I don't get it ... 80% of people in Oklahoma DON'T have a Tornado Shelter. Are they nuts ???? (page 4)

jam

When I lived in Oklahoma I was surprised to see so

many families living in trailers or mobile homes.

sooner7nc

Coming from Oklahoma let me weigh in on this subject and correct all the glaring bullshit that I've read so far.

1st: Storm shelters are expensive. For instance s helters from this company start at $2600.

http://www.shelters-of-texas.com/faqs.html#anchor2

2nd: It's very common in rural Oklahoma to have one family with a cellar (Storm Shelter) and for other relatives living nearby to go there before and during storms. With longer lead times that are now common due to better forecasting this is viable for some people, my mother being one of them.

3rd: The odds of being hit by a tornado are still small. I've lived in Oklahoma and Texas for 42 years and have never seen a tornado on the ground.

4th: Building an underground storm shelter is much more difficult than you can imagine. You don't just dig a hole and line it with cinder blocks and if you do you need to go ahead and bring a casket with you because you're f***ed like Chuck if heavy debris falls on it.

CaptainSchmideo

Thank you, sooner7nc. I live in Oklahoma, and I don't have a storm shelter. My house is 45 years old, and the plans did not include one. There is a public shelter a few blocks away, and thanks to Gary England and Rick Mitchell, we get plenty of warning when the storms start heading our way.
A side note, I keep reading about how Oklahoma is one of the poorest states, bla bla bla. The part of town that got hit, I would describe as one of the more higher middle class areas of the city. Moore was a "white flight" suburb that got popular in the 70's, many of the houses in the area were built in the 70's. And yes, the houses are wooden frame (as most houses tend to be since the 20th century) and I would say 98% of the house in Moore have brick outer walls (attractive bricks too, not some Sovietsky stack-a-prole housing blocks like in a Judge Dredd comic). Some of the comments I have been reading on this board make it sound like you all are thinking we live in some tar-paper, Joad sharecropper hovel on the edge of a dirt covered cornfield. But no, on a normal, non-storm day, we have running water, electricity, Wi-Fi, cable and satellite TV, paved roads, bistros and restaurants, and we all wear shoes when we go outdoors.

CaptainSchmideo

Oh, and there is a small, but vocal, liberal group in this town. And believe it or not, Downtown OKC had a Gay Pride Festival, out in the open on a major street, and everything! The Baptists have had a large say in how this State is sometimes run, but surprise! you can buy a drink in a restaurant, even on Sunday (though the aforementioned Baptists still avoid the beer on Sunday (unless no one is looking, of course!))

scotoma

Heathen:

People get the things they want and demand. If those gun-totin 2nd Amendment zealots took Tornado Survival seriously they could get the government to provide distributed shelter locations.

doofdaddy

A simple cheap solution is to get a few neighbors together and buy an old shipping container. Some decent concrete footings, a bunch of dyna bolts to keep it from flying and there you go. If you want to get extra protection, doze a few yards of soil around and on top. Grow a garden if you like!

mP

With friends like God who needs enemies (im saying this for the OK believers who believe god is with them).

innerpeace

My family is in Oklahoma, my parents had a 'safe room' built in the garage, I believe that is what parakeet might have been talking about. If Im correct it has steel beams that go about 6 feet into the ground and can withstand up to an F4 but not an F5. We've had to get in there a good number of times during warnings. I know they're expensive but I do believe that they were able to get a good part of it back from the government, this was maybe 9 yrs ago so I don't know if they would still have such a program in place. They really need to build shelters in the schools, that should be priority.

sooner7nc

Downtown OKC had a Gay Pride Festival, out in the open on a major street, and everything!

Oh Hell! I almost forgot! Back in the early 90's they had a small gay pride rally on the north side of the Myriad on the Saturday of the Convention. Talk about a scandalized bunch of yahoos! I remember everyone standing on the 2nd floor looking out the large windows at the terrible gays. LOL

I also remember doing construction clean-up on those areas in Moore back when I was a kid. My Uncle got a contract to clean the jobsites after construction was finished and got to keep any unused material. He made out like a bandit.

RubaDub

A simple cheap solution is to get a few neighbors together and buy an old shipping container. Some decent concrete footings, a bunch of dyna bolts to keep it from flying and there you go.

doofddaddy ...

That is exactly where I was coming from on this thread. An old shipping container would be a great idea (I was thinking of the smaller 20' ones).

They are just under 10' tall. Have a hole dug (20'x8') about 6' deep so that there would be about 3' above the ground to leave an airpsace if it flooded.

Refill the container with some of the stone/sand/clay that came out of the hole so that the interior of the container is about 6 1/2 feet high inside.

Doze earth up to the sides, plant grass and yes, sounds like a relatively inexpensive shelter for many families. I would think that a 20' container could easily hold 35 people during a tornado.

(Ok, I know some will argue about flooding and lack of air if the door could not be opened ... blah blah blah ... believe me, I would rather be underground that in a "safe room" anytime).

Rub a Dub

I don't get it ... 80% of people in Oklahoma DON'T have a Tornado Shelter. Are they nuts ????

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