Hello all,

We recently moved to Mckinney Texas from Florida and have concerns about our lack of tornado preparedness. I am a Florida native so I know how to prepare for hurricanes, and if it looks bad, get out of there. Well in our area we have no Hurricane risk but we are located at the bottom of Tornado alley. What if anything can I do to prepare my family for a tornado? We have an emergency radio that we use but that's about it.

Any advice from locals would be appreciated. We don't have a tornado shelter, should we?

Thanks

Here is a litte something to get you started.
Tornadoes information

If you don't have shelter and get hit, you won't have anything.

Back in the 80's, a man called Nader Khalili designed a clever type of shelter with just two sticks & a string, a shovel, some sandbags, and a roll of barbed wire. Covered with soil and planted with something with an excellent root system (like clover), it seems that it would be a good way to cheat tornadoes.

Decide how large you want your shelter, which is circular. Ten feet in diameter? Use the string to tie the two sticks 5 feet apart. Jam one firmly into the ground and scratch a circle in the soil with the other one (or use chalk or garden lime).

Start digging inside the circle. As you dig, fill the sandbags. Set the sandbags just outside the circle, end to end. Lay two lengths of barbed wire on top of each stack of sandbags, several inches apart (the wire helps keep the bags from shifting as you build). Stack the bags like you would bricks, in a running bond. Gradually start laying the sandbags just slightly inside each previous layer, as you will be forming a dome. Don't forget to leave a doorway, frame it with wood. There will be no windows.

When you're finished, part of the shelter will be underground, part will be above ground. I would add at least a foot of soil over the whole thing.

See Khalili's CalEarth site for some photos of similar shelters, although the ones shown are all above ground:
http://www.calearth.org/emergshelter.htm

They are also earthquake-stable.

Sue

Just prepare like you expect to get hit:

My parents have lived in the same house in West Tennessee for nearly 30 years. In March of this year, a tornado took their back yard out leaving the house with minor damage. Parents were unharmed. Destroyed alot of other property though on the 11 acres the house sits on. They were in the basement when the typical description of what sounded like a "freight train" went by. People never think it will happen to them, but it can.

Simon

Texasboots,

Welcome to equipped and welcome to Texas. We live just north of Houston and see a scary number of tornados in the area. Unfortunately, I still haven't figured out the best was to protect ourselves from them. The lack of a basement sucks. The water table is only about five feet down here so any hole in the ground has it's own set of problems. The only area in our house that isn't loaded with windows is the interior staircase. However, our hot water heater sits in the attic directly above this staircase. <img src="/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" /> I'm scared of it crashing downon us.

Our current plan pretty much is pray or maybe hide in a vehicle in the garage. I'd love to fill the walls of our utility room with concrete, but DW hasn't been sold on that plan yet...

-Blast

Thanks for the info everyone. We have a large closet under the staircase that I am thinking of making into a "wind safe room". I will be sure to post pictures of the transformation. I was looking in the closet just now and mentioned to my wife that we need to clean it out so we will have room. She said, "Thats why your fencing equipment is in there, I'll make the kids wear those masks! <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Ohhh... This should be adaptable to all kinds of locals. I'm not sure I'd want to be in one in an earthquake, but they say it is. *shrugs* Other than that, this should be able to handle anything that doesn't involve flooding.

Thanks, Susan

In the part of Kansas I live in some of the farms have what look like septic tanks that sit above ground for a shelter, they are out side the home but it's better then nothing.

Selecting a Shelter
http://osuextra.okstate.edu/pdfs/F-1010web.pdf#search="%20"tornado%20shelter""

Design Criteria
http://www.fema.gov/doc/library/ts5-28.doc

Building a Safe Room
http://www.fema.gov/plan/prevent/saferoom/fema320.shtm

Welcome to the area! The National Weather Service holds annual open storm spotter training sessions, but you missed the one for this year. Next one will probably be in January, but there is plenty of material online. First, here is the local NWS link:
http://www.srh.noaa.gov/fwd/

Here is a link to storm spotter training:
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/om/brochures/basicspot.pdf

The place to get advance prediction of severe weather is the Storm Prediction Center, at:
http://www.spc.noaa.gov/

If you have the interest in finding out what is going on during a storm, the Collin County Amateur Radio Emergency Service holds storm spotter nets on 147.18MHz and sometimes 146.74MHz. If you should just happen to be interested in Ham Radio, track down the McKinney Amateur Radio Club.

http://hosting.texoma.net/marc/
http://www.collinares.net/

Exactly what sort of over pressure and dwell time are we talking about here? Assuming that the spout goes directly over you. 3psi or 300psi?

Raspy has given you some good info to go with. We are in the process of a family home design and one of the "must have" features is an above ground safe room (local soil conditions and 70-something parents rule out anything underground). (Other features will include an automatic standby generator and fire-resistant steel framing and roofing.)

BTW, Texas Tech is the leading center for tornado safety research.

Tornados! Ah... now here is something I have some experience with... well.. sort of. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> I have lived in Texas for the past 30 years. Almost my entire life. I have lived in South Texas, North Texas, East Texas and West Texas. First of all some good news. Tornado season is just about over. Most tornados in Texas occur in the spring and summer (of course they "can" happen at any time). More good news. It is extremely unlikely that you will be hit directly by a tornado even though if you live here long enough, you'll come "close" more than once. I have been within a mile of several touch-downs in West Texas and a couple here in North Texas (DFW) as well as one in South Texas and even one in East Texas, although in all fairness, that one was attached to hurricane Alicia IIRC (I was young).

