Tornado questions.

So I recently finished moving into my beautiful new home. First time homeowner, we did all the things I could think to do to help secure the house. It's got it's own well, it's on a hill, has a nice foundation, etc.

As time goes on, I will add a backup generator to the well pump, some 50 gallon drums for storing water, etc.

My concern is that there is one tidbit of information I found:
York Haven-area historical tornado activity is slightly above Pennsylvania state average. It is 34% greater than the overall U.S. average.

Well, my basement is unfinished with superior walls up. It has several windows, making it an inadequate storm cellar. Now I'm thinking I can build a concrete cinder block safe room down there to help, but I'm curious to see what other suggestions you all have.

Garland,

You are on the right track. Check HERE on FEMA's web site. I think that building a shelter in your basement is to way to go, just remember you will need an independent, reinforced roof in case the the ground level structure collapses.

Check with your local emergency management agency to see if they have any programs or helpful local information about contractors. Also check to see if they have a "safe room registration program". We are currently in the planning stages of building a new house and the county we have property in has such a program. This is how the program works: If you have a safe room or tornado shelter, you register your address with the EMA and if a tornado comes through your area, they will send personnel by to make sure you are not trapped by debris (special effort).

BTW, our property is in the dark orange area in Mississippi on this MAP.

Stay Safe,

JimJr

Call me weird, but "safe room registration program" sounds like a way the Government use to find people's secret bunkers......

Dave

These types of programs are a good effort. When I was with the fire dept, we encouraged residents to inform us (with great success) if there was anything special that we needed to know in advance about their house / outbuildings / property. This type of info can be crucial when lives may be at stake and the luxury of time is short...

I would rather tell some of my trusted neighbors, and in the event of an event, ask them to check on my house.

Sue

The point I was making refers to real emergency situations such as a house fire, other structure fires, or medical calls.

I have personally seen where we tried to access a structure on fire by taking out a window only to find out that the homeowner had installed Lexan windows. Knowing this beforehand would of made our plan of attack much different...

Another example was a garage fire in which the homeowner had over 200 lbs of propane stored in various tanks in the garage. We were able to safely contain the fire while knowing beforehand what was stored in the garage. And no, there were no bylaws that limited storage of propane etc....

Last example, another homeowner informed us that her mother also resided in the same house and depended on oxygen at night while sleeping. Having this vital info was good foreknowledge if we ever had to respond to a medical call at this residence.

Dave [/quote]

These types of programs are a good effort. When I was with the fire dept, we encouraged residents to inform us (with great success) if there was anything special that we needed to know in advance about their house / outbuildings / property. This type of info can be crucial when lives may be at stake and the luxury of time is short...

[/quote]

I have had mixed feelings about these sorts of reports. I reflexively object to registration of what I might do on my land as long as it isn't an environmental or community hazard.

But I had to question my stand when I did some work on a house that included several 'secret', more hidden really, rooms. I could imagine the house on fire. A babysitter telling the firemen that the child is still inside and the firemen desperately searching in vain because the kid is in cleverly hidden room. Secrets could get someone, you care about or a fireman, killed.

An interior storm room may end up buried under the wreckage of the house. Unless the rescuers know where it is the occupants may remain trapped because everyone takes one look at the destroyed house and concludes that nobody could be alive inside.

If they know about the shelter they could make it a point to dig it out and look.

I'm still not enthusiastic about registering otherwise hidden locations with the local emergency services but I can see that it might be very wise to do so.

I live in Pennsylvania, I built a storm shelter in my basement, I took out the windows and blocked them in, I then built a 12X12 concrete block room with a concrete block roof just below the floor joist. Haven't had to use it yet but I know it will survive just about anything. I have it equipped with a propane cook stove, frig, propane heat( vented of course)well water, and shelves for food and supplies along with bunks and a table.Also equipped with tools to dig out if there is a need. And like Sue said, only one trusted neighbor knows its there in case they need to dig me out.

I guess your trusted neighbor would not be be much help if he was in the same situation as you....or worse.

Al:

You make some good points. Just to clarify how our dept handled this. Our area served around 300 rural homes and within those homes at least 10% of them were associated with the fire dept member in one way or another.

This could be as an active member, retired member or a relative/friend of the aforementioned. In short, almost every person in our AO knew someone who was involved with the dept.

Having these kinds of relationships goes a long ways in building trust each way. This also serves the purpose that no one wanted to see a fire dept member get hurt or killed because no one knew that old Bob down the road has 3 mean dogs that will not just allow anyone in the house and Bob is in there dying of a heart attack...

When we asked people if there was anything we should know about their property, we never pressed them if they were reluctant to say anything. What was interesting though was that many would come up to us the next time we seen them and they would tell us for example, "Oh yeah I guess I should tell that I got 12 tonnes of various fertilizers out in the barn, you might want to be careful if it catches on fire."

As for secret locations, strange items etc in houses, we seen many strange and weird things and would never bat an eye or take any action unless it was highly illegal such as a drug op.

Well friend you have brought up a subject that I am very aware of. I live in central Oklahoma. I was here when we got the big May 3rd 1999 series of tornados.

Two things saved people's lives.

1) Weather news awearness. IF the local weather people are good, and you have a radio or TV and are watching the situation go down, you may be able to side step it coming in. Then again you may have to go to #2. The weather may just be too bad to move away from its path. Heavy winds, heavy rain, debris all over the roads. Not a good situation to be driving around in a Honda Civic with two little girls in car seats.

2) Get your family below ground with good overhead cover. You may die if you do not do this.

I am a looser as I have no below ground cover at my house.

My plan right now is to litteraly climb under the house with the kids and shelter against the west side cement footing. I plan on covering us in a sleeping bad to keep the dirt out of the kids faces. Tornado's generally move west to east here.

When I do get underground cover, my family miles away from me will know about it. The neighbors next to you may be gone or in the shelter with you IF you were trapped in it from debris.

Links to what it could be like:

http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/news/may3rd/outbreak.html

http://www.rogerbondy.com/56781-tornado-path-moore-oklahoma.htm

Good point, might have to reconsider, but then I also have tools to dig out in the shelter as well.

OK, you're weird. How much fun would it be to survive a tornado, only to be trapped in your little shelter by what used to be your house, and slowly starve to death because no one knew you were there???

Do you have a porta potty, or other means of "going"???

Slow thinker that I am, I can not imagine why in the world the goverment would give a damn who has a little storm shelter and who doesn't...

OBG

Sure do, I have a chemical toilet,you use a certain paper in it also as well as a plain old port a potty I bought at Wally World.

No way I would ever tell the government, an earlier post brought to my attention the need to tell someone besides a trusted neighbor so I told a friend that lives a couple towns away. As far as the digging part I have ax's, shovels, picks, as far as any backhoes or something similar I think I will take my chances.

For a no-kidding tornado shelter I would recommend you check out www.monolithic.com. Yes, the concrete domes are butt-ugly. However, FEMA has rated them as "near absolute" protection. That is the highest rating they have. I'm serious, check it out. I am actually considering building a house using this construction technique.

If I didn't already have one in my basement, I might consider them.
I think for someone without a basement they would be ideal. Before I built the one in my basement I considered building one outside in the yard then building a shed over it to hide it from curious neighbors, I had also considered building one in my (huge) garage, but the basement seemed like a logical choice for a lot of reasons.

Put one in the yard and call it a shed. If you put things in lockers ("storage cabinets"), they would be none the wiser.
Check out the MarketPlace on their site. The Eco-Shells are the non-insulated versions.

Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with Monolithic, INC or any of its subsidiaries. I'm just a "dome nut".

"Or just register it with the fire dept and hope the government doesn't come knocking because you have a storm shelter."

LOL.

I wouldn't worry too much about it. Most fire/rescue departments are holding bake sales to keep the rescue equipment in tires.

They don't have a lot of spare time or energy left to run a 'shelter detection, reporting and exploitation division' to take full operational and strategic advantage of your converted closet or shed. Making it into a regional command and interrogation center where the war against the noble patriots and rebels is run from and innocent victims are are water-boarded for fun and profit.

Good effort!

Here in the D/FW area, I've gotten to see some structure damage analyses by Tim Marshall of Haag Engineering. Tim does a lot of tornado damage assessments for the National Weather Service. Here's his damage survey from the '99 Moore, OK Tornado outbreak.

http://tinyurl.com/2eled3

Here are a few things that happen when a tornado strikes a house.

1. Peaked roofs act like aircraft wings. High speed airflow lifts the room off the structure, which is then more vulnerable to collapse. Once this happens, the house tends to come apart like a deck of cards.

2. High speed air striking the structure can blow holes in structurally weak areas (garage doors, picture windows, etc.), damaging the structure and rendering it more vulnerable to collapse.

3. High speed debris can poke holes in the structure, again rendering it more vulnerable to collapse.

A factor in determining what happens to a house is the quality of the home construction. The nail joints between structural members help determine how fast winds need to be before the roof is damaged. Also, the way the house is fastened to the foundation makes a tremendous difference. Tim's presentation had several pictures of homes that looked only lightly damaged - except they had been picked up off the foundation and set in the swimming pool. When you see those pictures of two houses, one destroyed and the one next to it untouched, it was probably because of different construction specs.

Since you have a basement to put a shelter in, you probably don't have to worry so much about flying debris. You may have to worry about having the house falling on top of you. If you roof your shelter, you might want to think about running some cast iron pipe in it to help resist collapse due to debris on top of it. If you have the opportunity, having your roof joists secured with hurricane clips may help keep it from crashing in on you to begin with.

THanks for the info guys. I'll take a look a the outdoor mini domes. Those seem like the best bet.

If the water table is low enough, you can also get fiberglass underground shelters. You dig a big hole, add gravel for drainage, drop it in, anchor it (to resist floating during heavy rain events) and backfill. Here's an example. You'd just need to find out what's available in your area.

Build a dome, then cover it with a foot or so of soil, and plant it to clover and wildflowers. There's nothing for the wind to grab. To others, it just looks like a planted berm.

Personally, I prefer the half-underground domes of architect Nader Khalili, but I can't find any photos. All they show now are the ugly continuous-bag things.

Sue

Hmm, I've seen tornado paths that have scoured the ashpalt and concrete roadway fairly completely. I would much prefer to get below grade a few feet if possible. Unfortunately here in Florida nearly all residential is without a basement due to the amount of water in the ground, at least from what I've seen here just north of Orlando. We had a tornado scare just before Xmas here, and I was left with the prospect of putting the whole family in the guest bathroom tub surround. Not what I'd call secure. I am told that the tornadoes that do touch down here are not too strong, typically iF0 or iF1 at most. iF5's are the road rippers I guess.