A room with no view: Safe rooms, prefab shelters and tornado-proof homes
While building a tornado-proof home that can withstand high winds and flying objects isn't impossible, it's not always feasible. How have you gone about creating a safe space in your non-tornado-proof home?
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A tornado safe house is a house can stands for tornado overhead impact ,otherwise if your are safe afternado and lost your house ??? so what??
None of you have a clue. Tornado resistant home? Easy: use reinforce concrete structure and continuous slab foundation of at least 500mm deep (depending of geology study to change depth and foundation design). Then, proper building envelope (usually 250mm to 300mm thickness) and double glazing for windows. Solid doors with adequate hardware. It is easy!!!!! This is traditional construction technique in most of Europe and other countries since 50 years ago. Just ordinary method of.... More
I was actually in the Joplin Torado on May 22nd of this year. And I would have to agree with the people that mentioned there is no such thing as a "safe room, just a hope this holds" room. People with basements were lucky to NOT be in them, as many ended up full of cars, and the places in our home we THOUGHT were safe, were the places that were torn away. We survived in the spot we thought would be the least safe when we had discussed where we would go years before. We ended up running and.... More
How frightening!
Thanks for your input. I always look at the recommendations for where to shelter and then at my house and often think--hmm--the bathroom might be the best place for a lot of people, but ours just doesn't look that sturdy. The cellar on this house floods way too fast and the part of the house above it has some serious wood rot issues in places--again a good choice for some but not ours. Fortunately, I have never had reason to really test my thoughts. I am sorry you and so.... More
I live in Yukon, OK and the big tornado that hit Piedmont last month was very close and on the ground for quite some time. I'm a renter and this house doesn't have a shelter or an inside safe area. It's the best I could afford. I do wish builders would consider putting in at least a closet that's in the middle of the house that would fit a couple of people.
While living in OKC for a few years, I spent some quality time in the bathroom, ready to hit the tub, with the weather radio next to me. No cellar. Had I stayed in OK I would have had a prefab cellar installed.
Where I live now tornadoes are rare, but I still have a plan: basement, which is built into a hillside.
I lived in Germany for 4 years. I've seen concrete/cinder block homes built from the ground up that could look like any home we see here in America (the "bones" of the house would just be concrete/cinder blocks). I'm talking a concrete basement, concrete floors, and a concrete ceiling on the top floor with a pitched roof on top of that.
The only reason I think we build houses out of sticks and paper (and slap a brick facade around them to make them look solid) is profit margin. .... More
I live in the midwest where tornadoes are a threat. When the sirens start going off it kind of takes on a surreal feeling because often the weather doesn't even seem that bad. My "safe room" isn't all that safe, but it is the interior most part of my house - my spare bedroom's closet. It was one of the first things I did when I moved into this house - figure out where I would go in case of a tornado. I keep a flashlight in there at all times and if I go to bed knowing we have a threat, I.... More
It is very nice to make article like this and as always, money is problem, secure house from Poland surely cost millions (all walls are very fat and moving and it is very heavy and expensive). I don't think small protected spaces will protect people in all cases of climate changes, I thi people should build protected basement, 1m fat walls, very strong door and inside they must have food for one month, air and radio station (or some other device to call help, satellite phone or anything.... More
Our home in Kansas City came with a safe room. All the houses in our subdivision have them. They're a small side room that goes off from the basement. It's basically 8x10 but it only 4 feet high. The room runs under the front porch which is cement. Basically you're surrounded by a foot of concrete and just below ground. Makes a handy little storage room and we leave enough room for my wife and myself just in case.
Of course! Right next to my panic room. In between my man cave and fall-out bunker.
I lived near the Plainfield tornado when I was four- my preschool best friend lived in Plainfield. To say the least, I am terrified of tornadoes and refuse to live in a building without a basement.
My current rental home has a basement with a more fortified area that has a door, where we shelter during warnings. It has a few cases of water and non perishable food (mostly peanut butter). Logically I don't plan to need to use it, but it's worth having.
Bought a house built in the Goldwater era. It has a basement, and in the basement is a bomb shelter.
Area of the basement with the room extends beyond the footprint of the house,. Nothing to fall on. Room walls and ceilings are about 9 inches of concrete and concrete block. Inside the room additional wood supports Not big, but as cozy as a bug in a rug.
The main thing is to not be deceived by people who have had no dealings with tornadoes. I have lived in Alabama for 65 years, all my life, and when I go to a place like Phil Campbell and see where an F5 tornado has been through, I can safely say there is no such thing as a "safe room" in a house. Don't kid yourself, please! Now that's not to say you won't be lucky and escape with your life somehow. You may not be in the direct path of an F4-F5, and can survive. But, you don't know for certain.... More
I have lived in areas of tornadoes for most of my 50 something years. I will never understand why builders in these areas do not build a basement or at least a small space for a shelter underground!
