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Moore mayor wants safe-room shelters built in all new homes

The mayor of the Oklahoma City suburb that was devastated by a massive tornado Monday says he wants safe-room shelters built in all new homes.
Moore Mayor Glen Lewis, on Wednesday, said  he will propose an ordinance in the next couple of days at the Moore City Council that would modify building codes to require the construction of reinforced shelters in every new home in the town of 56,000.
Lewis says he is confident he'll get the four votes needed on the six-member council. The measure could be in force within months.
Underground safe rooms are typically built below garages and can cost around $4,000.
Plaza Towers Elementary School and Briarwood Elementary School, both of which were hit in the tornado, did not have reinforced storm shelters or safe rooms, said Albert Ashwood, the director of the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management. Seven children were found dead at Plaza Towers.
More than 100 schools across the state do have safe rooms, he said, explaining that it's up to each jurisdiction to set spending priorities.
But Ashwood said a shelter would not necessarily have saved more lives at Plaza Towers.
"When you talk about any kind of safety measures ... it's a mitigating measure, it's not an absolute," he told reporters. "There's not a guarantee that everyone will be totally safe."
Residents of Moore, Okla. are now returning to rubble after the tornado decimated the town Monday afternoon, but some homes have been targeted by looters.
Moore police arrested two unidentified people after a homeowner said they were picking around the rubble of his house, News9.com reports.
The homeowner said the suspects told him they were looking for survivors, but officials found a bag full of items allegedly stolen from homes in the area.
After a full day of searching for survivors in rubble on Tuesday, authorities believe everyone has been accounted for.
"I'm 98 percent sure we're good," Gary Bird said at a news conference with the governor, who had just completed an aerial tour of the disaster zone.
"As far as I know, of the list of people that we have had that they are all accounted for in one way or another," added Oklahoma County Commissioner Brian Maughan, according to Reuters.
The Oklahoma state medical examiner's office says the death toll is at least 24, with at least ten of the dead being children. More than 200 people were treated at area hospitals. An earlier death toll was set at 51, but the medical examiner said some victims may have been counted twice in the confusion.
The state medical examiner's office, in a statement to FoxNews.com Wednesday, identified the victims as Case Futrell, 4-months-old, Sydnee Vargyas, 7-months old, Katrina Vargyas, 4, Kyle Davis, 8, Antonia Canderaria, 9, Janae Hornsby, 9, Sydney Angle, 9, Emily Conatzer, 9, Nicolas McCabe, 9, Christopher Legg, 9, Megan Futrell, 29, Jenny Neely, 38, Shannon Quick, 40, Terri Long, 49, and Cindy Plumley and Deanna Ward, both ages unknown.  


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/weather/2013/05/22/experts-say-oklahoma-tornado-power-dwarfs-hiroshima-bomb-as-residents-face-long/#ixzz2UBUym21f

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