When the sky turns a funny shade of green, and then falls on your house with a ferocity that can only be imagined, then a storm shelter might be the only thing standing between you, your loved ones, and the grave.
It is difficult, nay impossible to overstate the dangers inherent in a tornado rated EF4 or EF5. Even tornadoes with less ferocity are perfectly capable of destroying communities, starting with the shoddily build homes that Oklahoma is famous for. (pdf)
In previous articles I have been known to criticize our local TV News affiliates, but this time credit for the investigation goes to NewsOn6.
We in Oklahoma live in a State that does not care about the safety of its citizens. Oh sure, they dress it up with a word salad, but as a guy I have enormous respect for is wont to say ... "Don't tell me what you believe. Tell me what you do and I'll tell you what you believe".
Well in Oklahoma, what they do is kill in committee any attempts, by anyone, to get building codes enhanced to mandate the building of shelters in new homes, shelters in new schools, shelters in Trailer Parks. In fact, the only shelters Oklahoma is interested in are Tax Shelters.
It's not like some legislators haven't tried:
“This is a red state,” said state Rep. Richard Morrissette, D-Oklahoma City, who has introduced several unsuccessful bills in the state Legislature to require so-called “safe rooms,” shelters or anti-tornado construction in homes and trailer parks. “People don’t like anything that is mandated. They don’t like it when the government says they have to do something.”
State Rep. Morrissette is only partially correct, because Oklahomans da want shelters, and they are prepared to pay for them as noted in an
earlier piece:
Mike Gilles, a former president of the Oklahoma State Home Builders Association, said that he built safe rooms in all his custom homes, and that even many builders who build speculatively now make them standard.
But asked whether the government should require safe rooms in homes, he said, “Most homebuilders would be against that because we think the market ought to drive what people are putting in the houses, not the government.”
So, if the State will not help its citizens, and the builders refuse to include the modest cost of a shelter in a new build, what lies in front of the intrepid homeowner who chooses to buck the feckless government, and provide a shelter for his own family, friends and neighbors.
One might imagine that such a stalwart, community-minded and thoughtful individual would find the wheels of bureaucracy greased in such a way as to make this easy, right?
Partly right, as NewsOn6 found when they let their fingers do the walking, and Googled around the State.
What they found was the the fee for a building permit, for a storm shelter, could range from zero, in Rogers County where I live, to a whopping $260 in Tulsa.
I quote from the City official:
"We have been tasked, in our department, to recover our cost of service," said Cheryl Reichman, the manager of permits for the City of Tulsa.
Reichman said the fee is set by the city council and pays for city employees to review the building plan. That includes an architectural, zoning, and water and sewer review, plus one inspection, as well as office staff to process the paperwork.
The fee is based on the value of whatever you're building.
Let me understand this ...
The fee is based upon the value of whatever you're building .... Which is gobbledegook for ... We are not seeking to charge the costs involved, we are trying to extract a sales tax.
These people, and I use the term pejoratively, disgust me. They are "attempting to ensure what you build is safe". Don't make me laugh you stupid halfwits. It's a storm shelter! How safe do you think it will be if it isn't there!!
In other words, Tulsa not only doesn't support mandating shelters, they could pass an ordinance, they even want to make it as expensive as they think they can get away with in order that you might be discouraged from providing one yourself. Could they get any more mendacious?
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