I have had to use the bathtub in an interior of a house and actually heard the train sound more than once. Terrifying.
I currently use the closet under my stairs to the second floor, which is in the center of the house. I have spent more time in the close the last few years than I care.... More
We live southeast of Noble, Ok which is about 30 miles south of Norman.
The last few years have been terrible for tornado's. No less we live in a doublewide mobile home. I have wanted to put in a storm cellar for years but we cannot afford it We either go to my sons house that is a firmer structure or to our daughters house in Lexington. They have a storm cellar. I believe in tornado prone areas the government should give low interest loans to ANY homeowner regardess of ones credit.... More
I don't know how safe it is but I figure I will be in the bathroom with a nasty storm brewing. Get in the tub and try and brace a cover over it, (Wizard Of Oz?) in case the house is collapsing on it. The toilet is too small to hide in. But I want it there because I just know there would be a great need for it as a storm blows by me.
Luckily Oregon has only very rare and very week tornadoes. We are told that earthquakes are our big concern. So, our house was built to earthquake standards and not tornado standards.
20% more for a tornado resistant home is a lot better than paying 100% more to rebuild it.
We bought a house with a built- in- shelter, designed to meet Texas A&M standards. It's just off the master bedroom, so we use it as a walk-in closet when we're not hiding in it. It has carpet and paneling, very nice. Several homes within 3 miles of us were destroyed by an F2 tornado this week. We were nice and snug in our shelter when the winds started blowing the rain and trees horizontal.
We built a house that has a walkout level lower floor. When we built the full bath for that level we made it with poured concrete walls and a slab ceiling, then did the wood framing over that. There is a regular door on it that opens in and there is also a concealed "pocket door" that can slide across the opening before closing the regular door from inside. The poket door is steel reinforced - ugly but it is hidden unless it is in use. Some supplies in the room and we're good. Added maybe.... More
I live in Florida, below sea level, and an empty underground pool doesn't take on water. I don't get why an underground shelter would be any different. Am I missing something here?
Fully reinforced tornado closet built to A&M specs.
We have a ranch house with all the basement underground except the back wall. But we also had a cistern under our two car garage. When we built the house 30 years ago, we had the concrete cistern walls reinforced with steel so we could cut out a door
in the event city water came to our area. It did, and we had the door put in. Now the room has 12 inch thick concrete ceiling, concrete walls all around. The only compromised part would be the door. We use it for storing Christmas.... More
I built a new house in central Florida in 2008. One major design requirement was a safe room it did not cost a lot to construct, While the foundation was built a seperate foundation was set for the room. When block was set this rooms block was erected then filled. The ceiling is reinforced 3,500 psi concrete. There is rebar every 12" in the walls and in both directions in the ceiling. The ceiling was poured when the bond beams were filled. This is my walk in closet in the master bedroom;.... More
"Having grown up in the Pacific Northwest and spent most of my adult life in the Northeast, I’ve never experienced a legitimate twister."
I grew up in Maryland and NEVER heard of local tornadoes for the last 50 years of the 20th Century, and wondered how much "TV News hype" all the warnings were the past decade. But now we're getting photos/videos of local funnel clouds, the roofs of a few buildings ripped off and occasionally a home here or there devastated. We hear similar reports.... More
One of my most vivid memories of childhood is a doctor's appointment of my mothers. The office was high up had windows. A funnel cloud started blowing up toward us. My mother was in the examining room, had left us in the waiting room and I made my sister move back from the floor to ceiling windows (unlike all the people who were "adults") in the room.
I live in Phoenix, which makes things simpler. We are in the lowest danger category for tornado, hurricane, earthquake, flood, fire, tsunami, and just about anything else you can think of. It makes things simpler.
Having lived in Texas 40 yrs, I've learned it is all about the windspeed. I was hit by an EF1, the baby of all tornados. Tornado's hop, you'll come outside and survey the damage. One half of a giant tree is on your car. You can see where the wind rushed through one area of the yard and flattened everything, but right next to it an inch away a tiny flower pot remains standing. The EF2 that hit Ft Worth about 5 yrs back, circled around the Bank One building and took out all the windows. Ripped.... More
Here in central Texas very, very few homes have a basement and many can't afford any shelter at all. But you can have a plan. We have one if we have time....
in south Texas not far from Dallas an F-5 ripped through a town,when it was said and done only the slab of the houses remained, one of the pictures was of a automobile that was actually rolled into a ball,goggle Texas tornadoes,but the thing that baffles my mind is that homes in Texas do not have basements,so you have to buy a safe room or tornado shelter.
I live 30 miles from Jarrell Texas in a Double Wide Mobile home. We watch Thunderstorms like a hawk. If we see a Bow Echo we will jump in the truck and leave to drive out of harms way. There is NO PROTECTION from an FE 3-5 (especially a 5) Tornado but to leave the area.
