Midwest City closing public storm shelters | NewsOK.com (http://newsok.com/midwest-city-closing-public-storm-shelters/article/3738966)

You can always go to the basement at st Philip Neri.

I really agree with them. More people driving to a shelter during a storm just puts more people at risk than staying at home. If you happen to be there, it's not like they won't let you in, but they aren't going to open the doors and say "come on in".

As someone who has grown up and lived in the OKC area, I can't fathom where this notion of "public shelter" ever became a good idea. Its a logistical nightmare at best, a practical impossibility at worst. I guess it may be a holdover from the cold war days...

Two years ago, 3 friends of mine and myself, all lived together in a 3 bedroom house in MWC. It was after work and we all had friends over, it was of course, also tornado season. The wind was pretty bad and the light rain that had started to fall was now horizontal. The storm sirens went off. All but one roommate and myself stayed, and decided to not drive out through the hail and fierce rain coming down to get to a public shelter. 45 minutes later and the storm had passed. When everyone returned from their failed attempt at public shelter, wet and shivering, they told us the events that led up to returning to our house.

Two accidents avoided by other drivers trying to race home, one stalled out car in flood waters (we later had to retrieve it, no fun), and a full shelter at the Reed Conference Center, forcing them to leave and seek shelter again, somewhere else, which by then the storm had already passed. Had the tornado come through MWC, I couldn't imagine how more hectic it could have been for them running around trying to seek public shelter.