Where to go for tornado?
Posted by jessks@reddit | preppers | View on Reddit | 41 comments
I have lived in this house 38 years and it never occurred to me to consider where to go in case of a tornado. We live just off a lake, North of Dallas and honestly don't generally get a ton of truly bad weather due to the temperature change from the water. But every room is on an exterior walls, we have zero interior bathrooms or closets, and not a single hallway. Everything connects off the main living space.
What are your thoughts?
There_Are_No_Gods@reddit
If you have the means, a steel tornado shelter sized for a small family can be purchased for around $3k - $5k, with DIY installation requiring only an impact drill (which you can rent). Most concrete pads are suitable for bolting it down.
I recently went this route, paying about $3,500 to have a 3'x'5 steel shelter delivered. I placed it in the corner of the garage, drilling and bolting it down myself.
Environmental_Art852@reddit
I have a 3x8 drilled thru the garage floor. I've gone in for weather multiple times. In a thunderstorm/tornado it is humid. It is a stuffy sweat box. Once I saw the locking mechanism, I bought a good sized crowbar for inside
There_Are_No_Gods@reddit
I hear you on the crowbar. The single door makes me nervous, so I decided to store my cordless angle grinder in there permanently, along with eye and ear protection for everyone. I've also been planning on putting some sort of jack in there, leaning towards the 4' farm jack style.
I also call my sister that lives in another state any time we pile in for a tornado warning, so that somebody that's highly unlikely to also get hit by the same storm system knows we're in there.
Environmental_Art852@reddit
There should be a registration through the health dept? letting 1st responders know which houses had shelters
There_Are_No_Gods@reddit
Thanks. I'll look into that too.
Environmental_Art852@reddit
That was my wishful thought
TheCarcissist@reddit
There are also federal grants through fema that can help with the cost depending on your location
Many-Health-1673@reddit
This will get some down votes, but I watch the news closely and pull up the radar map and listen to my GMRS radio. When the tornado gets close to my area, I go perpendicular to the storm track before it is scheduled to arrive.
I don't have a safe room or a tornado shelter and you arent living through a direct hit from an EF4 or higher without those.
i_write_bugz@reddit
Like you just leave in your car the opposite direction that the tornado is forecasted to go?
Many-Health-1673@reddit
Yes, I leave in a 90 degree direction away from path of the tornado. If the tornado is coming from the southwest and heading northeast, I head southeast.
This is not a plan that you implement 5 minutes before the tornado gets to where you live. Implement it 15 minutes or so before arrival or when conditions warrant.
Achnback@reddit
Fellow Texan here in East Texas. We use an interior closet by the fireplace.
stream_inspector@reddit
Dead center - wherever that is. Under a sturdy kitchen table or desk is also considered a viable spot.
Otherwise, dig a root cellar type spot in the yard ...
angrytetchy@reddit
The best protection for your head is a bike helmet rather than a heavy object. Your table is perfect for earthquakes - a tornado will pick it up and fling it, splinter it into a thousand pieces and then hit you with all of them at ridiculous speeds in less than 3 seconds.
stream_inspector@reddit
If it picks up the table - then you've already been flung thru a wall, and that helmet ain't doing anything.
angrytetchy@reddit
Unless your walls are concrete reinforced, the wall toss isn't going to kill you. Wood-framed houses (which are the majority of construction) will splinter like anything and the walls will be gone half a second before it picks up you and the table.
stream_inspector@reddit
I'm fine with your wall argument, but the bike helmet is ridiculous. You yourself said a zillion flying splinters or shards. Helmet does nothing for you in that situation. So either just tell us a better option than staying under the table or go away.
Personally, I like the bathtub idea someone else posted - if they have a tub (and mattress).
angrytetchy@reddit
The bathtub is the ideal location if you don't have a cellar or basement. The bike helmet is for your inevitable impact with the ground if you do get picked up or for large chunks of debris that get flung through your home and can give you a TBI. You're welcome to do what you will, even if it does go against the recommended advice of scientists.
stream_inspector@reddit
Well, I'm a scientist, and have been employed as such since 1987, so you can consider my opinions as "recommended advice of scientist". And many many houses do not have bike helmets laying around. And my first thought upon hearing the tornado alarm is not "omg - where's my bike helmet."
Ra_a_@reddit
People who live near tornadoes keep their bike helmets where they would go said there were tornado weather
No one wonders when the sirens sounding already where are the bike helmets. This is a r/preppers sub
stream_inspector@reddit
Ok thanks. Good tip.
eatmorbacon@reddit
Hey, scientist... ( lol) I don't think that anyone is arguing that a bike helmet will prevent any /all other injury from glass in your face, splinters, a broken arm etc. But it does offer a level of protection for your head that is better to have than not.
If I fall, or stuff starts flying around then it may be beneficial. It's nice to have a helmet if one of those pieces of 2x4 smacks me in the head. Take a hammer and tap yourself in the head. Now put a helemt on, and do it again. Get it?
I don't own a bike, nor a helmet. nor do I plan on getting one. But you've just been intentionally obtuse about the whole matter.
stream_inspector@reddit
You've been very helpful to the OP as well. Thanks for offering your thoughts about where he should shelter. Very useful input.
eatmorbacon@reddit
Don't get sore because someone called you out for being an ass. I'm sure it's not the first time.
