Pilot friend flew over Joplin soon after it hit, video shot by passenger (unfortunately didn't know what he was doing w/ his iPhone, but still shocking).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rv3COQ6gv-8&feature=youtu.be

i saw this early today and found it more shocking than some of the shots from the ground.entire Cul-de-sac developments nothing but piles of lumber with a twisting road thru it.this go's beyond survival...

The deaths keep going up and probably will for the next few days. You can tell from the footage that if your best plan didn't call for you to take cover underground, then your odds of surviving are next to nil. This is why I have a hard time believing that above ground shelters will hold up in a tornado.

The damage to life and property is astounding.

It's more than possible to build above ground that is tornado proof, but to do so would probably be more expensive than going underground in most locations. Think "pillbox" or ammo bunkers/blastproof rivetments/Blockhouses. In other words, things meant to take direct artillery fire - basically making an above ground underground if you know what I mean

On a new construction home, I can do one for ~$4,000.00 my cost.

Retrofit is ~$10K in the existing slab, or ~$6K looking like a shed.

Two of these survived the May 1999 EF5 (the tornado the caused the "F" to become the "EF" scale).

Any other questions?

when this is all sorted out i hope we see something about just how many people had a shelter of any kind and were able to use it in time.thinking about it for a second a search over the entire tornado belt for shelters that were used,with photos,would go a long way in encouraging people to have one.

Do tornadoes lift a foot or more of soil off the ground?

I can't understand why a small, sturdy shelter can't be built either on top of the ground or half underground, and covered with 12-24" of soil, and planted with some kind of plant that has a dense root system.

If there is nothing for the wind to grab, what's going to happen? A tornado will slide right over it? Is this a bad thing?

I recently posted a description of the shelters designed by Cal-Earth founder Nader Khalili. They are cheap and can be built by a couple of guys in a few days. They can be built aboveground or partly below ground. They're extremely stable, even in earthquake country. But they're not expensive enough for many people, I guess. Not showy enough, like the new $40,000 red pickup, or the $150,000 new travel trailer or motorhome.

And I have the feeling that 'I won't happen to us' fits into the equation somewhere, too.

Sue

Agreed, and for the great majority of people, they're right

What ever happened to the fallout shelters from the 60s? They were perfect, prefabbed, and fairly reasonable to install. A version designed only for tornadoes could be smaller, since occupancy times would be much shorter.