Due to soil conditions, says an AIR Worldwide analysis, many Oklahoma homes are built upon concrete slabs and lack basements or underground areas, however, a FEMA initiative, which expired in 2011, gave rebate money to more than 6,000 homeowners to build disaster-resistant residential shelters.

However, despite the program, several news outlets have addressed the issue of a lack of shelters in Oklahoma, showing that preparedness issues remain even as warning systems and the dissemination of information improves.

Aside from the issue of homes without shelters, a Reuters story addresses the fact that schools leveled by the Moore tornado did not have areas of refuge for those within. Reuters quotes Larry Tanner, research associate for the National Wind Institute at Texas Tech University who studies how shelters behave in fierce storms, as saying that public buildings should have shelters or safe rooms in areas prone to large storms. “Schools should all be built with shelters,” Tanner says, adding, “I would prefer my taxpayer money being directed toward shelters rather than AstroTurf on ball fields.”

John Wiscaver, co-chair of the Oklahoma Insurance Catastrophe Task Force and vice president of Public Affairs at Oklahoma Farm Bureau Insurance, says that the state held a tornado disaster summit just six weeks prior to the Midwest storm outbreak.

“Because of the Moore tornado that occurred in 1999, we were anticipating the chance that a major storm would strike again,” he says.

“We had a national tornado summit about six weeks ago in March that was attended by 1,000 insurance people and first responders. The initiative was to help the insurers understand the rules of the state, the building codes of our municipalities and what the insurance department can do to help handle claims.”

Part of that disaster plan was to provide all claims handlers in the state, and all visiting insurance professionals, an official badge to wear for up to 90 days after a disaster, marking them as legitimate businesspeople in an effort to cut down on fraud.

Tornado damage has increased sevenfold in the last two decades, reports I.I.I., and Lloyd's says that average tornado sightings have increased by 14 a year, a fact McChristian attributes to more people populating areas where severe twisters once ran free.

In comparison to the Moore event, which had up to $6 billion in exposures in its path, 1925 was the deadliest tornado year in the U.S, when a 219 mile long tornado twisted through Missouri, Illinois and Indiana, killing 695 people.

April 2011 was the most active tornado month in the U.S., with 753 reported tornado sightings, including the ones in Joplin, Mo., and Tuscaloosa, Ala.