speculative about that, because it will cost. we could do mahler mitigation projects than building one large seawall. i guess in oklahoma, and i m obviously not an expert at çal but hearing that story you could make the argument that for probably a small amount of money you could build a saferoom or cellar. we re thinking about similar things. here in new york we didn t get it right, either. there were some things we can t have done to make new york better prepared and better safe for the hurricane we had, but certainly going forward, we look at what is the best way we can expect the money for the best return. you know, ron, after hurricanes sandy a lot of analysts said this brings to fore the question of the role of government. a lot of folks thought that hurricane sandy in many ways frustrated the president s argument about the role of
right now. we are in exacontact with everye of our storm trackers with every storm that s a threat to life right now. those are the tornado warned storms. let s two to the storm tracker. this appears to be a tornado on the ground or rapidly developing tornado. it is heading directly for meeker, direct path. south side of jack town, down highway 62. over toward prag. you folks in maker, below ground, interior closet or bathroom isn t going to do it. you have to be below ground are out of the way. storm cellar, basement, or saferoom. meeker. let s go to mark. he is on the storm right now. it is rapidly intensifying. yes, we re north of shawnee on 177 and we have a large what i m going to call a large bowl-shaped tornado on the ground i believe. it s dark ahead of me. it is basically from my vantage point it s about a mile wide. that would pretty much put it in that perspective for what just went through the oklahoma city
either get hit or be on the northern edge. again, folks if you re listening to us, you need to be we re talking about these areas. you can t be in an interior closet or bathroom, don t lose your life. go below ground. storm cellar, basement, or saferoom. it s the only option you have. it s all heavy debris. see how it s turned now to the east. there s the warren theater. there s moore high school. this is south 19th, south 34th. it s going to go right down through the neighborhoods between south 34th and south 19th street. it will hit the warren theater. if it doesn t veer off, that s exactly where it s going to hit and cross i-35. go, mike bennett. tracking right down 19th approaching santa fe. we had to bail out of it because it was coming right at us. we re getting ready to turn south at south moore high school. you can see our video. it is just it s absolutely massive. it s just shredding everything in front of it. we re shooting out the side glass right here right now.
mark, again, you re right there. the important thing we have to pass along to you for you folks in meeker, this very much appears to b a large tornado. i don t take that statement likely. this is the same storm that produced the destruction in the moore and south metro. it is the same storm. it cycled. the wind crovelocities we re showing are large and violent. you saw mike diller s stream. that was it. in the middle of the darkened area, that could be debris. it s headed directly for the town of meeker and it s only five miles west of meeker right now. you folks in meeker, protect your life. be out of the way. below ground. interior closet or bathroom is not enough. storm cellar, basement, saferoom. if you re in a mobile home, evacuate the mobile home. this is a large tornado. see the hook spinning around. it s over jack town right now on highway 62 and heading directly toward meeker. i want to go back to mark dillard. this is, again, live. we re talking about continued
devastati devastation wrought across the region by this incredible tornado. i want to bring in dr. irwin director of disaster preparedness at columbia university. good afternoon, sir. hi, martin. how does anyone prepare for something like this? well, this is a monster of a disaster, and unfortunately, tornadoes really, you often do not get very much warning at all, although there are some ways of predicting whether you re in a tornado, obviously, proned area, and whether officials can determine if it looks like such a storm is actually forming. but the fact of the matter is that for individuals who live in these areas, it often comes without much warning. that is why it s absolutely mandatory that people have a saferoom and safe space that they cannot only get to but practice going to. this really has to happen in terms of where people live, where the children go to school, where people work and so forth. a very well-rehearsed,