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KIRKSVILLE, MO. -- Kirksville is on its way to having a designated emergency storm shelter, but it's a long and tedious process.

Council members discussed the topic at their study session late Monday afternoon.

The facility would be a public place for those without a safe place to go to seek shelter during a tornado warning or some other severe weather event.

City Manager Mari Macomber said the city is working with an as-yet undisclosed entity to develop the regulatory signage that's required to be a community emergency shelter.

She told KTVO there is a lot of red tape to cut through.

"People might think, 'Well, you just throw up some signs,'” said Macomber. “Well, that's not the case. In order to be an official storm shelter, there are certain standards that you have to meet, especially in terms of signage...if somebody were traveling to town and a tornado warning came,...where would they find the shelter?"

That is the stage at which the city and the entity are at this point in time.

Then after the signage is figured out, there are the issues of who's going to pay for the signs, where will they be put up and will MoDOT approve of them?

Macomber estimates it will be months and months before the process is completed.

Council members also briefly talked about possibly requiring storm shelters at the city's mobile home parks since those types of neighborhoods are usually leveled by tornadoes.

They will discuss that further at a future study session.