Tornado Shelters ~ Underground or Saferoom

[paladin 0]

We are moving to OK soon and need some feedback from you Texans & Okies with tornado experience......oh, I guess KS is tornado alley too. We just returned from a family trip to find a home and there were 4 touch downs within 2 days. :omg: Looks like a long tornado season for us.

We have friends from OH that live in OK now and some have the underground shelters and one has the same room. Not sure which way to go. We signed a one year lease on a home and will be searching for land to build within the next year. We are going to ask the owners of the leased property for permission to install some sort of shelter at our own expense without any expectations of recovering the costs. The way we look at it, it's a small price to pay considering it can save your life, let alone the lives of your children.

So.....which do you prefer and why?

Thanks in advance for your responses. :confused:

[Carlene 12]

I'm a native Texan, too and have seen one tornado up close in all that time, and it did some damage to property but no one was injured.

Most Texans do not have storm shelters. Maybe we are just tougher than those sissies from OK and KS....LOL. I know one family with a concrete "safe room". No one I know has an underground shelter, although both my grandmothers had something called a root cellar that doubled as a storm shelter.

The traffic in downtown Dallas scares me a whole lot more than any old twister ever could.

[Kat817 19]

We too have a place in TX. And it does have an underground cement cellar, separate from the house. It is not a new addition, my DH's grandparents put it in. This is in central Texas. It would take seeing the tornado staring me in the face to get me in that shelter---I have been told by everyone who has been in it, that there are snakes who love it! My FIL said that last time he was in there, he saw 2 snakes curled up in old Mason jars......that was enough for me!!!

The subject come up, because I ask my DH if we should check it out, and see if it needed stocked....my in laws laughed at me. Said it had been there for 50+ years, and was used to store food items when his grandparents were alive, but never used in the event of a storm. I'd still like to find a way to keep the snakes out, and safe stuff in!!!

Kat

[Doula Lea 0]

We have been in the middle of the prairie in TX now for 6 years. We do not have an outdoor shelter and truthfully I don't think that we could even make it to one in time if there was a toronado. We live so far in the country, power goes out during big storms so we are relying on a battery powered radio. The closet under our staircase has been hollowed out and that is our emergency shelter. No outside doors, no windows, and I keep it stocked with supplies. The staircase is usually the most stable part of a 2 story home, so it will have to work for now. The shelters are just too expensive and I just don't see us getting to it in time if a tornado was approaching. All of that said, we have never in 6 years had to get in our little closet.:confused:

[maudeispam 2]

I live in SE South Dakota and we get our fair share of severe weather, including tornadoes. When we bought our home three years ago, we specified we wanted a basement. Either a safe room, root celler or traditional basement are all reasonably safe during severe weather. Just make sure you have a well stocked emergency kit, with a flash light, extra batteries, Water, radio with extra batteries, blankets, and a first aid. www.ready.gov has a more extensive list of items.

[Daisalana 33]

In Alabama, we have some pretty heavy tornado seasons. I love tornado weather. We would only go in the closet with pillows and the animals if the radar showed a tornado *on the ground* en route. That happened so rarely.. opposed to the billions of 'warnings' that come around. Knock on wood here too, but I always go outside and watch the sky. It's so beautiful!

[Lap_dancer 8]

In a car chasing it.

( I have an unnatural fascination with twisters )

[travelgirl 3]

I prefer a basement, but mostly because a finished, furnished basement can be a nice place to go "ride out the storm" if it's nasty outside. Especially if you have small children. Lots of times the storm hits in the late evening, or even in the middle of the night, and the kiddies can crash in the basement, and you don't have to worry about them.

Personally, though, I LOVE to watch storms. No basement for me!!!

[ReneBean 3]

Basements and underground shelters are bad in a flash flood - something we get lots of here in TX - which may be why folks here don't have them.

If you feel the need for something - go with a safe room - above ground... :]

[Carlene 12]

Personally, though, I LOVE to watch storms. No basement for me!!!

Me, too. Bring 'em on! And the more lightening, the better.

[Poodles 0]

Heck, my hubby says he is going to push me out the door to see if the house will fall on me (guess he is saying I am the wicked old witch).

In the 34 years I have been in Tx, I have not seen a tornado (knock on lots of wood). Hope to never come across one.

My Dad used to say, if we had one just bend over and kiss your a$$ goodbye, 'cause if it is going to get you it will get you no matter where you are.

