Not getting any bites on the board...

When your house is destroyed in a really, really strong wind (like major tornado), what happens to the basement? Is it safe or do you need a separate, dedicated underground shelter? In other words, do the first floor floorboards peel up as the house is converted to match wood (thereby exposing you and your kitties and all your supplies to the elements)?

-- Anonymous, June 03, 2002

Answers

BrookS,

I'm not sure that I'm really the one to answer your question, however here goes.

Many(ie most) of the homes around where I live do not have basements. (I wish mine did!) That is the reason that I believe most people around here opt for the tornado shelters which are underground.

Now, that being said... When the F5 tornado came around here a few years ago, I got to see tons of the aftermath. Here are my observations FWIW. Sure many houses were 'blown away'. That meant that the outside walls couldn't stand up to the winds, and occasionally some of the interior walls as well. I only saw a couple of houses out of thousands that didn't exist where they once did. Sure the damage was bad and many of the homes had to be torn down, but there was something there. If you are really worried about a tornado, you have to also worry about how to escape from a basement (or underground shelter). If the walls fall down on you, how would you get out?

There are a few homes with basements, and the people were fine even if their house was destroyed. Sometimes, depending upon where the debris fell, they'd have to wait for someone to clear the way for them to get out. It beats going to a public shelter anyday!

Many people opt for the underground shelter because putting in a basement after the fact is kinda hard. ;) But I figured you'd know that! ;)

-- Anonymous, June 03, 2002

Brooks, during the early 1980s, I and several other starving students rented this terrible 1930s house that should have been condemned, except for the landlord's brother-in-law was in charge of city inspections.

Anyway, there was a terrific wind storm one summer afternoon -- the sky suddenly became dark and the air went still. I grabbed my kitties and ran into the basement. About two minutes later, I heard a huge wind and boom and the horrible sounds of wood tearing. The kitties and I crouched under an old oak table in the basement.

When all the noise stopped, I crept upstairs, but I couldn't open the door. Then I went back downstairs and busted out a window and crawled up into where I could see daylight. I saw that most of the house had fallen inwards, expect for part of the back, which remained standing. The kitties followed me out.

I stood there for several minutes while the neighbors gathered around, then I had to chase off some boys who tried to steal what little of our stuff was reachable. A police officer showed up soon after and shooed us off. I sneaked back and called the cats to me and put them in my car, sans cages. Later that night, we residents carefully extracted what we could of our stuff. The next day the city showed up and bulldozed the place. I lived in my car for the next three weeks, after I took the kitties to a farm.

Now you know why I'm a prepper.

-- Anonymous, June 03, 2002

Meemur,

Sorry to hear about your house, but at least you and your kitties came out of it alive.

Brooks,

Meemur brings up a good point. It all depends on what your house is made of. All my life I have lived in brick homes, with the exception of one small house I rented for 6 months when I first moved to Charlotte. Now, my home is mostly rock. I guess what I'm trying to say it depends upon what the exterior of your house is constructed of and just how high the winds you are speaking of.

If you, by chance, are talking nukes, all bets are off.

-- Anonymous, June 03, 2002

The rent on that place was $30/mo (per person), so you can imagine what sort of a dump it was. When I recall that event, I find myself wondering if the kitties would've had enough sense to go to the basement? They certainly didn't struggle when I grabbed them both and hauled them down there.

But, yes, we were lucky, and my house now is in much better shape.

-- Anonymous, June 03, 2002

Brooks,

If a tornado hits a house and rips it up, the smallest room with the smallest openings is the safest room. Standard advice is to get as low to the ground as possible -- if you are outside, lying face down in a ditch is better than trying to run. Many people who have their houses peeled to the foundation will still have plumbing visible, so the bathtub with a mattress for cover may help.

But I would always use the basement first. Crouching under a table with something relatively dense and soft between you and the open side is a good idea. Some people have been sucked out of underground shelters and basements. In one case, a couple had a child sucked out and survive, while the child they were able to hold onto died from having a nail driven into his brain by the wind.

It's a crapshoot, but I'd use a basement if I had one. What I have is an actual cellar meant to be a tornado shelter, so we're pretty safe.

