The shelters that pass the test can repel and stop the same debris that goes right through a house's brick walls. Researchers at Texas Tech University said they are disappointed it has taken so long for the money to reach the DFW area because they know storm shelters can guarantee survival.Īt the university's Wind Science and Engineering Center, researchers simulate conditions produced by EF-5 tornadoes by firing wood boards at 250 mph at storm shelters. According to state records, the Panhandle Regional Planning Commission received $4.2 million to install almost 1,700 shelters. In other parts of Texas, counties have been much faster in getting their plans together and applying for the shelter money. Four months later, they are still waiting for approval through the state and FEMA. In one case earlier this year, FEMA funded a tornado shelter application in Oklahoma within a few weeks of receiving the final application information from the state, the agency told NBC 5.ĭallas, Denton and Collin counties applied for safe room money - along with Tarrant County - in December. In an email, an agency spokesman said FEMA "always tries to process applications as quickly and smoothly as possible." NBC 5 wanted to ask FEMA some questions about why the process can take so long, but the agency refused to be interviewed on camera. Then the county applied for the tornado shelter grant, which can take another year. Tarrant County spokesman Marc Flake said his county's hazard mitigation plan added up to hundreds of pages and a yearlong process of working with the state and FEMA. Under FEMA rules, the plans are required before a county can even ask for the tornado shelter money.Ĭomo to host community school event before Fort Worth ISD returns for '23-'24 school year "In order for counties and cities to be eligible, they have to have approved hazard mitigation plans," said Molly Thoerner, NCTCOG director of emergency preparedness. The North Central Texas Council of Governments, which represents the region's 16 counties, said counties sometimes don't apply for the shelter grant money because the paperwork is too time-consuming. The other 15 counties in the region received nothing because they simply didn't ask for it. It received about $400,000 to install shelters in about 200 homes. FEMA's Tornado Safe Room Rebate Program will often pay half of the cost of a shelter, up to a maximum of $3,000.īut in North Texas, only Tarrant County has received money for building safe rooms in homes. The Federal Emergency Management Agency said it has spent more than $540 million helping people install shelters across the country in the last 13 years. A two-month NBC 5 investigation has found that only a fraction of the hundreds of millions of dollars the federal government has handed out for tornado shelters made it to the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, the biggest metropolitan area in Tornado Alley.
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