[N/A] Should Tornado Shelters be Mandatory ?

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While talking to a friend today about our houses we're planing on building, tornado shelters came up.

I was surprised to find out there is only a grant program for shelters. I would figure that after the recent outbreaks and Joplin, Mo tornado that cities and/or states would require shelters in all new residential construction.

Should these shelters be mandatory in residential and community constructions?
 
No, the cost/benefits aren't there. At least the last time I read anything about it.
 
2016 had the fewest tornado deaths in 30 years. With the major exception of 2011, tornados just are not a big killer. It does not warrant mandatory shelters.
 
Sprinklers are mandatory in many places. Nanny state doesn't care whether it's cost effective for YOU.

I looked into this for new construction project as our little town in MD was wiped out twice by a F4. The problem is that the feds dreamt up requirements for tornado shelters that make them very expensive to integrate into standard stick-built construction. It starts with the requirement to build them at grade and silly standards for penetration resistance.

A poured concrete room in the basement with a steel door and a slab ceiling would provide most of the protection needed at a fraction of the cost of a fema blessed structure. Yes, I know it rains after a tornado, but when is the last time that someone drowned in their basement absent a flood event?
 
Lived in OK my entire life and have never witnessed a tornado in person. There's no reason to require them to be built, most people are perfectly safe in an interior bathroom or closet unless it's F4+, which are fairly rare as tornadoes go. Most of those who die in tornadoes of lesser strength are usually in mobile homes or in cars/outdoors.


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My buddy has one built into his basement. It doesn't meet whatever specs FEMA, or whoever, decided it needs to meet, so he can't technically call it a "tornado shelter" on his homeowner's insurance. But it's underneath his front porch slab, it's poured concrete and has no door, just a corner to walk around to get into it. But it's away from any gas, electric, plumbing, and glass. More importantly, all his neighbors know about it so if something ever knocks his house down, someone will know where to look for him.

In my house, my best bet is going to be to curl up in a corner of the basement against the foundation wall.

A problem in a large part of tornado alley is the lack of basements.
 
I remember as a kid growing up in the South Pacific, the housing, although concrete, was built with a reinforced concrete 'typhoon room' under the second floor staircase. We had to occupy it a couple of times.

The Caribbean housing was similar in that it was all CMU block and poured concrete roof construction, but no safe room. There was no glass, all the windows were external metal louver and on the inside was sheet plastic which was installed in wire screen frames, which if it blew out in a hurricane, you just got more sheet plastic and replaced it.

Residential sprinklers are just stupid idiocy. Even in utility buildings, we have threatened class action lawsuits and even walked off the job over the issue of installing sprinklers in high voltage electrical switchgear rooms.
 
Should be a personal choice,mandating personal safety,is not always a good thing.
 
It's kinda like motorcycle helmets. I always wear one, but like hell if I want you to make it mandatory that I wear one.

BTW... No official shelter in my house. But I do have an interior room that will serve the purpose. The structure of the house itself is steel, so I'm not really worried about it collapsing. The only concern would be stuff flying through the windows.
 
I spent some time in Kansas and spent about one minute thinking of moving there.

I saw some 100 year old buildings there so I really wasn't worried about storms. Unless I moved into a trailer park....
 
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Anymouse said:
It's kinda like motorcycle helmets. I always wear one, but like hell if I want you to make it mandatory that I wear one.
Click to expand...

I agree. I knew 4 people in high school and college who needed helmets. 3 had them and are alive today (my wife and I are two of them), one didn't and he died at the scene.

That said, I object to laws requiring that they be worn. I've heard the arguments, I understand them, but I still don't like laws protecting you from yourself. Nevertheless, anyone who rides without a helmet should have their head examined while they still have one to examine.
 
A number of years ago, a colleague of mine from IBM took a transfer to the Tulsa, OK area.
He was very specific about the house he wanted built. It had to have a basement with 12 foot ceilings, and the entire house, including interior walls and roof had to be poured, reinforced concrete.
The town he lived in, the state of Oklahoma and the federal government fought him tooth and nail. One of their idiotic arguments was that it wouldn't be "fair" to people who couldn't afford such a house.
In the end, he got his "F5" house built, and it's a beauty. It was featured in "Architectural Digest" 25 (?) years ago. Looking at it, you can't tell it's a concrete house, and that it has automatic, armor steel shutters for all the windows and doors.
The area he is in has been devastated by tornadoes 3 times in the last 30 years. His house has had only cosmetic damage.
So why are we still building stick houses and mobile homes in areas prone to tornadoes?
Houses that can stay standing in storms are really, really bad for business.
 
