State report: I-5 bridge had gouges, impact damage By MANUEL VALDES and MIKE BAKER | Associated Press – 1 hr 54 mins ago
View PhotoAssociated Press/Elaine Thompson – Workers walk past the collapsed portion of the Interstate 5 bridge at the Skagit River Friday, May 24, 2013, in Mount Vernon, Wash. A truck carrying an oversize load struck …
RELATED CONTENT
View PhotoA collapsed section of the Interstate …
View PhotoA dented upper right corner and …MOUNT VERNON, Wash. (AP) — Officials in Washington state performed a special inspection six months ago on the Interstate 5 bridge that collapsed because there were indications it had been struck by a different vehicle.An inspection report released Friday by the state Department of Transportation says inspectors brought in a bucket truck to examine the structure and identified tears, deformations and gouges on the northbound side of the bridge.The report says the special checkup was done due to „impact damage,” although state officials did not respond to a phone call seeking more detail.The inspection report also details a variety of other problems with the bridge, including vegetation growing in panels, and rust. It also summarizes a variety of parts on the bridge that have been subjected to „high-load” hits.
Obama to visit Oklahoma, tour Jersey Shore with Gov. Chris Christie By Olivier Knox, Yahoo! News | The Ticket – 6 hrs ago
President Barack Obama will travel to Oklahoma City on Sunday „to see first-hand the response to the devastating tornadoes and severe weather” that ravaged the area, meet with families affected by the devastation, and thank emergency responders, the White House announced Friday.On Tuesday, Obama will head to the Jersey Shore to assess the rebuilding and recovery efforts in the months since deadly Superstorm Sandy battered the coast.”The president, joined by Governor Chris Christie, will visit with families and business owners who have shown such resilience in the face of the destructive storm, highlight the extensive rebuilding efforts to date, and underscore his administration’s ongoing commitment to stand with the impacted communities as the important work of recovery continues,” the White House said.
Oklahoma gets far more than its share of disasters By SETH BORENSTEIN | Associated Press – 7 hrs ago
View PhotoAssociated Press/Charlie Riedel – Carol Kawaykla salvages items at her tornado-ravaged home Thursday, May 23, 2013, in Moore, Okla. Cleanup continues three days after a huge tornado roared through the Oklahoma …RELATED CONTENT
View PhotoGraphic shows major disaster declarations 
View PhotoThis combination of Associated …WASHINGTON (AP) — Many states get hit frequently with tornadoes and other natural catastrophes, but Oklahoma is Disaster Central.The twister that devastated Moore, Okla., was the 74th presidential disaster declared in the Sooner state in the past 60 years. Only much-larger and more-populous California and Texas have had more.The state is No. 1 in tornado disasters and No. 3 for flooding, according to a database of presidential disaster declarationshandled by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. And those figures don’t include drought, which is handled by a different agency.The explanation is partly atmospheric conditions that trigger twisters and flooding, partly where people live and how they build their homes, and partly politics and bureaucratic skill, according to disaster experts. Even one of the state’s U.S. senators said recently that because of the way federal guidelines are written, Oklahoma is getting disaster aid more often than it needs.Of the 25 U.S. counties that have been declared disasters the most times since 1953, nine are in Oklahoma, the highest total of any state.Oklahoma County has been on the disaster list 38 times, more than the entire state of New Jersey. Caddo County, just west of the Oklahoma City metro area, has been named a federal disaster areanine times since 2007, with a litany of woe that includes twisters, floods, ice storms, a blizzard and violent winds.”Things happen around here,” Tulsa, Okla.-based disaster consultant Ann Patton said. „Of course, sometimes it can make you stronger.”When disaster declarations are measured on a per-person basis, Oklahoma gets nearly three times the national average. When they are computed based on how much land is in a state, it gets twice the national average, according to an analysis of FEMA records.The atmospheric explanation is pretty basic: „Oklahoma really is the bull’s-eye for awful tornadoes,” said Mike Lindell, director of the Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center at Texas A&M University.Oklahoma is in a particularly busy and dangerous section of Tornado Alley, the cluster of states in the nation’s midsection that are especially twister-prone.If you map all the nation’s tornadoes in May — the busiest tornado month — they form a circular blob 100 miles across over central Oklahoma. That’s because low-pressure systems rush south down the Rocky Mountains and collide with warm, moist air, forming nasty thunderstorms that often spawn tornadoes, said Harold Brooks, a research meteorologist at the Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, Okla.”Welcome to the sweet spot of severe thunderstorms,” Brooks said.Texas, Kansas and Florida get more tornadoes than Oklahoma does, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. But Oklahoma gets more of the biggest ones — the EF5s, like the one that smashed