# Tornado Shelters becomming more common



## NaeKid (Oct 17, 2008)

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-04-29/home-tornado-shelter/54628850/1?csp=34news



> MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP)
> By Dave Martin, AP
> 
> - When deadly twisters chewed through the South and Midwest in 2011, thousands of people in the killers' paths had nowhere to hide. Now many of those families are taking an unusual extra step to be ready next time: adding tornado shelters to their homes.
> ...


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## CulexPipiens (Nov 17, 2010)

On a related topic I had posted a "Shelter in a box" being sold on Amazon.

http://www.preparedsociety.com/forum/f32/surviving-tornado-10134/

Fema even has plans you can download for building an in ground shelter.

http://www.fema.gov/library/viewRecord.do?id=5788

Ready.gov has info on tornados. Check the tab on "Preparing a Safe Room"

http://www.ready.gov/tornadoes

For a less governmental approach, you could start with http://www.tornadoproject.com/safety/shelters.htm.


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## ContinualHarvest (Feb 19, 2012)

Maybe they need to change their building codes to include a safe room or some sort of storm shelter.


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## NaeKid (Oct 17, 2008)

ContinualHarvest, that is a great idea, but, that would be something that would need to be implemented at state / province or even federal levels. Then there are more inspectors required trained in "safe-room" codes ... 

I would lean towards safe-rooms being recommended, made of either heavy wood-beam construction or welded-frame construction as a "highly recommended option" by every single home builder in the country. If the home builders start doing it, then it would become as common as putting a window over the kitchen sink - code is not required for that, just common practice.


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## backlash (Nov 11, 2008)

I would not live in tornado country without a storm shelter.
Experienced one close up in MO and we all agreed it was time to end the vacation and go home to Washington.
The one on Amazon is $6000 for a plastic dome you bury.
Seems way over priced to me.


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## thepoleys (Apr 23, 2012)

I live in Missouri and out in the country we built our own house, what we did was included a part of the basement 5'x70' with a concrete lid and walls, done right it was not that much more in cost. And it works for a lot of our prepping needs.


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## CulexPipiens (Nov 17, 2010)

I have to agree that building your own, if you're capable of, is usually going to be better than buying something but some may not be capable of doing so and would need to hire someone to do so. In that case, burying a "plastic room" in your yard clearly labeled as a tornado shelter will probably draw a lot attention then having some contractor come out to build a "special room" in your basement. 

Another case where prefab in the yard might be better is if your house doesn't have a basement. Again, I can't say that the plastic room is ideal, but for some it could be one option to consider.


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## CdnMtlHd (Aug 4, 2009)

I don't care for the plastic room idea very much either. I like what has been shown in pictures here of metal tubes buried underground and concrete bunkers that are covered in earth.

Sorry NaekId but I don't know if I would trust a heavy wooden beam saferoom in a house as I would think it would be too much a chance that if the rest of the house falls around, you could be trapped inside.


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## lazydaisy67 (Nov 24, 2011)

I think it's kind of funny how people who don't live in the Midwest say "OH MY GOSH! I'd never live where there's tornadoes!" Yet they've bought houses built on a fault line, lol. At least when there's a possibility of tornadoes, you can see the storm coming.


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## ContinualHarvest (Feb 19, 2012)

We get some earthquake activity and tornadoes here in Maryland. One touched down briefly where I used to work and took out two trees about 100 feet from my car.


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