More Oklahoma School Districts Consider Adding Tornado Shelters

• Logan Layden
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  Logan Layden is a reporter and managing editor for StateImpact Oklahoma. He is a native of McAlester, Oklahoma and graduated from the University of Oklahoma in 2009. Logan spent three years as a state capitol reporter and local host of All Things Considered for NPR member station KGOU in Norman and six years as a reporter with StateImpact from 2011 to 2017. Most recently, he was news director for McAlester Radio before returning to public radio in 2020.

Friday is the first day of school in Moore, Okla., where almost three months ago, a deadly EF5 killed 24 people and left two of the city’s schools completely destroyed. Neither school had a safe room to protect students from the storm, and that’s the case for most schools across the state.

In a story that aired nationally on NPR’s Morning Edition, Kurt Gwartney, of StateImpact partner station KGOU, reports change is already in the works. Oklahoma schools have a new priority, and a number of them plan to add tornado shelters.