-- Anonymous, June 03, 2002

Just like the average paranoid, er imaginative prepper, I've been trying to think ahead. I thought about global warming and the fact that weather patterns will change--IF it's true. Those patterns have been documented in Britain--easy to do because it's such a small country and the flora and fauna are well known--and the weather is GENERALLY pretty predictable with few extremes. However, that's not the case any more. Besides significant changes in flora and fauna (e.g., plants seen quite a bit further north than their usual range, butterflies and other insects same thing), tornadoes are now not uncommon in Britain. They were unheard of when I was there. Those gales are like hurricanes--also not nearly as common as they are now. We don't notice it so much here because there are weather extremes and we put down a rare tornado or "100-year flood" as par for the course. But what if it's not? In the last five years I lived in New Orleans, there were three 100-year floods.

So moving to Colorado--it's not unknown for tornadoes to occur, although it's unusual and they're not like the big ones in the Midwest. That said, I would like to have a basement for the same reason I would move to a basemented house if we were staying here--I do believe climate patterns are changing and we can expect more severe weather. I also think there will be more flooding in areas where the occasional flash flood is known--like Colorado Springs. This means the house we buy shouldn't be flat on a valley floor! Helluva thing to survive a tornado but be drowned by flash flooding from torrential rains! (I do have some info on previous floods in CS so will mark it on my "hazards" map of the area.)

Brooks, I take it you either have a basement now or are thinking of moving to a house with a basement. If you can afford a separate underground shelter, sure why not? Sounds the safest to me. You still might have trouble escaping from it later, though, and it would be pretty difficult for rescue folks to find you if you're separate from the house. I suppose the optimum would be an underground, separate area right next to the house with a door from the existing basement or from one specially constructed at the entrance--reinforced concrete "hallway" and, besides the regular door into the place, a flat trapdoor in the shelter's ceiling.

Some things that might help. Tornadoes almost always travel from SW to NE, I believe (but check that to be sure). They tend to "jump" over areas immediately behind a ridge then set down again a little ways further on. That little quirk is what saved us one time when we lived in Little Rock.

I'm a bit more concerned about the Chinook winds in Colorado, which can reach 100 mph or so. I'm also worried about wildfires, which is why I would want to live as close to the city center as feasible. And then there's the water problem. Latest news is that CS will have to stop development in about six years if Pueblo won't let them expand the reservoir on the Arkansas River. Yes, I AM taking my water barrels with me!

By the way, I don't have the link, still working from Sweetie's machine, but one day I did find scenarios for various cities if global warming hits. I think it was a NOAA site, can't remember. Anyway, if you plug in "global warming" and the name of your city or state, I think something might come up on Google.

-- Anonymous, June 04, 2002

Thanks, guys. I'm actually not worried about a tornado. The question was about sustained winds (I didn't mention that) that could be as strong or a lot stronger.

Time for me to share my current, extreme doomer concern. At the moment, I don't think it is survivable.

Second half of hour three of Friday's Art Bell program. Ed Dames (the remote viewer). I don't know why he resonates with me. (I'll admit some consternation that he was correct about y2k.) He has talked for some time about the solar "kill shot" and about a preponderance of existing people (for whom they remote viewed) knowing in the future that there was a period when they were living underground, presumably to escape something.

What Dames was getting to on Friday is that he thinks there is something to Sitchin's theory about Niburu swinging by occasionally and causing some degree of havoc. He thinks this is connected to the people having to go underground; the fact that it applies to so many people living today makes it relatively (in remote viewing terms) imminent. He thought as early as next year, although I don't think he had much basis for that.

What he is forecasting (which sounds a whole lot like those tribulation scenarios that I never paid any attention to) is that we will only have about 3 months advance notice (Niburu will be a straight shot coming in from Pluto), that there will be a period of 2 or 3 weeks of sustained winds of 200 MPH, and a few days at 300 MPH. Not over the entire earth, but I would assume the people he remote viewed were North Americans so that would mean here.

On the bright side, he said there won't be a nuclear war between India and Pakistan. That somehow the U.S. will prevent it from happening, but physically disabling Pakistan's weaponry, if necessary.