Rest assured, your passive aggressive sarcasm is noted as well. Just proves my point.
stream_inspector@reddit
I'm so worried that you "noted" something about me. You and your "lol" about my career might keep me up all night worrying. I'll have| to go find my daughters old bike helmet from 20 years ago.
eatmorbacon@reddit
Just dig out the one you wore at school when you were younger. Problem solved. No charge :)
stream_inspector@reddit
There was no such thing as a bike helmet when I was young. That came along 25 or 30 years after I was born. We jumped ramps, drank from the hose, played with snakes in the creek, and stayed outside until dark - no helmets. No seat belts as a child either - you sat loose in the back of a station wagon or back of pickup. We didn't need labels to tell us not to swallow poison or spray things in our eyes.
eatmorbacon@reddit
Only bad thing I can remember in retrospect was the fact we had leaded gas lol.
angrytetchy@reddit
As I said, you're free to do what you want. But if you have bicycles, you should have helmets around. If you have a motorcycle, you should have a helmet around. If you have kids with a scooter or roller blades or whatever, you've got bike helmets around. The bike helmet is not even necessarily for you, but for children for them to survive. And if you're rolling around without a helmet on any of the above things um... enjoy your TBI... I guess?
Also I'm not touching your claim to be employed in science since 1987 since that would make you either a late Boomer or early Gen X - which y'all don't have the best track record of physical risk assessment in the first place - and also requires you to dox yourself to verify and that's frowned upon in this sub.
I do hope that you continue your streak of continued survival no matter the circumstance. I need to go call one of my parental units to make sure they know about incipient severe weather that's being forecasted.
stream_inspector@reddit
Yeah, born in early 1960s. I'm old. No bikes, cycles, scooters, or young children. No helmets. And I have an inside back corner basement room with no windows and plenty of supplies stacked up. That's my spot.
LucyB823@reddit
Findyourtornadoshelter.com was created by a meteorologist who posts on twitter. He went thru state by state and listed all of the shelters he could find and now people contact him with updates.
Bastilleinstructor@reddit
I live in a house that has an open floor plan and crappy fiberglass tubs. The last tornado warning in our direct vicinity my best friend called to wake us up and tell us that it was coming. I sat on the couch. I told her there was no safe place in the whole damn house so I was "ridin' out this bitch on the couch". Probably not wise. But Ive been through a couple as a kid, and some as a firefighter. That fiberglass tub insert in this poorly made house isnt going to save much. Incidently, that night/morning a tornado touched down a few miles from us and did a lot of damage, but no injuries or fatalities. The news reported it was touching down a couple hundred yards from us, but it wound up touching down further up the road. Helene did WAY more damage a few years later.
TehHamburgler@reddit
Tub with pillows and motorcycle helmet. And wear shoes. Don't want to be walking around debris in flip flops or house shoes.
WhereDidAllTheSnowGo@reddit
Got a neighbor? Bring tornado party supplies
Cloud2987@reddit
A storm shelter. Invest in one.
angrytetchy@reddit
Bathtub if you don't have a storm cellar or basement. Mattress/blankets on top of you to shield from flying debris. If there is an interior closet, go there with blankets. Bike helmet is also useful to protect the grey matter from impacts.
The lake thing is a myth - mature meso cyclones will not break up because of a water feature and spare you. You can get surface area overturning of air that could actually enhance tornado genesis rather than stopping it. You've been very lucky so far and I sincerely hope that streak continues.
nakedonmygoat@reddit
When I was a kid in Tornado Alley, one of the things they told us was to stay on the ground floor and get in the bathtub with a mattress over you. This way you're protected on all sides from flying debris.
IntoTheCommonestAsh@reddit
Two radically different options:
Think about it rationally in terms of optimizing. If you can't get perfect, pick the least bad option. The room with the smallest and fewest windows, you can always board them ahead of a tornado if you keep planks around. Or the room with most walls between it and the other side, giving you extra protection from that direction. You can think of proxies to protection: e.g. which room in your house is always the most quiet from lawnmowers, trucks, or whatever loud noises exist? It might be the one with the most total wall protection. That sort of thing.
Follow your animal instincts a little. You're afraid of the worst storm of your life NOW. You're hiding in the house because you fear imminent death. Where do YOU go? Go sit in in each room and in each corners, get a sense of how protected you feel.
nakedonmygoat@reddit
Unless OP is going to board the windows during every tornado watch, I don't see how that would possible unless there are enough adults in the house to pull it off with pit crew speed once there's an actual sighting. The average lead time for a tornado is 8-10 minutes, and according to the NWS, 7 out of 10 warnings are false alarms. Tornadoes can move quite rapidly and erratically once they're on the ground, complicating the matter.
Stewart_Duck@reddit
Central bathroom on ground level and hug the toilet. Assuming your home is built in a concrete slab, the toilet is bolted to the slab. If your home is built on joists, go under your home in the crawl space and hug the pipes where they enter the ground.
Jothpb@reddit
Most of the time the damage would be from flying debris, obviously flying glass would not be a good thing so we have heard under a mattress would be a good place in the center or in a bathroom….
adhd_mechanic@reddit
Under the furthest interior door frame or hallway, away from windows.
I grew up in Texas and we had frequent tornado drills, and then lived through plenty severe North Texas storms when I lived in Plano after college.