Saginaw | 14 Apr 2012 7:18 p.m. PST |
If this was fifty to sixty years ago, the question would have been "Do you have a bomb shelter?", but thankfully (and hopefully), we won't have to go back to relive those nerve-fraying times. So, during this season of wild springtime weather, what would be your status?: A) Yes, we have a dedicated shelter, or at least a decent basement or below-ground structure. B) Yes, we retrofitted and reinforced a room or closet as a shelter. C) No, but I know where I and/or my family can go to seek shelter if we need to, either in our home or somewhere nearby. D) No, and I really wouldn't know where to go for shelter. I'm C, either at the local hospital, police station, or church. |
Pictors Studio | 14 Apr 2012 7:21 p.m. PST |
A but it is not a dedicated shelter. |
Garand | 14 Apr 2012 7:41 p.m. PST |
D. I live in Pennsylvania in a mountain valley, where tornadoes are not known to frequent. We get them occasionally but they have (yet) to be a significant threat
Damon. |
uruk hai | 14 Apr 2012 7:54 p.m. PST |
No significant threat in New Zealand. |
Ambush Alley Games | 14 Apr 2012 8:00 p.m. PST |
We don't have one, but we have a place to go. Assuming we can get there in time. So, we WISH we had one. Fortunately today's string of destruction has mostly hit open country. - Shawn (hunkered down in OK and probably up for most of the night monitoring the weather) |
Roderick Robertson | 14 Apr 2012 8:19 p.m. PST |
E. I live in the Sierra Nevadas in a mountain valley, where tornadoes are not known to frequent. |
John the OFM | 14 Apr 2012 8:59 p.m. PST |
I am like Damon on this. In fact, I have a huge hill to my west in the path of any tornados. On the othe hand, my brother lives only 5 miles away, but he is on top of a hill, and has built a fine pavilion from trees blown down by a passing tornado. |
SECURITY MINISTER CRITTER | 14 Apr 2012 9:09 p.m. PST |
No shelter, but I will get in the bathtub with a blanket. |
Tom Reed | 14 Apr 2012 9:25 p.m. PST |
I live in a partial basement apartment. The bathroom is my place of shelter as it is in the interior of the building (no outside walls). |
Shagnasty | 14 Apr 2012 9:53 p.m. PST |
Solid rock under 8" of dirt where I live. If I was building a home it would have a safe room or shelter if possible. It only make sense in Tornado Alley |
David Miniature Armies | 14 Apr 2012 10:04 p.m. PST |
have a basement and just used it to wait out the tornadoes |
Gungnir | 14 Apr 2012 10:28 p.m. PST |
A variant of E: We don't really do tornadoes over here, we're more into floods. |
Sergeant Paper | 14 Apr 2012 10:59 p.m. PST |
Nope, not an issue here in Honolulu. Once in a blue moon there's a waterspout, but I'm far enough from the shore that that is no threat. |
greatwhitezulu | 14 Apr 2012 11:29 p.m. PST |
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kreoseus2 | 15 Apr 2012 1:49 a.m. PST |
I live in Ireland, very little in the way of extreme weather here. |
Cold Steel | 15 Apr 2012 5:08 a.m. PST |
My basement is a fortress. |
skippy0001 | 15 Apr 2012 5:50 a.m. PST |
Basement apartment, base of a hill, I should be ok. |
Ambush Alley Games | 15 Apr 2012 8:02 a.m. PST |
It occurred to me last night that my house was more prepared for the zombie apocalypse than for a tornado. Sadly most homes built in my part of Oklahoma are built on slab floors and lack a basement. When I buy or build a home, it'll definitely have a basement or a storm shelter. Then I'll be ready for zombies AND tornadoes! Shawn. |
Saginaw | 15 Apr 2012 8:53 a.m. PST |
Sadly most homes built in my part of Oklahoma are built on slab floors and lack a basement. Same here in Texas. If it was up to me, I'd have a reinforced concrete home with a bunker underneath. Oh well. So much for champagne dreams. In my community, there's an upcoming bond election for the construction of a new municipal facility, as the current one (which opened in 1976) is being "crowded out" due to freeway expansion. My suggestion is that the new building should have a sizable basement, which would primarily be used as storage, and could also conveniently accommodate citizens seeking shelter from a tornado. Failing that proposal, then reinforced concrete offices and rooms within the structure should be considered. The property tax hike to help fund this is presently projected at three to four cents, but I'd be more than willing to pay more to see these safety features implemented. Here's hopin'. |