With all those times, being that close, I have never been injured and only suffered mild property damage once. This was a couple years ago here in DFW (Arlington to be exact) when blow-back winds (I think that's what they call them) took out my entire fence... and every other fence in the neighborhood too for that matter. I have since relocated to Dallas and I now live in an apartment (ground floor) in a very urban (as opposed to suburban or rural) area.

Another interesting bit of information about my experiences. In my 30 years in Texas I have probably lived in almost 15 different houses (plus a couple of apartments and dormitories) and visited probably hundreds more. Out of all of these houses I have seen exactly one that had a tornado shelter. It was a house in Carrollton (northern suburb of Dallas) that was probably built in the early 80's. The point is that shelters are extremely rare, even in West Texas where some would say they get more tornados than rain. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> Ok now in all fairness, having said that, I actually used that shelter once when a tornado came within a couple miles. Nothing like climbing down into a 12? thick, poorly ventilated, concrete-lined hole in the ground in the heat of a Texas summer with 2 adults, an infant, a German shepherd, and a Labrador retriever. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Here?s my advice on tornados. If you have a shelter, great then you know the best place to go. Now, back to reality. Nobody has shelters so the next best thing to do when in your house is go to an interior room, with no windows, on the ground floor and cover yourself with a mattress or heavy blankets. Now, here is the most important advice I can give.

Watch the TV (the power is usually not out before a tornado enters your area) or if in that rare situation where the power is out, listen to the radio. WBAP 1080am is the best station for this in DFW as they are the EAS station that all the other stations actually get their alerts from. The TV/Radio reporter will be tracking the tornado and telling people in various areas that it is time to ?duck and cover? or ?seek shelter? (that is usually how they word it). He will say something like ?if you?re in southern Collin county you should take shelter immediately? then 15 minutes later as the storm moves south (as an example) he?ll say ?if you?re in Northeastern Dallas county you should take shelter immediately?, and he?ll go right on down the list as the storm moves from one area to another.

IMPORTANT: I may be wrong about everything else, but you can take this bit of advice right to the bank. When the forecaster gets to your area and says it?s time to take shelter, DO IT IMMEDIATELY!!! Do not hesitate; do not grab gear or mattresses or blankets or water or a radio or anything else. If you didn?t have all this ready and in place then it?s too late. It won?t do you any good if you?re dead because you didn?t take shelter in time. Tornados start and stop and start again and change direction without warning, so the forecaster on the TV/Radio isn?t given much warning either in many cases. Take shelter as soon as you?re told to. DO NOT HESITATE. Okay I hate to use caps but I just can?t stress that enough.

Here?s how I recommend thinking about what gear you want for a tornado. Go sit in your shelter spot (for me it?s a tiny little half-bath in the center of my ground floor apartment) and imagine yourself trapped there under a mattress for 24 hours. Now think about what you would want and need to have with you. That?s the stuff that I would have in a bag or box or Rubbermaid tub or whatever container suits you. At the first sign of a tornado (long before your area is told to take shelter) that gear, plus a mattress should already be in your shelter spot. This way when you are told to take shelter on a moment?s notice (if that much) you?ll be ready.

Now, there is one piece of specific gear that I am going to very strongly recommend and that is a portable, battery-powered radio that gets good reception for WBAP from within your shelter area. Small TVs are great since you can see live radar (and often the power will never go out) but if you take a TV into the bathroom, make it in addition to the battery-powered radio? not in place of it. The reason why this is such an important piece of gear is so you know when it?s okay to leave your shelter spot (and the broadcasters will tell you, so wait until they do). Lots of people make this mistake. I have made this mistake myself, and believe me you really don?t want be sitting in your bathroom wondering if it?s safe to come out. One time I didn?t have my gear together in time (the time I lost my fence actually) and had to take shelter without a radio so I had to wait and wait with the dogs and [now ex] wife and the kid until eventually I had to go out alone and check to see if it was ok for us to all come out. Trust me, it?s an uncomfortable feeling. Fortunately the power was still on and of course the TV was on the proper channel so I had only to look at it to see the tornado tracker (rather than searching for my absent radio). The only real way to know for sure if it?s okay to come out is to watch/listen to the meteorologist on the TV/Radio. Since some tornados happen during thunderstorms and others will come when the sun is shining, you can?t just look up at the sky and tell what?s going on.

Well I think this may be my longest reply ever to a thread on this (or any) forum. I don?t claim to be an expert. Just a guy who has been pretty close to quite a few tornados and who takes them pretty seriously. I hope you find my experiences useful in some way.

Oh... and in case you're wondering why I didn't mention basements, it because homes with basements are extremely rare in Texas (I have only see one in 30 years). I gave it some though and realized that it's still worth mentioning since many non-residential building do have basements. If you have a basement, it's not as good as a proper tornado shelter but it is better than anything on the ground floor.

One more thing... If you're outside when a tornado comes, lay flat in a ditch. If you're in your car, get out of the car and lay in a ditch.

That's good tornado info. I like the part about not stopping under an overpass or bridge. So many people do that here even though the broadcasters are constantly warning of how dangerous it is. I should have put that in my original reply but I forgot.

Reminds me of a friend from the midwest (land of basements) that was relocating to Texas and trying to have a home built. The contractor refused to quote him a price for adding a basement. He finally convinced the contractor to quote a price for a swimming pool of specific dimensions with a house built on top of it. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I went to school at TTU. <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> I didn't study wind research but I have seen the facilities. They shoot pine 2x4s through brick walls. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />