@ Everyone watching Rachel (safe rooms)

[Motown_Johnny]

expensive or inexpensive


I'm kinda confused but I am betting the Meteorologist got it right and the Mayor got it wrong

[DearAbby]

1. I would assume to have one built into an existing structure

maybe more expensive? :shrug:

[Schema Thing]

3. I've been thinking about this

and I think I could build one into an existing closet for a reasonable cost. The greater cost would be in cosmetically finishing your work to look like a normal closet.... so if someone didn't care about that, I think it could be done for $1500-ish?

[Atman]

4. That $1500 may not sound expensive when looking at the destroyed houses, but...

...that's a shitload of money when scrounging sofa cushions for quarters. Beyond that, Rachel asked about tornado-proof houses. I imagine that would be luxury that most could not possibly afford.

[Schema Thing]

6. oh yeah, at that point you'd just start with a totally different

design wrt shape and building style.

[Bigmack]

2. If I lived in that country...

I'd dig under the garage or other slab... hand dig if necessary. Like a mole. I'd line the walls with block and have the entrance opening made up of heavy timbers slid into grooves in the blocks.. rather than a door. How expensive would that be?

I sure as shit wouldn't count on my bathtub.

[a la izquierda]

10. Many new homes in Oklahoma...

are built with just such a room under the garage floor.
Weirdest thing: on my block, there are no storm cellars. Literally two houses away, on the next block of houses, every yard has one.

[xmas74]

5. They sell shelters

all along the highway in rural areas. They're pretty small but are only meant for riding out the storm.

I prefer my cellar.

[here_is_to_hope]

7. a U-Haul is cheaper.

Just saying....

[kentauros]

15. I'm assuming you mean for us to all move out of the danger zones.

And then go where? Is Oregon big enough for an influx of tens of millions of people fleeing these sometimes dangerous areas? Will you welcome the tens of millions that also includes millions Republicans?

Or are you just being snarky and refusing to think it through?

[krispos42]

16. Yeah, so we can move into the earthquake zone?

Or maybe down south... into the hurricane zone?

[KatyaR]

8. A safe room is very expensive, but if you can afford them, they work.

You have to register your safe room or storm shelter with local authorities so if there is a storm, they will know to go search for you.

But remember, these safe rooms are above ground, they have to be able to withstand wind, flying debris, and crazy changing wind pressure. Therefore they have to be extremely structurally sound.

Honestly, in severe tornadoes, the best place to be is in a traditional below-ground shelter. I remember Gary England telling us during the May 3, 1999, tornado that "if you're not underground, you will die." When a weather forecaster tells you that, he's not foolin' around.

[pstokely]

9. The ground is too hard to dig a basement in Joplin

nt

[Shagbark Hickory]

12. So build a structure and pile soil around it. A big hill.

[madokie]

13. Except that the ground in Joplin is not 'too hard to dig a hole in.'

That was an asinine statement to begin with.

Around here where the water table is too high to make a cellar feasible people do just as you suggested. My grand parents had a cellar built that way and its still there dry as can be and it was built before I was born and I'm 63 years old.

[Shagbark Hickory]

17. I've seen basements in south florida, Miami even.

[pstokely]

19. Wouldn't that be below sea level?

?

[kick-ass-bob]

14. It's solid rock?

I doubt it. It can't be any worse than red clay which in the summer, you can't tell at first if you pick up a piece of clay or a rock surrounded by clay.

[FailureToCommunicate]

18. Eh, Joplin was a hub of mining. Hadn't they dug everywhere

in that town? Seems like a traditional underground shelter is still the best safeguard.

(And yes, I know a thing or two. We're from Missouri)

[madokie]

11. Concrete finisher here

In the last 15 years or so of my concrete finishing career we build hundreds of safe rooms. People using everything from their closets to bathrooms to spaces under stairs that would be barely large enough to house the family but safe rooms many of them wanted. The way we did them was to put rebar sticking up out of the slab where the walls to the safe room would be layed up using 8 inch concrete blocks then we'd put a piece of rebar in each cell of the block that went up and over the top then pour the cells and top using pea gravel mixed concrete making the tops 5 inches thick. The metal doors frames were put in place and the blocks layed inside them so that they could not be removed if you wanted to then use metal doors that opened to the inside so in case something was up against the door the occupants could still get out. I live in tornado alley and safe rooms were a very popular item that most new homes we did the concrete for had. It added about 2000 dollars to the cost of the concrete work but was well worth it. In effect the walls and top were built with 1/2 inch rebar on eight inch centers and solid concrete.