We have a storm cellar built into the concrete front porch (uncovered porch), and I go check it once a year or so to make sure no water is standing. We wouldn't go into even if there was a tornado threat, as we'd have to go out into the storm to get to it. I'll take my chances in the bathroom under the stairs.

The water table is so shallow in much of OK/KS that most everyone that has a basement seeps water. It takes a lot of barriers to keep out the water effectively.


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Shepherd said:
A number of years ago, a colleague of mine from IBM took a transfer to the Tulsa, OK area.
He was very specific about the house he wanted built. It had to have a basement with 12 foot ceilings, and the entire house, including interior walls and roof had to be poured, reinforced concrete.
The town he lived in, the state of Oklahoma and the federal government fought him tooth and nail. One of their idiotic arguments was that it wouldn't be "fair" to people who couldn't afford such a house.
In the end, he got his "F5" house built, and it's a beauty. It was featured in "Architectural Digest" 25 (?) years ago. Looking at it, you can't tell it's a concrete house, and that it has automatic, armor steel shutters for all the windows and doors.
The area he is in has been devastated by tornadoes 3 times in the last 30 years. His house has had only cosmetic damage.
So why are we still building stick houses and mobile homes in areas prone to tornadoes?
Houses that can stay standing in storms are really, really bad for business.
Click to expand...

With that thermal mass in the walls he is probably benefitting from lower air conditioning costs in summer as well.
 
I think if you have a basement there's no need for one. We have severe weather and tornadoes here every year... mostly little ones but you never know. I don't worry about it.
 
When I drove through Joplin, not long after their big tornado, the local hardware stores had concrete shelters in their lots. Buy one, get it loaded on a truck and dropped off at your place. I also noticed the apartments south of the airport had community shelters. The interesting part of that trip was that, on the way back, we nearly drove into a tornado a few miles from our own house. I saw cars pulled over on the side of the road, but couldn't figure it out. Something was up, but I didn't know what it was. Turns out, the storm had blown through west-to-east, just about 2-3 minutes earlier and we were driving south-to-north. It had just blasted through ahead of us and I never had a clue. There was a funnel cloud associated with it, and I think it did touch down which made it technically a tornado.
 
No. I have lived and storm spotted in Kansas all my life and I do not think it should be mandatory.

In East Central Kansas we have a lot of slab houses; not so much for the costs, but because of the poor drainage of the clay soil that makes keeping basements dry difficult and expensive.

That said, we are looking at building and are in the design phase. We investigated an interior safe/storm room on the slab. After looking at the additional $30k cost for the room we settled on a steel room attached to the floor at the front of the garage. It was amazing to see all the additional footings and wall thicknesses required to meet the various codes.

This one of the systems we are considering:

http://esp.swisherinc.com/
 
No. Just as we don't mandate every house to have an AED, which is far more likely to save a life than a shelter...
 
I've never even seen a tornado shelter before. Looking at some of those pictures it looks like a good place for a kid to get themselves locked into.... which to me seems like a bigger hazard than a tornado.
 
Shepherd said:
A number of years ago, a colleague of mine from IBM took a transfer to the Tulsa, OK area.
He was very specific about the house he wanted built. It had to have a basement with 12 foot ceilings, and the entire house, including interior walls and roof had to be poured, reinforced concrete.
The town he lived in, the state of Oklahoma and the federal government fought him tooth and nail. One of their idiotic arguments was that it wouldn't be "fair" to people who couldn't afford such a house.
In the end, he got his "F5" house built, and it's a beauty. It was featured in "Architectural Digest" 25 (?) years ago. Looking at it, you can't tell it's a concrete house, and that it has automatic, armor steel shutters for all the windows and doors.
The area he is in has been devastated by tornadoes 3 times in the last 30 years. His house has had only cosmetic damage.
So why are we still building stick houses and mobile homes in areas prone to tornadoes?
Houses that can stay standing in storms are really, really bad for business.
Click to expand...

People with the kinds of jobs that pay well enough to afford a solid house are rarely found living in tornado country. Just a problem of location and economics.
 
No house survives a direct hit, other than a fortress or earth contact. A steel or concrete barrier between you and blowing debris can be a basement wall or other kind of steel or concrete barrier like a safe box.

Sometimes not even concrete stops a chunk of wood:

tornado-damage.jpg
 
On my property, no it shouldn't be "manadatory" maybe on publicly funded works, but don't try to mandate stuff on my personal land.
 