OK. So, we don't blow ourselves up, but how do all my prepping initiatives to date figure into a natural disaster of that magnitude? As Dames pointed out, it would take a while to rebuild the infrastructure after the winds died down. He agrees it is catastrophic, but doesn't see it as the end of the world because earth's atmosphere will survive. The winds will be caused by the earth wobbling and there will be extra solar activity, so he described it as a kind of "shake and bake".

I started to think of what damage and complications winds of that magnitude would cause. At least in a tornado, or even a severe hurricane, the impacts are really rather localized, so help can come in from the outside. Bank accounts and insurance comanpies would still be intact so you might have the funds to rebuild.

It would take a whole lot of incentive to want to prepare for something like that, and being by myself now, I don't think I have anything approaching that incentive. Plus, it raises the psychological issues I faced prior to the rollover - if I do prepare for it at that level I'm nuts, so I won't because I don't want to admit to being nuts.

-- Anonymous, June 04, 2002

I suppose you could check out buying an old bus and burying it. ;)

-- Anonymous, June 04, 2002

Cute, Barefoot. But you see, EVERYTHING would have to be in that bus. I would have to dismantle my wood stoves and stove pipes, and water to last that long and much longer (because it would presumably be contaminated), and sewage arrangements, and all my chickens and meat rabbits and kitties... And the garden would be gone. And my car (and the gas station). Everything.

-- Anonymous, June 04, 2002

On the bright side, I haven't been worrying much at all about the other hundred or so reasons I might want to be prepared (although I think I'm generally in good shape for many of those...)

-- Anonymous, June 04, 2002

The last time I had a conversation with someone who took Dames seriously, he (my friend), mentioned that he was considering building domed structures with an underground part underneath in Northern MN. I don't know whatever became of his plan because he has yet to find work that pays anything outside of Jackson, MI, but in subsequently looking up some of his observations, I came across several articles taking about how much wind force correctly constructed domes could withstand. I didn't take that seriously at first because all the dome houses I've ever toured leaked, and leaked BADLY; however, one of the engineers explained the physics to me, and in theory, that would be a good structure for such a scenario.

I don't think it's going to come as early as next year. When I have more time, I'll find the links to some of the astronomer's speculations about the coming earth changes.

-- Anonymous, June 04, 2002

Thanks, Meemur, a domed structure is probably the answer.

But not one I'm likely to do unless enough other people are as well because I'd like to have some company on the other side...

So, I guess I have been trying to feel my way through the question of what, if anything, I could conveniently manage in my basement. I can take down the wood stove chimneys and board up the windows. Any winds stronger than that (like in the 150-200 MPH range) probably have to be shrugged off.

Sorry for my fantasies as others are having real, immediate problems...

-- Anonymous, June 04, 2002

It is through fantasy that reality can be expressed in its true form.

-- Anonymous, June 04, 2002

Most of the american indian tribes have genesis stories that involve coming out of the ground to live on this earth.

-- Anonymous, June 04, 2002

Re your windows--what about those roll-down steel shutters, advertised to withstand high winds? Barefoot, don't you have those? And also think about the Blitz HQ Churchill had in London-- perhaps there are pictures on the web, must be somewhere. You can see how there are numerous cross beams braced on the ceiling and walls to guard against bombs close by. I wonder if you could reinforce your basement ceiling like that? Or cause it to be done, anyway. Could you berm up the earth against all the upper part of the basement walls except around the windows and put those plastic bubbles over them? I think they're made of polycarbonate, very strong stuff.

This reminds me of an oceanfront church built in Biloxi after Camille. Looks like a giant clam shell, quite beautiful, supposed to be hurricane proof. Might be worthwhile looking at the new building regs/ideas/designs in South Florida after Andrew. Could be some useful for retrofitting.

-- Anonymous, June 05, 2002

Like this?

http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/shutters/index3.html

here

-- Anonymous, June 05, 2002

We have the storm panels. We have two windows covered all the time. They face east, and when it rains they leak. Ever since Andrew they leaked. Have to get them replaced one day, but keeping them covered helps immensely with cooling costs. We also don't miss the view of the neighbor's bright lights at night.

-- Anonymous, June 05, 2002