the scale we use to measure tornadoes, it didn't even make the list. Why? Because Oklahomans know what to do when a tornado hits the ground.
Let's take a quick look at the recent tornado and compare it to the very similar one that hit Joplin in 2011.
First, some similarities.
Both tornadoes were categorized as EF5 (the strongest possible rating on the Enhanced Fujita Scale)
Both tornadoes hit cities of approximately 55,000 people.
Both tornadoes grew to an excess of 1 mile wide at their peaks.
Both tornadoes affected heavily populated, residential areas.
But when it comes to reacting to storms, the people of Joplin** and the people of Moore are a bit different.
In Joplin, 158 people died. In Moore, 24 people died.
Why the difference? Because people here just know what to do. As mentioned before, children that are raised here are educated on how to respond to tornados. When people move here, there is a lot of education available for them as well. We have Gary England and some of the best meteorologists in the country that are able to give us almost twenty minutes of prep time. While I'm all for continuing to drive down the casualty rate on any natural disaster, I don't understand the attitude I've seen implying that twenty four casualties is unacceptable and that we are doing something wrong. The fact that people survived a tornado that literally cleaned buildings off their foundations is something that is amazing.
My final issue is people from out of the area suggesting that we are crazy for living here.
This one is definitely the hardest for me to understand. Yes, we have some severe weather more frequently than other areas, but what people from outside the heartland don't seem to understand is this: we live here because we love here. There are some places I would never care to live because of the threats in the location, but I understand what it's like to love your home, and so I respect the decisions of people that live in areas I would not.Still, people forget that Oklahoma is more than just bipolar weather. It's a community; the only part of us that is crazy is how much we take care of one another. When the tornado lifted, within minutes there were people headed to the area to volunteer for cleanup and rescue efforts. Virtually every volunteer in Moore on Monday evening put off eating dinner until after sundown because everybody wanted to make the most of the daylight that was left. The days following had such a surge of local people wanting to lend a hand that the Red Cross literally had to turn away two thousand volunteers because they couldn't handle that many people.
Local businesses like Cheasapeake Energy and Hobby Lobby, and local celebrities like Kevin Durant and Carrie Underwood made donations to the recovery efforts. Local country artists Blake Shelton and Miranda Lambert organized a benefit concert that, after less than a week of advertising, sold out every ticket in the Chesapeake Energy Arena in thirty seconds. Not minutes. SECONDS.
Within the week, the mail was being delivered to the people in the area again. By a mail lady that delivered on foot to each home.
I guess that people outside the area just don't understand the kind of strength of those that live here. That's not necessarily anyone's fault, but it does seem that way. When Hurricane Sandy caused so much destruction in the Northeast, you know what the warmest, fuzziest, increase-faith-in-humanity action was that I saw? Someone that had power letting people charge up their phones on an extension cord. Here, we skip past that. We let our families know we were safe and then got our hands and knees dirty helping each other recover any remaining belongings from the wreckage left behind. We didn't just sit back and let the National Guard and police do the work; we jumped in right beside them to lend a hand. News reporters would stop interviews to help move rubble to recover items, and in one case, a pet dog that was stuck under a board of compressed wood.
With a community here like that, I don't think we're crazy for living here. I think you'd be crazy to not want to live with these kinds of people.
* Let me interject a quick disclaimer here: I'm not implying that people on the East Coast are worse about this than other people, it's just what I am able to see from my social network. I don't want to point the finger at a group of people and cast judgment on them, but I'm also wary of making broader generalizations about Americans based on what I have seen myself in that one group of people.
** Please know that I am not degrading or berating the people of Joplin. I have visited that city numerous times on family vacations and the people there are wonderful and I love them. I'm only saying here that they simply lack the storm experience that we do; it is something that is not their fault, but hurt them severely in 2011.
