Tornado!!! Where do you take shelter?

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3dots

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I have a large area underneath my stairwell that I have coverted into a storm room. I built a heavy door from MDF and 2x4s that latches from the inside. You can almost stand straight up in it but not quite, it's big enough for about 6 adults. I have the usual emergency stuff inside but also have a 5# hand sledge, pry bar and jack...gotta be able to get out too.

It seems that my wife has been cramming it full of junk that would be perfectly safe in a tornado whilst the family would be strung up in the trees :eek:. As of last night, it has been reclaimed and the junk will be in a yard sale very soon ;). Hope you all in tornado alley have a safe place too, although sometimes, nothing above ground will suffice.
 
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Tornados and the occasional hurricane are rare here but we do get some and they do a lot of damage. My solution was to modify a corner of the basement a bit to make a space that could hold 4 people and our boxed cats. Yes If I/we got time the cats are going to the shelter, after all they are family.

The shelter is a concrete wall corner area between the stairs and my 72x41x27 safe and some rather solid built storage shelves. The stairs are built very solid and I have a couple of 4x4 standing vertical to reinforce a couple of the floor joists. Even if the whole house came down the mass of the safe and heavy duty house construction should keep us OK and not crushed and enough room to hopefully dig ourselves out.

As we live out a ways in the boonies (no cell service here) no way to tell when authorities or possibly surviving neighbors will check out our house.
 
Sounds like you've got a good spot too, NY. Hope you never have to use it.
 
We just go into the basement. There are two small windows in the main room so if its an actual threat we move to the area under the stairs
 
" Where do you take shelter?"

In my walk in basement, which is protected on two sides by a natural embankment, a block wall on one side, and open:eek: on the rear. The basement is also where we story our emergency supplies. We should be set down there; I do hope we never have to put it to the test.
 
I find a comfortable place to sit down and kiss my butt goodbye!

Actually, My house has 2X6 external studs, 2X12 ceiling joists and an excessive amount of hurricane strapping, My external walls and roof rafters are foam filled for insullation which adds a little structure the the frameing. An internal walk thru closet would be the location to cower in fear for my wife and dogs. I would tend to find another room so I don't have to listen to the static.

In all fairness, my wife lived in OK as a child and has been in a storm shelter as a tornado passed near. She is very afraid of any storm.
 
My "gun room" in the basement is about 10x12, windowless, and on the southwest side of the house. It's where we would head for shelter if required.
 
My house was built in the 60s with a "bomb shelter". It is actually a storm shelter, as we live near a recognized tornado rookery. It functions as a food storage unit also, and has gallons of water, a Coleman lantern and stove. Concrete walls and ceiling. As two tornados have jumped over our house in 15 years, we love the little room.
 
Lived through an F-4 tornado in 1982. It killed ten people in my town. I went to my basement and told my neighbors to join me if they wanted. They did. I do not want to experience that again.
 
My son has an earth contact home, he felt pretty safe. He lives in the tornado belt. A couple of years ago an F-3 hit an earth contact home down the road from his house. The couple was killed. He went to look at the house. The only thing on the floor was the remains of the toilet base. All else was gone.

He now thinks all basements and earth contact homes should have one room surrounded in concrete in it. When we build our new house, yep it's going to be in the middle of tornado alley, it will have one large gun safe room concrete walls and ceiling. I have one friend who has this set up.
 
Here. No blizzards, no hurricanes, no tornadoes, no earthquakes. Just dust storms and the occasional microburst. Oh yeah, and about four months per year of searing, eyeball frying, skin evaporating heat.
 
In my basement. I've got a refrigerator with food, water, and beer, and my gun safes are down there. If I hear a big one coming, I'm hugging my safe, because if it goes, I'm going with it!
 
I go out and do Sky Warn with the local PD, SO, and National Weather Service - so I'm in my truck.
My wife goes into an interior closet under the stairs or in the bathroom.
No basements here - Water table is too high.
 
In case of an EF-4 / EF-5 Tornado, underground is the only safe place. I don't have a basement, or a storm shelter. A ditch would be safer than my house. Good thing there is a large ditch just 20 feet from my door. Only problem with that is the high risk of drowning, due to rain from the storms. I need to rethink my strategy. Or buy a snorkel.
 
Here in Georgia, there is a section of the basement that goes out under the concrete slab for the front porch so that's where we would go. In Jacksonville, it's the center hallway since the house is on a slab foundation. Where I live in Jacksonville, the first water level is 19 1/2 feet so basements are called indoor swimming pools.

CW
 
model70hunter said:
My son has an earth contact home, he felt pretty safe. He lives in the tornado belt. A couple of years ago an F-3 hit an earth contact home down the road from his house. The couple was killed. He went to look at the house. The only thing on the floor was the remains of the toilet base. All else was gone.

He now thinks all basements and earth contact homes should have one room surrounded in concrete in it. When we build our new house, yep it's going to be in the middle of tornado alley, it will have one large gun safe room concrete walls and ceiling. I have one friend who has this set up.
Click to expand...

"Earth contact home," as opposed to what, a house that floats in outer space????
 
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