A giant EF5 tornado that barreled through Moore, Oklahoma, last week has reignited a big debate: should policy makers regulate safety from disasters? The oft-asked question is being raised again as city officials plan to weigh requiring safe rooms and shelters in new construction.

While the mile-wide tornado, which killed 24 people and damaged 13,000 homes, seems to make a strong good argument for legislation, many people still come down on the opposing side. The schism between them can be chalked up to cost and human psychology.

In a tough economy lawmakers are reluctant to impose onerous demands on new development, and especially in tornado-prone communities, warning fatigue can make the danger seem less ominous than it actually is. The city of Moore, which has experienced two EF5 tornadoes since 1999, might just be the testing ground to overcome those obstacles, however.

“Who thought we'd would have an EF5 tornado happen in same place twice?” Mayor Glenn Lewis told CBS News two days after the tornado hit. “We're just hoping it doesn't happen again.”

Some might think that one EF5 would be plenty to justify imposing new development policies. But the fear that government intervention will rob residents of what many see as a matter of individual choice has kept similar measures at bay, even in such hard-hit locales as Joplin, Missouri, which lost about 160 people to a EF5 tornado in 2011.

“Any time a governmental entity says ‘thou shalt’ and tries to take an individual decision into the public domain, it’s going to get pushback, and you’re also going to raise the cost of things,” Ernst Kiesling, executive director of the National Storm Shelter Association, told the Joplin Globe recently.

Sometimes those choices might not be up to individuals. As a Norman, Oklahoma, resident recently pointed out on NPR’s Talk of the Nation, renters and residents in condo complexes and assisted living facilities must rely on others to do the right thing to keep occupants safe.

“ I know a lot of homes that are rented that don't have shelters, and the landlords are not really very [receptive] because of the cost of installing the shelter,” said the resident. “But it puts a lot of families who don't own their homes, you know, in danger…. A lot of public facilities here in Oklahoma also don't have underground shelters.”

Although many local and state governments balk at passing legislation that would require shelters—and there are many—it doesn’t mean they’ve ignored taking measures altogether. After the first Moore tornado in 1999 the city of Moore launched a program that used federal money to reimburse residents for installing shelters, according to the Christian Science Monitor. A similar statewide program in Oklahoma, SoonerSafe, does the same, but its funds are so scarce that reimbursements are determined by lottery.

Other states such as Missouri and Kansas are taking measures to ensure that schools and stadiums have safe areas to shelter, but they are stopping short of Lewis’ plan to require them in private residences. And still, throughout the Midwest, stoicism remains entrenched.

“You can’t run every time you hear a warning,” Moore resident Larry Harjo told the New York Times. “You’ll be scared your whole life.”