The Surprising Reason Oklahoma Doesn't Have Enough Tornado Shelters
May 22, 2013
The Atlantic Cities - Larry Tanner is the manager of the Debris Impact Test Facility for the Wind Science and Engineering Research Center at Texas Tech University. In that capacity, he focuses on the (relatively) optimistic side of devastating storms: sheltering people from them. One of Tanner’s jobs is to test shelters and their components in his lab, creating several-hundred-mph winds and debris storms — which can’t be mathematically simulated — to analyze those shelters’ ability to withstand a natural storm. Another of his jobs is to work with FEMA to assess the performance of storm shelters after tragedies like the Oklahoma tornadoes of 1999. Or the Missouri tornado of 2011.
tags : Texas Tech in the News