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In the chilling scenario that a tornado warning is issued for your area, what do the experts feel are the best choices for avoiding serious injury or loss of life?
Options range from seeking shelter in basements to interior above-ground rooms to below-ground storm shelters. However, there are pros and cons to all of these options.
Many experts agree that your odds for surviving a direct hit with a strong tornado (EF-4 or EF-5) are greatest in a nearby below-ground storm shelter.
However, since few individuals have quick access to such a structure or the funds to complete the project, there are other less expensive, close-by options such as an interior safe room within your home or work area that is located above the ground or the same setup in a basement.
Both severe weather experts and Certified Consulting Meteorologists Dr. Charles A. Doswell III and Michael R. Smith agree that risk in an above-ground safe room increases during the strongest tornadoes.
Doswell is founder and President of Doswell Scientific Consulting and is author or co-author of more than 100 formal publications, mostly related to severe storms.
Smith is Sr. Vice President/Chief Innovation Executive of AccuWeather Enterprise Solutions and author of the book "Warnings: The True Story of How Science Tamed the Weather."
Both Doswell and Smith stated that in these storms large, heavy airborne objects, like a vehicle, can be flung at a high rate of speed and can compromise the room if struck.
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Fortunately, storms of this magnitude are extremely rare even in tornado-prone portions of the Plains, Midwest and South.
Both Doswell and Smith also agree that being in an open area in a basement may not provide enough protection.
According to Smith, "If a below-ground safe room was not available but a basement was present, I would head downstairs and get under sturdy furniture or a stairwell."
Doswell added, "In violent tornadoes, sometimes the floor collapses or is swept away and debris can then be thrown into the basement."
For existing homes that do not have a basement, retrofitting a small, interior room or adding a safe room above ground within a large room may be the only cost effective alternative.
Neither of these are necessarily inexpensive. If you do not have a basement and cannot afford these alternatives, you have no truly safe options and have to do the best you can by sheltering in place.
Studies have shown that when much of a home has been destroyed, often the only surviving part of the dwelling is a small interior room, such as a closet or bathroom. This has to do with more supportive wall framing versus ceiling surface area.
According to Doswell, "An above-ground safe room built to Texas Tech. specifications is not 100 percent invulnerable, but remains a very viable option to an underground shelter and offers the additional value of not having to leave your home to get to shelter."
In strong tornadoes, often the entire roof and/or upper floors are removed from the dwelling, which exposes the remaining walls to more stress and risk of failure.
Even if the interior walls remain standing, they could be penetrated by high-velocity projectiles.
An approved safe room has reinforced walls, ceiling and door.
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9 Comments
Add CommentSurvived the Joplin tornado by going into the basement. The funnel took most of the upstairs away and dropped the chimney in the front room . . . opposite end of the basement where we were. Heating ductwork and floor joists crashed down, but we were safe at the other end up against the patio. Everyone came through, but the place was blitzed.
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Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you have insurance, get destroyed, and can rebuild.... build smarter next time. Pass the word. Dead people = poor people or stupid rebuilders.
'If you are building a new home' build monolithic.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.monolithic.com/topics/benefits-survivability
No, I'm not a paid representative of Monolithic, Inc...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"there have been vast improvements in public awareness thanks to advanced warnings in the public and private sector."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisApparently not enough awareness, such a lack of awareness, in fact, that people don't know that for at least the past 40 years one could build an entire home that can withstand a direct impact from an F5 and survive as habitable after the storm passes... and all the people and possessions within can be safe.
That being the case, anyone who has built a new home then died in it in the past 40 years due to a tornado (or nearly any natural disaster) has died as a result of their ignorance.
And yea, it pisses me off. Insurance rates are higher, casualties are higher, waste of resources is higher... stupidity PISSES me off.
Why do I even bother?? (assumes keening petulant whine)--> People don't like domes..... I'd neeeever live in a dome, they're ugly. No one wants to live in a round house!
Funny enough, it's really really hard to live in a "beautiful" rectangular or square house in a tornado, too.
Think about that.
Think about this, too... Birds and reptiles lay round eggs, sure, because they don't have rectangular cloacas, but also because round is stronger, so strong that extremely thin eggshells can hold up the weight of a man.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRaindrops falling from the sky reach the ground unbroken because they assume a spheroid shape on the way down, the wind just flows around them leaving them unscathed.
Gas bubbles in water assume spheroid shapes because they're the most stable shape, same with most types of living cells...
Bathyscaphes reach the deepest parts of the ocean, with men inside, 1100 atmospheres and survive intact, even James Cameron is going to the deepest part of the ocean in a few weeks in one...
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/03/120308-james-cameron-deepest-mariana-trench-challenger-science-sub/
ROUND is stronger, and round + steel-reinforced concrete is stronger than either alone.
Steel-reinforced concrete domes = Monolithic.
Get smart people, or get dead.
Why not build geodesic domes for above ground shelters. Just deeply anchored. See "Desert Domes" for build your own models. A fiberglass kit only requires two sizes of triangles, to make hexagons and pentagons which form a dome when appropriately fastened together. Buckminster Fuller domes have survived the world over.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy aunt in Mississippi just bought a tornado shelter, with all those storms down there now, she wanted to be prepared. She says she loves it and feels so much safer now. She said it was more comfy than she’d expected, too. It even has carpeting lol! She found them on this site www.survive-a-storm.com ... pretty neat :)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat really gets me upset is that those kids died needlessly. They had plenty of warning and time to get to a shelter but the good leaders of Oklahoma and Moore didn't think their lives were worth enough to spend the paltry sum it would have cost to protect them.
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