Why no basements in tornado areas??

MrJT

MrJT

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I'm watching the news and they're talking about tornados in TX. They interviewed a man who hunkered down in his bathtub with his family and hid under a mattress.

I see this time and time again on the news. Why don't these homes have storm cellars or basements? Nearly every home here in PA has a basement. Mine for example is completely below grade on 3 1/2 of the 4 walls.

If ever we have a tornado warning, we head down to the far corner where the previous owner built a small 3'x6' "storm closet". It's actually a pretty impressive creation. That corner is completely below grade and caddy corner to the only not below grade portion of the basement. It has re-enforced cinder block walls and a metal door. The closet ceiling has double the floor joists above.

It sure beats a bathtub on the first floor.
 
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There's also a company that builds underground shelters that go in the garage. Storm Dorms USA

My daughter is considering moving to Texas next year when she's out of school and thinks she should have one built for her. They also make a room like the storm closet, or it might be the storm closet.

As to why no basements in that part of the country, I don't know. My son lives in Alabama and his house has no basement nor do any that I know of in the area.
 
We had a storm cellar back when I lived up around Wichita Falls.
It was seperate from the house so that if a tornado hit the house you wouldn't be (hopefully) burried by debris.
 
In The Wizard of Oz, what did Dorothy's Auntie Em and them go into when the twister was coming? A root cellar or a dedicated storm cellar? I'd always thought that in tornado land every farm, at least, had something similar.
 
Most of N. Texas is built on clay, unsuitable for basements and barely suitable for homes.

I'm about 30 miles NE of Granbury.
 
jtcarm said:
Most of N. Texas is built on clay, unsuitable for basements and barely suitable for homes.

I'm about 30 miles NE of Granbury.
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Interesting. But still, why not have at least outside storm cellar? They're rather inexpensive.
 
I rode out a tornado in an old stone cellar years ago with a client and her brood of six.That was the only time I'd ever heard those kids be quiet :-D
Oh yeah,we lived! The outbuildings and livestock didn't fare as well.
 
Why no basements in tornado areas??
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If they dug a basement, they'd have to put the dirt somewhere. If they piled it up, the horizon wouldn't be perfectly flat for 5,000 miles. They have ordinances against that. They like it flat in tornado alley.

I don't know how people can live without a basement once they've had one for a long time. Where do you set your drums up to play without pissi** off the whole family and neighborhood?
 
GaryS

Thanks for that site. Looks interesting! My son also lives in Alabama and has been through a tornado that took out a few windows...no basement!
 
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Gunslinger808 said:
We had a storm cellar back when I lived up around Wichita Falls.
It was seperate from the house so that if a tornado hit the house you wouldn't be (hopefully) burried by debris.
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A friend of mine from MS lived in a house that had storm cellar when he was a little kid. The time that they had to use it, his mother opened it up and they went down into it only to find it had about 2" of water and snakes in it. Back up they went and hid in the house.
 
HankG said:
GaryS

Thanks for that site. Looks interesting! My son also lives in Alabama and has been through a tornado that took out a few windows...no basement!
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My son lives on the east side of Mobile Bay, so hurricanes are supposed to be a bigger threat. Or so he tells me. The times I've visited there have been thunderstorms, but not threat of tornadoes.

Of course we had a F-0 tornado on my street in MA a couple of weeks ago. I missed it, but my wife was home and said it sounded exactly like a train, just as people say. Fortunately, no one was injured and there was only minor damage.
 
I've lived in the south my entire life with kinfolks not only in Arkansas, but Mississippi and Tennessee. Although storm cellers are quite common, basements in homes are not.

I designed my home and worked with a contractor to build it to include a basement. Problem was, we could not find anyone in the construction industry in Arkansas who knew anything about building basements. By word of mouth, we finally located a retired contractor originally from Indiana who had lots of experiance with basements. He retired in Arkansas for the warmer winters, when I reached out to him he said he'd help me out. He was a world of knowledge and very helpful and I've never had a single problem with my basement.

Interestingly, mine may be one of the few home basements in the county. It always seems to be an attraction when we have company. It's not that it's all that unique, it's just rare to see one around here. I've had more than one person refer to me as "the guy with the 'fraidy hole in his house." Frankly, it don't bother me one bit.

Rear view of the house with basement entrance off the pool deck. 3/4ths of the basement is poured reinforced concrete with a French drain all the way around. It's about 1100 sq ft but it's not totally rectangular. The basement guy showed us a method to improve stability by bringing the stairway down in the middle of the basement and forming the concrete around it.

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You can kind of tell from this view, taken from another hill across the valley, that the house is built on a low hill. We dug into the hill for the basement, built the basement, then fill the dirt back in around it and build the house on top. It was a chore and I can see why not many people around here build them, especially when there is little expertice.

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A basement with one side open is great but you need hilly land. On level land all 4 walls will be underground and a basement like that could be a damp moldy pit and that wouldn't be something most people want under their house. Larry
 
Simple reason is that they are not required. Most of the early "storm shelters" were nothing more than root cellars or coal bins. Some parts of the country the water table is so high that you can't put in a basement. Other parts they have to go so deep to meet foundation code on the frost line that you almost always get a basement.
Folks are finally thinking about storms and many of the new homes (especially the ones being rebuilt after a tornado) are being built with a safe room. I have a full basement but I am thinking about doing a multipurpose safe room on the outside of the foundation with access from inside.
Larry
 
I had one of those storm dorms in my garage in Oklahoma. We had to use it several times per year. It's cozy and nice if you make sure to keep the creepy crawlies out of it throughout the year. Spiders and tornady's... that's what Oklahoma has.
 
My wife and I are considering building a new home. I'm surprised by how many plans don't have basements taken into consideration.

tops said:
A basement with one side open is great but you need hilly land. On level land all 4 walls will be underground and a basement like that could be a damp moldy pit and that wouldn't be something most people want under their house. Larry
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Plenty of houses are built on flat land and have basements totally below grade with simple a cellar hatch door. Proper ventilation and there's no mold issues. Actually finishing off portions of basements is great because the R value of the earth makes for great insulation.

I've worked in quite a few houses where this was the only clue outside that there's a basement:

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1369008307.960075.jpg

Personally I'd hate to have an entire level with no windows.. but I've seen it. I'm more of a 3 walls below grade, the 4th wall halfway with windows kind of guy.


(Sent via iPhone)
 
I don't know if this is correct but I thought the reason nearly all the houses where I grew up in North Dakota had basements was because having a basement made it more efficient to heat the house in a climate with extreme cold . I had an uncle who built a new home on his farm on a concrete slab and no basement . All his brothers and sisters told him it was a terrible idea. Some of my friends families had dirt basements as did my grandfather's farm house.
 
I have lived in central Illinois all my life, except for Army time, and we have always had a basement. The only house I know of without a basement was my grandma's.
 
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