Moore. That’s why the storm lab and the National Weather Service storm prediction center are in Oklahoma, Lindell said.With severe thunderstorms, you can get both tornadoes and flooding. Oklahoma has been declared a disaster 35 times because of tornadoes and 44 times because of flooding. In some instances, a combination tornado-and-flood disaster was declared.The FEMA database looks only at how often catastrophes are declared and aid is shipped, not at how much total money is given out.Tornadoes generally occur more frequently than hurricanes and earthquakes but usually don’t cause as much damage. Oklahoma City officials estimate the Moore tornado caused up to $2 billion in damage, while state officials say it may exceed the figures for the 2011 Joplin, Mo., tornado. At $2.8 billion, Joplin is the nation’s costliest tornado since 1950, according to NOAA.Yet NOAA’s National Hurricane Center lists more than 30 hurricanes that caused more than $2.8 billion damage when adjusted for inflation. Hurricanes tend to hit broader areas, last longer and strike the more densely populated coast, where property values are higher.Another explanation for Oklahoma’s role as Disaster Central is urban sprawl, which puts more people in the path of disasters. Moore, with 56,000 people, boomed by more than one-third between 2000 and 2010. As more such suburbs pop up and grow, the chances of homes being hit increases.Between 1970 and 1985, Tulsa County was declared a flood disaster about nine times, said Patton, the disaster consultant. Then the city moved more than 1,000 buildings out of harm’s way and diverted water. There hasn’t been major flooding since, she said.Oklahoma is the leading state when it comes to safe rooms, which probably saved lives in Moore, according to FEMA. Yet some areas haven’t developed wisely to avoid disasters and „don’t respect the power of nature,” Patton said.Several disaster experts also say Oklahoma is particularly adept at working the bureaucracy to obtain federal aid.Having the president declare your community a federal disaster area is a complicated process that needs to be followed precisely. A governor must request a presidential declaration in writing through FEMA, which rates the disaster based on a number of factors. It is up to the president to make the decision, and then it’s up to FEMA to get the aid flowing.The presidential decision involves many factors, including the political clout of the region’s congressional delegation and how good a case the governor makes, said University of Delaware political science professor Richard Sylves, who studies disaster declarations. Oklahoma is so experienced at this process that its governors and emergency managers know how to make it run smoothly, he said.”Some people get disaster declarations simply because they’ve got an influential political delegation,” Lindell said of the process in general.The irony, said Kathleen Tierney, who heads the Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado, is that Oklahoma’s current two senators have often opposed special disaster relief funding bills for other parts of the country, such as one earlier this year for the Northeast after Superstorm Sandy.Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., has criticized the FEMA formula for declaring disasters, saying it rewards smaller states and punishes bigger ones for catastrophes of the same size.During a hearing last month, Coburn told Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano: „Oklahoma had 22 FEMA grants last year. I’m thankful that the federal government is helping Oklahoma out, but in a lot of those, we weren’t overwhelmed and we could have taken and dealt with it. And some states that may be in much worse budget shape than we are had twice as much but got no help from the federal government on like-minded events. „Joseph Nimmich, FEMA associate administrator for disaster response, said Thursday that politics has absolutely nothing to do with Oklahoma’s many disaster declarations: „It’s purely a natural occurrence.”_Online:FEMA list of presidential disasters since 1953 by state: http://1.usa.gov/11eQHyUFEMA explains the process how a community gets declared a federal disaster:http://1.usa.gov/13LS6ZL NOAA’s billion-dollar disasters: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/billions/summary-stats Seth Borenstein can be followed at http://twitter.com/borenbearsSafe room mandates remain rare in tornado statesDespite life-saving potential, many states and cities reluctant to mandate home storm shelters By David a. Lieb, Associated Press | Associated Press – 11 hrs ago
View PhotoAssociated Press -On Thursday, May 23, 2013 Sherry Wells stands near the storm shelter where she took cover when a tornado destroyed her home on Monday May 20, 2013 in Moore, Okla. Wells said she and her …MOORE, Okla. (AP) — After living nearly 20 years in their one-story brick home, Sherry and Larry Wells finally won the lottery — for a state rebate on a home storm shelter, that is. A contractor finished installing the concrete bunker beneath the slab of their garage in early May. About three weeks later, the shelter saved their lives when a tornado that killed 24 people tore through their neighborhood.Should residential storm shelters be mandatory in the midst of Tornado Alley? Absolutely, saysSherry Wells, „it’s the best thing ever.”But not a single state currently requires them in homes. And not many communities do so either, though officials in