Matthew said:
No house survives a direct hit, other than a fortress or earth contact. A steel or concrete barrier between you and blowing debris can be a basement wall or other kind of steel or concrete barrier like a safe box.

Sometimes not even concrete stops a chunk of wood:

tornado-damage.jpg
Click to expand...

Kinda looks like it went through a curb drain hole...
 
ircphoenix said:
Kinda looks like it went through a curb drain hole...
Click to expand...

Yup, that pic has circulated many times. The lumber got wedged in a preexisting hole in the curb. While it was still a lot of force, it isn't enough to shove a 2x4 through solid concrete.


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Another "no" from here and I used to chase. The swath just isn't that wide for anything below F4. If you're paying any kind of attention at all to the weather, and you're not physically immobile or hampered in some way, you can usually get out of the way of them.

The eerie ones that people get killed in are often the nighttime ones where nobody really knows where they are.

Seeing a monster backlit by lightning only during the flashes when chasing after dark is enough to make the hair on your neck stand up.

Only did that a few times and realized if the dry-line popped another one behind me, I was in a world of hurt. Decided chases after dark weren't for me after Doppler became more commonplace.
 
Shepherd said:
A number of years ago, a colleague of mine from IBM took a transfer to the Tulsa, OK area.
He was very specific about the house he wanted built. It had to have a basement with 12 foot ceilings, and the entire house, including interior walls and roof had to be poured, reinforced concrete.
The town he lived in, the state of Oklahoma and the federal government fought him tooth and nail. One of their idiotic arguments was that it wouldn't be "fair" to people who couldn't afford such a house.
In the end, he got his "F5" house built, and it's a beauty. It was featured in "Architectural Digest" 25 (?) years ago. Looking at it, you can't tell it's a concrete house, and that it has automatic, armor steel shutters for all the windows and doors.
The area he is in has been devastated by tornadoes 3 times in the last 30 years. His house has had only cosmetic damage.
So why are we still building stick houses and mobile homes in areas prone to tornadoes?
Houses that can stay standing in storms are really, really bad for business.
Click to expand...

Interesting. I don't know that anyone probably fought him tooth and nail over concrete construction, but I'm sure there was plenty of building code that needed to be agreed upon with certain construction materials. Concrete homes are extremely expensive compared to wood frame. If I lived in West/south OKC I'd probably consider it, as much of a tornado magnet some of those communities are. Tulsa rarely gets a tornado of any significance, so I'm not sure I'd bother with the extra expense.


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cowman said:
I think if you have a basement there's no need for one.
Click to expand...
Look at the "after" pictures from Joplin or any other big storms. Count the cars in basements. In most houses, the ceiling of the basement is simply the floor of the fist floor. A direct or nearly direct hit, and now you're shelter is just a deep swimming pool.

We built a house with a FEMA grade shelter. I have been through several tornadoes, not in any structure that's been hit, but close by. With the ones that passed through here last year, you could follow the path from the air. The houses that had been hit were just piles of broken sticks. Being in a closet or under a mattress isn't going to help you when the whole house is destroyed. I'm comforted knowing that if there's every a big one near here, my family will be surrounded by none inches of concrete and half an inch of steel.

But no, they should not be mandatory. And the grant program is worthless.
 
I lived in greensburg Kansas for awhile. Long before it got wiped off the map.

No, shelters should not be mandatory. People make their own choices. That said, if I lived in dry line country again I would have some sort of shelter option. It is quite an experience to be awakened by a siren and a loud speaker saying there is a tornado on the ground moving toward the town.
 
In 1980 Anchorage had a wind storm with sustained winds measured at 130mph. Lots and lots of structures were damaged. Local building codes changed as a result. Engineered foundation bolts, structural straps, roof ties, etc have been required since. Now nobody worries much about 100mph winds other than the obvious, like to get your kids into rooms away from windows. Glass shards at 100mph are a bad thing. For houses not engineered for high winds, when the windows break and the house pressurizes the roof comes off. That'll make a memory.
 
Odds of dying by tornado 1 in 60000
Odds of dying in your bath tub 1 in 10000
Odds of dying in a car crash 1 in 50-100

Death by tornado is not a big concern to me
 
Tornado risk is not equal across the population so statistics like that aren't worth the bandwidth they consumed to post.
 
Stewartb said:
Tornado risk is not equal across the population so statistics like that aren't worth the bandwidth they consumed to post.
Click to expand...

Correct, and seeing how many on this board don't live in a trailer park were probably fine.

Want some major death, heart attack and stroke.
Building a hurricane shelter to save the "children" then taking them to McDonalds after its done = FAIL
 
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