The problem is that those warnings are SO common that they are highly disruptive if people were to just drop everything and "seek shelter." It's not like, "Oh, I guess I won't go shopping today, I can stay in cuz I have basement." There's nowhere to go, so to properly plan, you're looking at literally packing up and checking into a hotel. Ain't nobody got the time or money for that.

These tornados always hit at night, too. You can't exactly find an excuse to suddenly go to Walmart at 2am, because Walmart isn't even open anymore.

I've driven 20 miles to wait out a particularly nasty-sounding warning before and the only place I could find was a hospital, and they chewed me out for trying to stay there when I didn't have anything medically wrong with me. The only reason they let us stay there for a few hours was because I had a kid with me who already had PTSD from these tornados and the MOMENT he overheard the ER lady telling us we couldn't stay he started hyperventilating and having a complete breakdown right there in the hallway.