Cheap storm shelter?

[Zerk]

I don't live in storm country, so no idea about any of this.

Is it really that hard to walk through the yard to a shelter., as opposed to putting it under the house?

Isn't a tornado going to tear apart anything above ground, unless you spend alot more money then what you would spend for underground?

Curious for my stand off.

 

[EddieWalker]

Here, we pretty much watch the tornadoes coming. Turned out that we had 7 of them in the area on Friday with two being EF-2s and the closest was ten miles away. The destruction is just amazing. I mostly want a place to go when we know they are out there. Sitting on the bathroom floor doesn't have any appeal to me. So far I've never had to deal with that decision, but it's something that's bound to happen sooner or later.

While I agree with Soundguy that in the ground is the best place to be, I think the ability to build a safe room above ground won't be all that hard. The FEMA plan I linked to earlier has a very easy to read, follow plan that is well within my abilities. The hardest part will be cutting out my existing concrete slab so I can pour a new footing according to their design. The rest is just repetition.

 

[EddieWalker]

 

[Soundguy]

My point for in ground vs in house is it eats up part of your house! I don't have any part of my house that I could just close off and say that this is only for when the wind blows!

Lastly.. I'd like to get some dual purpose... storm is fine. but radiation.. while the threat is ultra low.. is possible. If I'm going to build a shelter.. it might as well be multi purpose.

Good luck to you.. I hope you are never in that situation that you have to use it once you have it. be safe my friend(s).

 

[Redneck in training]

I will turn my into a sauna.

 

[r porter]

zerk

you will never 'walk' through the yard to a shelter. it is always a toad strangler when the need arises and you will be soaking wet by the time you get to the shelter.

so given this, you dont go until you hear the train coming. which is a gamble that you even hear it in a storm.

 

[oosik]

Zounds - - all this scary talk of wild storms, ripping things apart and flooded shelters. I guess I often fail to appreciate where I live. Not that we don't have our own brand of bad wx but never anything like whats being discussed here. I guess we live a somewhat naturally shelter life here.

 

[bcp]

Zounds - - all this scary talk of wild storms, ripping things apart and flooded shelters. I guess I often fail to appreciate where I live. Not that we don't have our own brand of bad wx but never anything like whats being discussed here. I guess we live a somewhat naturally shelter life here.

Five active volcanoes in Washington. Not worth the effort to try to build a volcano shelter.



Bruce

 

[oosik]

You are right bcp. There is still exposed areas on my property where the Mt St Helen's ash is on the surface. And then there is the Yellowstone super volcano thing. A volcano shelter is called a tomb.

 

[EddieWalker]

Soundguy. Finding the the place to build it was very dificult. I'm going to loses several storage shelves that are going to end up in a shipping container. To make the tornado shelter more iseful, I'm going to install a safe door on it and use it as a walk in safe 99% of the time.

It is becoming more common here to make the master bedroom closet a safe room for tornadoes. I've seen several of them. Two sets if doors. The regular one you use every day and a heavy steel one on the inside. They have concrete ceilings a foot thick and walls made out of cinder blocks filled with rwbar and concrete. Then the walls are frames and sheetrocked. The last one I was in wad massive. Easily big enough for 2 dozen people. It even had a TV in it!!!