Tornado to close for comfort

[mike0000]

Wow, Henryville Indiana got hammered this afternoon, by a tornado. We are only about 25 minutes south of the school which seems to be heavily damaged/destroyed. Local news reports 35 children and adults were in the school building at the time and are all safe. One report stated 5 area people dead so far. My wife and our children are safe and we had no damage. My sister inlaw left work 15 minutes before baseball size hail destroyed all vehicles at her employers parking lot. We just got an email that our daughters classmate lost their home and vehicles. Something like this Puts things back into perspective.

Mike

[Tom Reed]

Glad you and yours are ok. Things like tornado's and earthquakes do give one a sense of perspective that being on this planed tomorrow is not guaranteed. If you can do anything for the first responders it means a lot to us, I am a volunteer firefighter and these kinds of events do take a toll.

[squarebob]

We had twisters touch down within 2 miles of our place. Lost power for 3 hours. We are west of Atlanta and just east of the Alabama / Georgia line. Dozens of houses pretty much destroyed. Not a good feeling. Bunch of roads still blocked by trees. Went for a 15 minute ride that took over an hour due to so many downed trees in the roads. Had to go check on rental properties we just purchased. Both places were spared. Hope everyone else is as lucky as us.

Bob

[deeiche]

my folks live northeast of Louisville, they said they spent a lot of time in the basement yesterday, but fortunatelly for them the storm cell crossed over the Ohio river two counties away

[dieselgman]

We are often in the crosshairs in central Kansas... a small twister did some damage about 25 miles away this time. That wild weather can sure be a problem for life and property.

dieselgman

[highwater]

The news coming from this round of weather, has certainly been sad.

Randall

[vdubnut62]

We were very lucky here. Wednesday a tornado killed 3, 1 in Smithville, jumped over our house,(I was out on the porch!) and hit the community of Rinnie, killing 2 there.
Friday a storm hit the community of Dodsons Branch, a few miles north of Cookeville destroying and damaging  around 100 homes, but by the
Grace of God, no one lost their lives. I think I would call that a miracle.
Ron.

[d34]

One man was killed bout 30 miles from my place in Puxico, MO.  I will post a link to a news story about his neighbors.  I have had business dealings with the neighbor in the past.  http://www.kfvs12.com/story/17076793/puxico-family-thankful-to-be-alive-after-deadly-tornado

[fabricator]

Living close to lake Michigan we rarely see tornados in this area, so I just sit here and how in the hell do you clean up something like that?
The absolute devastation is mind boggling, entire neighborhoods gone, nothing but slabs and trees stripped of leaves and even bark in some cases.
If I lived in a twister prone area I sure as hell live in a house with poured concrete walls and a concrete slab roof.

[mike0000]

I hear you fabricator, we have a basement but it's a walkout. I'm thinking about some sort of safe room after seeing the damage to homes even with full basements.

[fabricator]

What you need is a room with pored concrete reinforced walls, you could put one up in the back yard, put siding on it, it would look like a storage shed, something like this should be code in all tornado prone areas, some of these places have been wiped off the map more than once.

[sailawayrb]

I am curious how the ICF (Insulated Concrete Form) constructed homes fared if anyone has any first-hand accounts?

Bob B.

[dieselgman]

I have built underground concrete storm shelters at both my Kansas locations... I've never been hit directly by one of those tornadoes but central Kansas is certainly known for them. I wouldn't want to be without a good place to duck!

dieselgman

[Bobbie2214]

Hi All,
I am in Texas and the last storm spawned 16 confirmed tornadoes here. One went directly over my husband's shop; he stood in the yard and watched it. It touched down less than a mile from the shop damaging a nursing home where there were only two minor injuries reported. The tornado that hit Lancaster Texas was horrible, only about 10 miles from our home. It was total destruction in that area,  as well as the one that hit Arlington Texas. We were very fortunate only 1 mile from my home one past through with minimal damage mostly roofs damaged was all. The clean up in Lancaster and Arlington has been hard for the first responders but the outpouring of help has been heartwarming. Donations of food to clothing to footware for those in need were collected. We could not have made it this far without our first responders, we appreciate all they do.

As for the concrete walls in a free standing shelter, I don't know that much about the safety of that. The tornadoes that hit here destroyed Tilt Wall buildings leaving nothing but rubble. Smaller concrete outer buildings didn't fare much better with a direct hit from a tornado. The only safe structure in my opinion is under ground, a concrete room with a sealed concrete tops. Having lived in Texas most of my life and then in Missouri I have seen my fair share of tornadoes and the destruction they leave behind. And the only structures that have proved the safest have all been under ground. If you're going to build a concrete structure for storms, why not go the extra step and put it under ground? This is just my opinion. 

[DanG]

Wind-borne debris batters down 'stronger' structures; just debris lodging momentarily against it increases the surface area to spike loading beyond breaking points.

For the storms that strip up two feet of top soil, pavement and sidewalks I'll be prairie dogging somewhere where hopefully a chimney can't block the exit.