One more thing, I've seen 13 tornadoes in my life up close and personal like. Only seen one from the house.
I do not have a specially designed room, but if a tornado were going to strike my house I have a fairly good place to take shelter.
My house has a full basement, although the one side of it is a walkout. There's a storage room in the basement off the garage which has a closet. This closet exists because it is actually underneath the front porch. So this closet has a concrete roof, is under ground completely, surrounded by concrete block foundation walls, and has a concrete slab floor..... More
I hope you don't use your gas grill inb the closet???
I live in Iowa and we have had many tornadoes over the years. You MUST get underground to have much of a chance to survive a tornado. Trees become projectiles along with everything that the tornadoe stirs up. Once downstairs get beneath the thickest part of your upstairs floor and then ALSO get under a doorway or a huge desk or heavy stairs. you must protect yourself from impaling and falling debri. ALWAYS tell family members which part of your house you will be in. AND the most.... More
Growing up in western Kansas I was always told the southwest corner of your basement was the safest place unless you had a storm cellar. Most tornados come from the southwest so by being in the sw corner of your basement you have the concrete walls as well as the ground around it to protect you from flying debris.
The "southwest corner is safest" theory is a myth. Read about it here:
http://www.tornadoproject.com/myths/myths.htm
Tornadoes scare the crap out of me. No warning, and nowhere to go. There are no basements here because its below sea level. Pretty much the only thing you can do is hope to he ll you don't get hit. One of the many reasons to move out of this state.
Of course, there are no basements in Fl since we are at sea level. What we are told is to go to an interior room of the house that has no windows. For most folks here that means a bathroom or closet. In our house, built in '94, it means our master bedroom closet. During hurricane and tornado season (summer), I make sure we have bottled water, candles, flashlights, canned food (tuna, canned veggies), gas grill propane tank filled, and we have one land-line phone in our house (cordless and.... More
I live in Kansas, tornado central. Our house has a basement under our garage that is a storm shelter. We have 3 spare pet carriers, an extra bag of cat food, enough water for seven people to have three gallons for three days, a first aid kit, a battery powered radio (even though we don't get any reception down there), lots of old blankets and clothes, and after winter, we put everyone's old winter boots down there.
If a big tornado does hit, there won't be any power, so I keep a car.... More
Under the ground is the only sure bet for survival of any sized tornado. Here in North Texas, homes do not have basements - which I am OK with because the house can collapse into the basement and/or a large enough one can suck everything up and out of the basement.
We installed a steel reinforced shelter directly into our garage slab. Shelter goes down 5 feet. 6 inches of concrete poured around it and is anchored to the slab. The steel sliding door will prevent anything from being sucked.... More
I seems to me that most people aren't killed from being sucked up in a tornado or having your house collapse atop your hiding place (altho being under a sturdy household structure like a metal desk or a staircase or an interior hallway *does* give you some measure of security if that's all you've got) -- seems to me that more people are likely to be killed from flying projectiles like glass, hunks of wood, shards of aluminum siding, etc. Ever see that pic from the 1950s or so with the single.... More
That strand of straw didn't exactly go "through" the tree. Watch close up video of how trees interact with a tornado. The are twisted around. Prior to snapping and being added to the debris already in the air - the base of the tree would begin to crack as its being twisted by the swirling winds. The strand of straw just ended up in the right place when the tree stopped twisting. Nonetheless, its a great picture.
There are very few houses with basements in Oklahoma (at least in Oklahoma City). We get in the bathroom in the middle of the house and put the kids in the bathtub with blankets and a mattress. The dogs and rabbit are usually in there too.
Regardless of whether most people in Oklahoma don't have basement because of basic cost or whether the water table is really close to the surface so all you end up is a hole full of mud and anything below ground would be un-buildable), if I was an architect, I would make it my life's mission to figure out how to provide affordable tornado shelters, either for individuals or people in mobile home parks or houses without basements to provide a place within a minute or two for everyone to get to.... More
True story from a killer tornado that hit LaSalle/Puru, IL, several years back when it comes to trying to survive a tornado: As the twister approached the town, several patrons of a tavern headed down into the tavern's basement and did everything right. However, they were killed when everything weighing thousands of pounds above their heads -- the heavy wooden turn of the century bar weighing a few thousand pounds, furniture, flooring, and everything else -- collapsed thru the plank floor.... More
I live in Minnesota, which doesn't see a whole lot of tornadoes, but we get a few. There's a reason many families in houses that don't have cellars take shelter under a staircase. Staircases are some of the best construction you'll find in a house, and will usually be the last thing destroyed. Images like this (http://www.nesec.org/images/haz_tornado_stairs.jpg) aren't.... More
You are absoltely correct. Under the basement stairs is where we head when we have tornado warnings - by far the safest!
