Would residents in Tornado Alley be more likely to build storm shelters at their homes if we called them "Coming Economic Collapse" shelters?

That’s funny and may just work!

Any excuse for a song

Don’t have to do that, just change the building codes so that when developers put in new subdivisions they also are required to put in adequate storm shelters. Each building should have one, detached garages or sheds should be included as part of a single family dwelling.

Also provide low interest loans for families that want to retrofit their existing homes.

Isn’t this more or less the approach Florida took with hurricane resistant housing.

That’s it @WestRiverrat just go ahead be practical while I am trying to be caustic and obnoxious!

No.

We do build them at home.

and we bring the AK down with us, the AR can scatter with the house when she blows.

It is like the people who build here in the fire zones. I think the shelter idea is just too expensive. Local councils have plenty of laws about residential dwellings but if they want their shire to grow, they can’t make it too difficult. It is not an easy situation. Up north, however, where there is cyclone activity, there are stringent building requirements, but no requirement to have an actual shelter. I guess it is an individual choice to live where you choose, the problem is that when a disaster happens, everyone is expected to help to finance their choices.

I don’t really understand the question.

They mostly are just playing the odds the storm won’t hit them if they don’t have a shelter. I’m sure some of it has to do with expense. In South FL you need to build your house to strcit wind codes, but people liging in older homes don’t have those codes, mobile homes don’t have those codes. In fact, if a tornado is heading your way and you live in a mobile home you are supposed to eave the home and lie down in a ditch. Can you imagine it?

There isn’t a ton of warning time when a tornado is coming. Maybe in tornado alley they have good building codes, but I know where I lived in TN there weren’t very strict building codes regarding extremely strong winds, and we definitely had tornado threats. I happen to have a storm shelter at my house, but most houses didn’t have them. for sure the schools should be built with some sort of “safer” spaces within the building.

How about Al Gore Global Warming Hoax shelters.

That’s the spirit @ETpro!

Yeah…“The government’s coming to get you!” shelters! They’d sell!

@JLeslie It was a tongue in cheek question. If we named it something that plays to people’s paranoia would they be more likely to buy a storm shelter?

@Dutchess_III Maybe they would. I have a friend that has an underground shelter with food, guns, he is a big time libertarian type. He also is a doctor. For whatever reason I would not have guessed the two would go together, but I am always surprised.

I think it has more to do with money than anything. Maybe when subdivisions are built they could have a few underground shelter for each block and do it for not very much money spread across the homeowners.

I think basements are pretty much standard here in Kansas. I can’t think of a place I’ve ever lived that didn’t have one, including this house. Although I wouldn’t go down there for any reason except to save my life. The house is 100+ years old and the “basement” is a scary dirt cellar!
I guess Oklahoma has ground water issues that doesn’t allow for basements, but surely they could include a sealed “hidey hole” in each house they build, enough room for about 10 people, even if you have to cram them in. Tornadoes are over in a matter of minutes. I saw some at a home show recently. I think they were….$500?

Well, one of the tornadoes in Oklahoma touched down for 40 minutes I heard! That is crazy long. Yeah, I think you can reinforce an interior room and make it strong for storms. A bathroom or closet, or under the stairs space. During hurricanes in FL (also no basements in south FL) we are advised to go to the interior room or under the stairs (many houses are one story though). But, tornadoes can be much stronger than a hurricane. A hurricane 5 is like a tornado 3 I think.

Yes, they can stay on the ground a long time, but they’re traveling, 20, 30 miles an hour, so as far as individual hits it only lasts a few minutes.
Hurricanes go on for hours n hours. :(

@Dutchess_III Good point. That goes along with what I said about statistically your house won’t be hit.

Well, the sirens went off twice on Sunday. I moved some important stuff in the general direction of the cellar so I could grab it on the run if I had to, then went out on the deck to see what there was to see. Everyone was out on their South facing porches or decks peering at the sky.

I’ve been REALLY scared only twice in my life here in Kansas.

ABC interviewed a guy two days ago. His company has worked with Rochester Institute of Technology to develop a reinforced concrete safe room that is all poured in a single pour. It will withstand an EF5, even if hit by huge debris like flying SUVs or trucks. It has an 18 inch thick slab, 8 inch thick steel reinforced concrete walls, and an 18 inch thick steel reinforced ceiling. He said their research has shown that if it isn’t a continuous pour, if it has joints, an EF5 and the stuff it hurls about can break it apart.

They are working now on how to design school inner hallways that are robust enough to protect all the students in an EF5 tornado.

The problem has been retrofitting bunkers in existing buildings. Now would be a good time to build a few.