In the future, DH and I hope to build a beautiful little Hobbit Hole so we don't have to worry about such things. Check it out: http://www.lifelinedomes.com/underground_domes.htm

[lapbandliz 0]

Please take tornado warnings seriously. I was in one before and it is the most scary thing I've ever experienced! I grew up in Florida so I was used to hurricanes and severe weather, but this happened in East Tennessee! The car my husband (then fiance) was in, was totalled around him with glass and bricks and debris everywhere. And the brick building I was in fell down around me with those concrete tables and umbrellas blowing around like paper. I was told that someone had to pull me down because I was starting to lift off the ground. All I remember is one minute I was looking at the sky grow black and thing starting to blow toward the plate glass window and the next thing I know, I'm about 10 feet away on the ground with 3 other people and the building is gone! I'm very thankful that nobody was hurt or killed. We didn't have a scratch on us, but had bits of debris and glass embeded all the way through our clothes. I tell you all this to encourage you to heed the safety warnings. This happened to me 28 years ago and I still get very uneasy where there is severe weather around.

[annieM 2]

Hello from Ohio,

I live about 10 minutes from Xenia, the town that was flattened by an F5 about 36 years ago. Yesterday was the anniversary and it is not that long ago that they have any trouble getting people to do the "I remember when's..." for the news.

I prefer the basement, and it is finished so we can sit in comfort while we wait it out. I had the whole back of my fence knocked down by a twister 8 years ago. Snapped 4x4 posts, about 11 of them, like nothing. A tree also hit the powere line across from my fence so they turned the power off- and my sump pump stopped and the basement flooded. sigh

I perfer to watch cool storms from a distance...

[paladin 0]

Yeah, I remember as a young boy in Dayton, OH watching the system go through that put down the Xenia tornado. I was out on the front porch with my dad and it was fascinating and scary at the same time. That is something that will always stick with me.

My wife, 3Loves, says it's not optional and we must install a shelter. I'm sure we'll be glad we did. We are leaning toward an underground garage shelter. The cost will be around $3K. I guess you can call us northern sissy's. I'm sure it's different for those of you that have grown up in the area. It's just like anything else your used to.

We would prefer a basement (which we've always had) but it's our understanding you don't find many basements in OK and the reason has something to do with the red soil. I hear it's very expensive to put in a basement and it take a lot of extra work to make sure it doesn't leak. Anyone want to share some thoughts on that? I would be interested to hear what you natives have to say.....is there truth to this?

Thank you all for your replies and Poodles, I love the domes. LOTR is an all-time favorite!!

[bitteroldhag 0]

Welcome to Oklahoma. I have lived here much of my life and have never been in a tornado. It depends on where you live. If you live near Oklahoma City I'd get a safe room. I live in eastern Oklahoma and we don't have much trouble with tornadoes since they tend to break up when they hit the hills. I would go for a safe room since basements are not common here and can flood in the torrential rainstorms we get, not that we've had a lot of them lately apparently due to global warming. However, I have been in rainstorms that were so heavy that I had to pull the car off the road and wait until it died down. I couldn't see beyond the hood of my car. I don't have a safe room or a cellar. But my grandparents had a cellar. They lived in Macintosh county which is prone to tornadoes. I live in Cherokee country which is not. So it depends on where you live. If you live in flat country, definitely protect yourselves. But I have noticed that lately tornadoes are more common in the deep South, Kentucky, Tennessee and the midwest than they are here. We also have excellent weather alerts here just in case. In fact, if bad weather is around, the TV stations keep everyone informed and they tell us when to take cover. In Oklahoma, if you hear a siren go off, take cover. I was in Missouri once and the sirens sounded on a perfectly clear day. I was freaked out and went to the motel office to ask if a tornado had been sighted. They said the siren was a fire alarm. Here, if sirens go off, we get worried. A key thing to know is that if the atmosphere turns green and you can't hear any sounds, seek cover. I was in a tornado in Louisville, Ky, years ago and I noted that the atmosphere turned green and we couldn't hear the expressway which was about 1/2 block away. That tornado did some major damage in Louisville, though not to our area. Also if hail is bigger than 1/2 inch in diameter, take cover. Tornadoes produce large hail. But we haven't had much tornado trouble lately. So welcome to Oklahoma. You're going to like it here. People are so friendly and kind and the weather is generally good except it's hot in the summer. My recommendation is to quit worrying about tornadoes and get a good air conditioning system.