Tornado shelter?

Love2shoot

Love2shoot

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Any of you guys or gals have em or feel the need? If so did ya make it yaself or store bought and installed? Looked at some website that had all tracked tornados and it does appear that it is possible and has happened here in the raleigh'ish area, plus I know we get warnings etc. was just curious.
 
Unless you have room to dig an underground bunker, your best bet is the inner most room, stacking mattresses or hiding under tables.
 
Yea, im on a slab house I got nothing. And thanks to an open concept design every room has windoes, and the space under my stairs is directly facing a row of 5 windows. Only other place would be a small bathroom in the downstairs hallway, but opposite the wall is the hot water heater and gas line. Not even sure what I'd do.
 
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I lived in Indy for a number of years in a crawlspace house, a bunch more tornado activity than around here. No fun hunkering down under the stairs as confirmed tornadoes pass overhead..
I didn't know anyone there with one and never thought of one again after looking at the prices of anything that was worth a darn..

Burying a shipping container is about the only reasonable solution I came up with and that doesn't typically work in your average suburban neighborhood.
 
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Love2shoot said:
Yea, im on a slab house I got nothing. And thanks to an open concept design every room has windoes, and the space under my stairs is directly facing a row of 5 windows. Only other place would be a small bathroom in the downstairs hallway, but opposite the wall is the hot water heater and gas line. Not even sure what I'd do.
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If you have a bathtub in there, you can lay in it with something covering it, like plywood with a handle on the backside for you to hold onto. You have a family? If so its gonna be a tight stay
 
Butter said:
If you have a bathtub in there, you can lay in it with something covering it, like plywood with a handle on the backside for you to hold onto. You have a family? If so its gonna be a tight stay
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Yessir have a family plus no bathtub in that downstairs bathroom.
 
For anyone interested in more tor data for your location check out http://www.spc.ncep.noaa.gov/exper/envbrowser/

As far as shelters there are several companies that can build you a hardened room in the garage or a closet, even if your house is a slab. Out in OK, digging isn't really feasible due to a layer of solid rock just under the dirt. Most folks are either building a half submerged shelter outside or going with these reinforced rooms.
 
Those look nice, but lets throw another wrench into it..... what if youre renting... which leaves even less options.
 
what if you're renting?: well, that depends.
1. where in Wake? big county. lots of options.
2. what type of building? single home? apt?
3. how many people? what ages/handicaps?
 
Yes I do. You're east of me, right? I'm usually down there the second Tuesday of each week.
 
Do you own cemetery plots? Ask to have them opened, left open and just lay in them until the sharknado passes. If you die, well, no transporting.
 
renting:
ask if you can "remodel" your bathroom.

1. tell the owner, you'll pay for the entire cost.
2. give the owner final right of refusal.
3. choose the BR with no windows.
4. Google "saferoom" to get ideas.
5. post your results. good luck.
 
First rule for surviving a tornado, don’t live in a mobile home, even one with the wheels off and a nice skirt.

With just that rule your changes of being killed or seriously injured fell from almost nil to really almost nil.

Have a plan to hide in a closet or a crawl space, put a light in there, but otherwise put your energy into eating right and exercise.
 
Growing up in Arkansas I'm more than familiar with the "root cellar". It contained all of the canned goods my Grandmother had put up. When my Grandfather built it he got a little carried away, it wound up being 16 x 16 with a 7' ceiling and a single, steel support beam in the middle. There was about 2' of dirt over the top but it never moved and was cozy as heck.
 
I've had 2 close in the last few years. First was about 2-3 miles west. The one last week formed within a mile of my house. I have no plans to build anything. Last week I moved everybody into the master bedroom closet.
 
Bailey Boat said:
Growing up in Arkansas I'm more than familiar with the "root cellar". It contained all of the canned goods my Grandmother had put up. When my Grandfather built it he got a little carried away, it wound up being 16 x 16 with a 7' ceiling and a single, steel support beam in the middle. There was about 2' of dirt over the top but it never moved and was cozy as heck.
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You also have s nearly bombproof shelter lol
 
Me & the rest of us banjo's up here got the best tornado shelter ever made.
Tornado, meet Mountains. Goodbye.
Ok beyond the tongue-in-cheek, a 'successful' tornado is rare as hens teeth here. They might form for just a second, say oh s**t mountains! and quickly vanish. As far as preparedness stuff, tornado's don't rate.
Ice storms, Blizzards, Flash Floods, Wildfires...now you got our attention.

But I know tornado's. I remember as a boy on the farm, we got hit by 2 tornado's in one night. Tore the hell out of the silo's, every barn door was gone, all the fences were down, and all the cows were out walking around in the damn road. Most of the hard structures fared better than we figured after we came out of the basement. It sounded like all hell breaking loose from down there, which, I suppose it was.
 
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