VOA慢速英语:Safe Rooms Saved Lives in Tornado Disaster

The deadly tornado in Moore, Oklahoma has wind speeds of 400 kilometres an hour. 24 people were killed when the storm cut a path of destruction through the city.
俄克拉荷马州穆尔镇的致命龙卷风每小时风速400公里。风暴穿过造成破坏的同时还夺去了24人的生命。

With only a 15 minutes' warning, people fled Moore, or took refuge in the most secure area of their homes or other buildings. The lucky ones took cover in underground shelters, or steel-and-concrete structures called safe rooms.
警报发出15分钟后，人们就逃离穆尔镇，或在住处附近安全处等建筑里寻求避难。这些幸运儿们躲进了地下避难所，或者钢筋混泥土结构的安全屋。

Leslie Chapman Henderson is head of a non-profit group called the Federal Alliance for Safe Homes. The home safety activists is a big supporter of tornado safe rooms. She says they can help reduce the number of tornado deaths.
Leslie Chapman Henderson是一家名为“安全屋全美联盟”的非营利组织的负责人。住宅安全活动人士是龙卷风安全屋的重要支持者。她说安全屋可以帮助减少龙卷风死亡者的人数。

"The safe room is an interior room of the home that has been reinforced and tested and certified to withstand high wind and debris impact of the type that we've just seen happening in Moore, Oklahoma. In fact, we've already heard of families and stories of survival of people who were in safe rooms, either above ground, or below ground."
“安全屋是加固的内室房间，经过测试和认证，可以抵抗强风和碎片，就像我们刚才在俄克拉荷马州穆尔镇看到的那样。事实上，我们听说有的家庭和在安全屋的幸存者的故事，无论是地面上还是地面下。”

Skye Strouhal of Moore was one of those people. He watched as the tornado moved in his direction, he and a friend run to a neighbor's underground shelter only minutes before the storm struck.
Skye Strouhal就是穆尔镇的这些人之一。他看到龙卷风向他这个方向移动，他和朋友跑到邻居家的地下避难室，几分钟后暴风就袭来了。

"It was getting a little too scary for me and I followed him back there into that backyard and we tried to open that cellar and it was locked by a chain, and then they let us in and shortly after that (the storm) was on top of us."
“吓死我了，就跟着他来到后院，我们努力打开锁链锁上的地窖，然后他们让我们进去，很快暴风就到头顶了。”

Better methods for predicting storms give people like Skye Strouhal and his friend more time to react, but they need someplace safe to go. Buildings can be built to resist strong winds, but not like those in the tornado that struck Moore. It was rated an F-5, a tornado with the fastest wind speeds.
预测风暴方法的改进为Skye Strouhal及其朋友这样的人们提供了更多的反应时间，但他们需要有安全的地方可以去。有的建筑可能抗强风，但对像这次袭击穆尔镇的暴风就不行了。这次风力是F-5，是速度最快的龙卷风。

Leslie Chapman Henderson says even the building codes or laws that do exist, are not widely used or enforced.
Leslie Chapman Henderson表示，即使这样的建筑规范或法律确实存在，它也未被广泛使用或强制执行。

"There are places at the EF-0, 1 and 2 level where a building code can make a difference. But what we really need here is a combination of both the code and the safe room."
“对于EF-0,1,2这样的龙卷风级别，建筑标准会起到点作用，但我们真正需要的是标准和安全屋兼备。”

Most of the ruined structures in Moore had neither. Only one in ten homes there have tornado safe rooms.
穆尔镇被毁的大多数建筑两者皆无。当地只有十分之一的住宅有龙卷风安全屋。

Moore sits in a central area of the United States called tornado alley where such storms are common. This is the fourth severe tornado in the city in fourteen years.
穆尔镇坐落在美国中部被称为龙卷风带的地区，这类风暴非常常见。这是14年来该市遭遇的第四大龙卷风。

But Leslie Chapman Henderson says memories do not alway last. Neither of the two elementary schools destroyed in Moore had safe rooms. Those rooms, she says could have saved the seven children who died.
但Leslie Chapman Henderson说人们总不长记性。穆尔镇两所被毁的小学都没有安全屋。她说，这种安全屋原本可以挽救那7名遇难孩子的生命。

"I think we need to focus on our schools, and we need to set a minimum standard of always having a safe room option for students. What we've learned here tragically is that is the most important investment that we can make."
“我想我们需要关注学校，我们需要建立最低标准，即永远为学生提供安全屋。我们从这场惨剧中学到的是，这就是我们所能做的最重要的投资。”

As the people of Moore start to rebuild, its mayor is pushing for new laws requiring safe rooms in all new buildings. Similar proposals were made following each recent tornado strikes, but none such laws have been passed.
随着穆尔镇的人们开始重建，该镇镇长正在推动所有新建住房必须设有安全屋的新法律。最近龙卷风袭来后也有类似的议案提出，但都没有得到通过。