James Coburn
The Edmond Sun
EDMOND —
A House bill will be reintroduced next legislative session to require owners of mobile and RV parks to provide tenants with a severe weather shelter plan, said the bill’s author, state Rep. Pat Ownbey.
Preparedness in the wake of a tornado saves lives, Ownbey told The Edmond Sun.
Oklahomans experience an average of between 50 and 100 or more tornadoes each year, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Storm Prediction Center.
House Bill 2835 was killed by the Senate Business and Labor Committee in March after a last-minute lobbying effort by the Manufactured Housing Association of Oklahoma, said Ownbey, R-Ardmore.
“Emergency management had already agreed they would work with the mobile home park owners on a plan,” Ownbey said. “There would be no cost to the state and to my knowledge there wouldn’t be any cost to mobile home park owners.”
Deanna Fields, executive director of the Manufactured and Housing Association of Oklahoma, said she had supported HB 2835 as it made its way through the House. Her support depended on a liability clause exempting the property owners from damages in a lawsuit, Fields said.
“We thought everything was hunky-dory until we gave it to our attorneys when it went into the Senate,” Fields said. “And our attorneys came back and said this will not release any of them from liability.”
Fields said many of the property owners live out of state and questioned how they would be notified about the proposed law. Only a small percentage of the owners are members of the Manufactured Housing Association, she said.
Evacuation policies are smart, Fields said. More than 500 mobile home and RV parks have shelters of one type or another above ground or below ground, she added.
HB 2835 lacks corresponding legislation for apartment buildings, department stores and convenience stores, Fields said. The bill is well intended but would result in bad unintended consequences, she said.
Expanded liability, reduction in investment property values, restricting financing and adding additional cost for landlords makes HB 2835 problematic, she said. The cost would be passed down to tenants who are least able to afford it, she added.
Fields said the Landlord Tenant Act is a blueprint for the courts on renters rights, Fields said. All it takes is one lawsuit to close down a park, she said. She recommends that HB 2835 include some oversight from a state agency for enforcement purposes.
“He needs to put into that law what actually needs to be in that plan,” Fields said.
HB 2835 was supported by the Oklahoma County Emergency Management, said David Barnes, director.
“I would do so again next year,” he said.
The legislation would have a low impact cost — as cheap as a a few pieces of paper for owners of mobile and RV park owners, Barnes said. HB 2835 would provide a high impact in terms of public safety, he said.
A plan would be developed for mobile home parks and RV parks so people living in those facilities would know where to seek shelter, how to get to the shelter and what type of warning mechanisms would be used to alert them to move to shelter, Barnes said.
“He was not requiring shelters to be constructed, which was a huge issue and certainly could be cost prohibitive,” Barnes said.
Barnes drafted a single-page planning document to complement a simple piece of legislation, he said. Forty-nine percent of the tornado fatalities in the United States were suffered by those who remain within or attempt to flee mobile homes, Barnes said.
Emergency management across Oklahoma has a responsibility and desire to protect lives and property, he said.
TO LEARN MORE about the Manufacture Housing Association of Oklahoma, visit www.mhao.org.
