Just to put this thing into perspective.....

Highway-Chile

Look at the before and after, and other photo's in this news article. This tornado was huge and incredibly powerful. The place looks like it was hit by a nuclear weapon.......most of the town just destroyed. One mother tried to take shelter in the bathtub and the tornado sucked her young toddler out of her arms........gone!

Really awful. Along with all the flooding we have had, the loss of farmland etc....the federal assistance that is going to be needed to cover all the losses and help people recover etc is going to be staggering. The economy is already close to tanking.

Man........all the disasters here, in Japan, NZ, Oz, Spain.......... lot's of bad stuff!

Here is the article.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1389737/Joplin-MO-tornado-At-89-dead-twister-cuts-4-mile-swathe-Missouri-town.html

DonovanB

I reckon the USA has the worst weather ever.
I feel for all the families affected. One can only hope that some lesson is learned to make life safer for the next time a tornado or whatever storm hits

Highway-Chile

I would for sure pay the $2K-$5K it costs to put in an underground shelter....in fact I would want access from the house and another exit/entry to the outside. I would want it big enough to store food, water, camp bedding and other needs in the case of a worse disaster like a nuclear attack or perhaps a structure fire where access out the house is impossible. I know the nuclear attack deal is over the top (is it?) but why not make it big enough and secure enough if you are spending quite a lot to begin with?

Either that or in the case of a house with a basement, surely there is a way to create a safe room with ventilation and a source of fresh air, that is perhaps steel reinforced? Especially if the flooring above and all the joists get ripped out by such a tornado.

Maybe getting trapped inside is the huge risk there......but I would rather take my chances with that if the area I am in is built in such a way it will not collapse and there are several different sources of air......hopefully they don't all get compromised by debris.