Looking for Information on building a tornado shelter where/how big/do's & don'ts. Thank you for any help you can give us.

-- Cathy Unger (cunger@tds.net), November 11, 2001

Answers

plenty of info on bomb shelters,, which will work for tornados,,, or a root cellar. Basically,, a hole with a door,,large enough to feel comfortable in, make it larger to store supplies in,, or a duel purpose,, root cellar storm shelter

-- stan (sopal@net-port.com), November 11, 2001.

HI, We live in texas and I have a tornado shelter, We dug a hole about 10 feet into the ground. Large enough for double bed, a table and a couple of chairs. the walls and floor and ceiling are 12 inch concret.There"s two vents in ceiling. there also is a drain in floor. We walk down about 8 concrete steps. there is about 4 feet above ground, and that is covered with dirt, A big mound. There is a metal door.We had no plans, Just did it. Love Irene

-- Irene texas (tkorsborn@cs.com), November 11, 2001.

Irene My wife and aI would suffocate Can't stand tight places. Wheeesh gives me the willies just thinking about it.

-- Kenneth in N.C. (wizardsplace13@hotmail.com), November 11, 2001.

Kenneth, Me too. We have a fairly new celler. I find it comfortable. The ceiling is 7 1/2 feet high and the room is 10 X 10. We painted the interior white. Painted the shelves white. Not that it makes the room look larger but I don't feel like I am in a hole.

-- Belle (gardenbelle@terraworld.net), November 11, 2001.

We don't have a tornado shelter but really are being stupid for not having one. We were hit in 95 and lost 50 acres of trees all our large shade trees part of the barn, spring house,cystren, several out buildings and part of the house. Laying in the mud beside a rock wall while the world falls in around you will cure your fear of close spaces. Our problem is there is only about three feet of dirt and then solid rock. The water level is on top of the rock and so digging deeper causes water drainage problems. If you live in tornado country you should consider a storm shelter and root celler.

-- David (bluewaterfarm@mindspring.com), November 11, 2001.

David, We have a similar problem with the rock and water table. We are in OK. and all I can do is pray. Had several too close calls, not as bad as yours but I remember 2 years ago when it hit OKC, with both daughters near the City at the time. Then the next day one went over my roof and took out all the air pressure in the house as I was wrapped around a inner bathroom tolet seat praying. I feel we should make this a top priority but the cellars that you can buy are about 10 grand to put in and a waiting list. What do you do with the water table? Does anyone know? debbie

-- Debbie (bwolcott@cwis.net), November 11, 2001.

FEMA has a great website, with info on building a "safe room" as shelter from tornadoes. www.fema.gov/mit/saferoom You can download their booklet for free "Taking Shelter From the Storm" (FEMA 320) or call them and order a copy of it. Usually they are built into new homes, but if your foundation is satisfactory it is possible to retrofit part of an existing garage or basement.

-- Rebecca (fake@none.com), November 11, 2001.

I dable in surplus. I've sold a few communication shelters that go on the back of pickups. These are about 8' X 6.5'. Some folks have taken them and buried them in a hillside as a tornado shelters. Maybe you could get something like this for you. All in all it is a fairly inexpensive option (I get 500.00 for mine, in Michigan). But I'm not sure how practical it would be if you only have flatland. They are well built, almost bullet proof, but I would want one in the ground before I would trust it.

-- Mark (toymeister@hotmail.com), November 12, 2001.

There are a fair number of cast shelters that can be dropped into a hole in the yard or even under a slab basement.Enter tornado shelter into your favorite search engine or check out

cast unit. http://nporter.home.mindspring.com/ http://www.stormshelters.com/ http://www.fiberglasscreations.com/ http://www.heartlandshelters.com/ http://www.tornadosafe.com/

addon for your home http://www.tornadoroom.com/

big budget units, even nuke proof ones. http://www.radiusdefense.com/

-- Gary (gws@redbird.net), November 12, 2001.

Check out the Texas A&M website. They are the largest tornado research unit around and have plans for a tornado proof room you can put in your house.

-- Ivy in NW AR (balch84@cox-internet.com), November 12, 2001.

I live in west Texas and have a great respect (fear) of tornadoes. When I moved here a cellar was one of the requirements. At our first house we had a concrete cellar put in and it was nice but very expensive. At our present house we found a metal cellar that the local welder built and delivered. We had the hole dug, dropped the cellar in, put plastic over the top and covered it with dirt. The temp. never gets above 76 or below 45 inside. The best part was that it was less than 1/2 the price of the concrete one. It is 8X12 and very nice since painted white inside. Good luck.

-- Marlene leiby (mleiby@caprock-spur.com), November 12, 2001.

We are currently having a new home built on our 20 acres in the country. We asked the basement concrete contractor to pour us an 8'x6' "storm room" in the SW corner of our basement. The foundation went in last week and he is pouring the 12" thick concrete cap for the storm room this week. I also had him put two 4" PVC sleeves through the outside foundation wall just below the level of the concrete cap. We plan on using this room for cold storage (i.e. root cellar) and these two 4" accesses will be used for our high and low air vents. The in-slab radiant fllor heat will not go under the storm room. Now, I've just got to figure out how to build a passage door strong enough to compliment the safety the 8" thick concrete walls of the storm room provide. I don't want the door to be the one weak area in the room. Any ideas?

Also, we didn't have any plans for all this. Just took some advice from the original "Back To Basics" and my concrete contractor. Does anybody see us making any big mistakes here?

-- Steve in So. WI (alpine1@prodigy.net), November 12, 2001.

When we put up our first home on our farm, a double wide, my wife insisted on a storm shelter. We built a 4 x 8 root cellar. Used it once for a near by tornado, 5 years as a root cellar.

-- Rickstir (rpowell@email.ccis.edu), November 13, 2001.