the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore are now considering it.Despite the life-saving potential of personal storm shelters, the cost remains a deterrent. So, too, does a general resistance to government mandates in politically conservative states such as Oklahoma, where tornadoes are most prevalent. Even the director of an association of storm shelter manufacturers, based in Texas, is opposed to a storm shelter mandate for new homes.”Any time a governmental entity says ‘thou shalt’ and tries to take an individual decision into the public domain, it’s going to get pushback, and you’re also going to raise the cost of things,” said Ernst Kiesling, executive director of the National Storm Shelter Association and a retired civil engineering professor Texas Tech University.The science of storm shelters has advanced considerably since Dorothy failed to make it to the tornado cellar at Aunty Em’s Kansas farm in the 1938 movie the Wizard of Oz. Some shelters still are dug underground in the backyard. But they are increasingly made with specially fabricated concrete and steel doors to meet Federal Emergency Management Agency specifications. And they aren’t necessarily underground. In some cases, closets or bathrooms are being fortified to double as „safe rooms” that can withstand furious winds even if the rest of the house is blown away.In 2011, Oklahoma announced the SoonerSafe incentive program, offering federally financed rebates of up to $2,000 to residents who install storm shelters. The state uses a lottery-style drawing to select rebate winners from among the thousands of online applications. Sherry Wells said she won this year. She and her husband decided to get the biggest shelter available— a vault-like box with wooden benches — at a cost of $4,800. The project was so freshly finished that the Wells hadn’t even submitted their rebate forms when the tornado hit on Monday.”If it wasn’t for the hand of God and the cellar, we wouldn’t be here,” Wells said as she sorted through the rubble of her home Thursday.A little over 3,000 residential storm shelters are registered in Moore, a city of about 56,000, said community development director Elizabeth Jones.Moore Mayor Glenn Lewis wants to propose a city ordinance requiring all new homes to have storm shelters. But realistically, he said, city officials may be able to require them only in new assisted living facilities and apartment complexes because of cost concerns. Contractors will be part of the conversation with the City Council to see whether a broader requirement is possible, Lewis said.”We want to be competitive,” he said. „We don’t want to price them out of the market.”Asked at a news conference if a similar mandate might be considered statewide, Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin quickly shot down the suggestion.”We aren’t going to require people to do anything, but if someone chooses to do that, we certainly encourage it,” Fallin said.In the aftermath of a devastating tornado two years ago, the Joplin City Council in southwest Missouri considered several code and policy changes for homes but ultimately decided against a safe room requirement, City Manager Mark Rohr said.”I think there’s a viewpoint that that’s a personal determination to make,” Rohr said.About 7,500 homes were damaged or destroyed in the May 2011 Joplin tornado. Rohr said 84 percent of homes have been rebuilt, fixed or have permits pending. While the city doesn’t require safe rooms, it recommends that people „shelter in place” in the event of a storm — either in a basement, an interior closet or a safe room — rather than leaving to try to make it to one of several community storm shelters being built at Joplin schools.Some local governments have taken a partial step toward a residential storm shelter mandate. A Wichita, Kan., ordinance adopted in 1994 requires storm shelters in existing mobile home parks with at least 20 homes and in new parks with at least 10 mobile homes. A 2000 ordinance adopted in Wichita’s home of Sedgwick County also required storm shelters for all new mobile home parks with space for at least 10 homes.Alabama is the only state that requires new schools to be built with safe rooms, according to the National Storm Shelter Association. But similar mandates could come in the future. Kiesling said a draft of the 2015 update for the International Building Code calls for new schools to have storm-safe areas. Many states and cities incorporate those building standards into their own laws.Although several schools in the Oklahoma City area already have safe rooms, the two elementary schools that were destroyed by Monday’s tornado did not have them. Seven children died in one of those schools.Yet the question remains. If the government were to mandate safe rooms in schools or homes, would people actually use them?With a tornado visibly approaching their Moore home, 20-year-old Maritza Marin fled by vehicle with her mother, father and a younger sister. They drove several blocks away, then returned to see a neighbor’s red car dumped onto what once was her bedroom. Marin said their home had no storm shelter. She likes the mayor’s proposed requirement, but she’s not sure she would use a storm shelter if she again found herself facing a tornado.„I think it would be good to have a shelter, but if you can run away from one, it’s better,” Marin said._Associated Press writers Ramit Plushnick-Masti in Moore and Jim Salter in St. Louis contributed to this report.
