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Closets should be for clothes, not shelter, Lawrence resident Yan Ling is convinced.

Ling and her husband crammed themselves into the closet of their ground-floor apartment at Aberdeen South Apartments, 4700 W. 27th St., when a tornado threatened and ultimately damaged several homes on May 8, 2003. The experience was enough to convince Ling there ought to be a better way to remain safe.

"If an emergency like that comes, we really don't have any place to go," Ling said. "My husband and I worry about that a lot."

It also has city officials thinking. City commissioners tonight are scheduled to receive an update on the feasibility of requiring new apartment complexes and schools to include tornado and storm shelters.

City Commissioner Mike Rundle said the lack of shelters, particularly in multifamily complexes, left the city constantly flirting with disaster.

"Their absence is a real shortcoming," Rundle said. "I think we have just been very lucky that we haven't had tornadoes more than every 90 years or so."

But shelters wouldn't be cheap, according to research by the city's Neighborhood Resources Department. In their report, department officials said a storm shelter for a 100-unit apartment complex would cost about $220,000 to build, with an expected lifespan of 30 years.

"It is hard to say these are cost-prohibitive, because what cost can you put on preventing an injury or saving a human life?" City Commissioner Sue Hack said. "But it is an awful lot of money. I'm not ready to make that leap at this point."

Not all apartment dwellers are, either. Kellie Ohrt lives in the Tuckaway apartment complex, 2600 W. Sixth St., and said she, like Ling, took to the closet when severe weather approached. Ohrt said she was comfortable with that approach for now because she feared new storm shelters would drive up her rent.

Lawrence High School sophomore Matthias Heilke packs his book bag with homework under his locker in a hallway at LHS. The hallway is used as a shelter in case of a tornado. The city commission is exploring the possibiliity of requiring new schools and apartment complexes to install tornado shelters.

"I try not to think about it too much," Ohrt said. "But what I do know is rent already is so outrageous; I don't want to pay any more."

School district officials also had mixed reactions to the idea of installing safe rooms in schools. Several board members said they thought it would be difficult to install storm shelters in every school. Plus, board members said each building had designated areas that students and staff should go to in case of severe weather.

"I think we have kids in the safest place possible in the buildings," board member Sue Morgan said.

But board member Leonard Ortiz said he was open to considering storm shelters as a part of new construction projects, like the planned reconstruction of South Junior High School.

6News video: Storm shelter plan flops Commission to consider home safety requirement (02-22-05) City cites high cost of building safe rooms (06-16-04) 6News video: Commission not requiring storm shelters (06-15-04) Resident on mission for home storm shelters (05-30-04)

"I'm always open to new ideas to make our children safer," Ortiz said.

City commissioners asked staff in January to look into the feasibility of storm shelters for multifamily and school district projects after rejecting a plan to require safe rooms in new single-family residential construction.

Commissioners are to receive the report at their meeting at 6:35 tonight at City Hall, Sixth and Massachusetts streets. They are not scheduled to take any action on the report.