Charlie 12 | 15 Apr 2012 11:24 a.m. PST |
Nope, no tornados (or basements) in SoCal. Get the odd earthquake every 50 years or so (and not much you can do about those). |
Cardinal Ximenez | 15 Apr 2012 11:35 a.m. PST |
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Lord Hypnogogue | 15 Apr 2012 12:07 p.m. PST |
A. Small room under stairs in basement. |
Timbo W | 15 Apr 2012 1:54 p.m. PST |
C I guess, the church up the road has stood for the last six centuries so should be OK. I thought there was little need to worry about UK tornados, but link |
The Virtual Armchair General | 15 Apr 2012 2:06 p.m. PST |
I've bragged of it before, but "A--Purpose Built Shelter" is what my Olga and I paid for after the Great Tornado of May 3, 1999. While all trips there since have been rewarded with no damgages to us or our neighborhood, it is no less a comfort. Seats 12, will accommodate perhaps 20 (very friendly!) total souls in a real pinch, made entirely of 10 gauge steel and surrounded by from 6" to 10" of poured concrete and below ground. It's always dry, and mostly bug proof, though an annual cleaning is in order. Besides the protection it offers to us and others, we feel it will be worth more than we paid for it as an improvement to the home generally. When I'm in the hour glass, and Olga wants to sell the place, that shelter will be a major attraction, we think. Rather like they used to say about firearms at home, "It's better to have one and not need it, than to need it and not have one." TVAG |
Coelacanth1938 | 15 Apr 2012 3:08 p.m. PST |
We had an almost tornado here in Las Vegas a little over a decade ago. The casinos pretend that it didn't happen, and if you're a newsie here in Las Vegas, you pretend it didn't happen either or one well-placed phone call ends your career here real quick. Not one casino on The Strip is prepared for the inevitable. Meanwhile, the dust devils have been getting worse. a few summers ago, I witnessed a dust devil picking up a line of maybe twenty newsracks for thirty seconds, all chained together and set in concrete blocks weighing at least one hundred pounds each, and then whipped them around like a little kid whipping around a piece of clothesline. This happened inside a casino employee parking lot and thank God there wasn't a shift change or a whole bunch of people would've gotten killed. |
Weird WWII | 15 Apr 2012 11:45 p.m. PST |
A)A 1500sqft basement furnishing our movie theater, arcade, laundry room and man cave/game room. So you can say that I am a bit excited when we all have to flee to the security of our shelter. Main reason we moved here because basements this large are almost non-existent in the Lone Star State. Brian |
Ironwolf | 16 Apr 2012 3:00 a.m. PST |
Heck yea! I've been in three tornados and several have hit around us. So I always expect more. |
Ron W DuBray | 16 Apr 2012 6:24 a.m. PST |
Not a problem we see here much, and the ones we get are small and might take down a tree or strip a roof of shingles. hurricanes are more of a problem, but only if you build crap on low land, near the beach. |
ChicChocMtdRifles | 16 Apr 2012 8:33 a.m. PST |
D for delta. Sides, I'm too deaf to hear the alarm when it goes off anyway. So, I'll probably end up in Oz one day. |
Feet up now | 16 Apr 2012 10:40 a.m. PST |
In the UK we have Tornado Hangars |
Grand Duke Natokina | 18 Apr 2012 3:00 p.m. PST |
Tornadoes do happen here in SoCal, but are very small. And I have no earthquake preparedness kit either. |
Altius | 19 Apr 2012 7:45 a.m. PST |
Funny you mention this, since I've already been planning something. After coming to Texas, I initially lived in Austin, which is somewhat protected by a series of hills to the West. But in the particular part of the Texas Hill Country where I now live, there are only 3 to 4 inches of soil, and then it's all rock. I don't think anyone around here has a below-ground tornado shelter, much less a cellar, for that reason. I rarely hear of anything appearing around here, but the town just to the north of us was virtually wiped off the map by a tornado a few years ago, so it's something that one should prepare for, especially with the weather getting so weird in recent years. I'm considering an above-ground shelter at the moment, and it's just a question of what is most feasible. |