Do you think that the part of the USA referred to as tornado ally should insist on tornado-proof housing?

Question

There is loss of life, injury and hardship caused by tornados in this region every tornado season.

Answer 1

About tornado-proof housing, I think it's a personal decision, it's up to the families living there whether they want to spend money on that or stay the same. Now, about public places... In my opinion that's a different story. It would be way better to have basements in schools, malls, movie theaters and places like that, even starting with educating people about the danger of tornadoes. I live in the Midwest and we do get a tornado season. I was in a pet store when we got a tornado warning for the area, I was the only one in the store that had a weather radio and knew about it, so I ask the manager of the store, if they had heard anything about the warning and what would we do in a situation like that. Her answer was "Well, we expect everybody coming to work whether there's a tornado or not" I was just a simple customer asking where to go because the national weather service had issued a tornado warning for the area and her best answer after several seconds was that. Now, let's think about it... If in fact we had a tornado in our way (Thank God that wasn't the case) it would have hit us with no warning (Because they don't pay attention to the weather, don't even have a weather radio) they didn't have a basement in the store, not even a designated "safe" place to go in a situation like that due to the ignorance of the manager and employees. It's not like that everywhere though, since that happened I've asked people if they know what to do in case of a tornado in a public place and even though they have designated "safe" places inside the buildings, basements would save a lot of lives. So if you ask me, I say yeah, I definitely think public places in tornado alley should have basements, if not all of them, at least several of them so people can seek a substantial shelter quickly in case of a tornado. It's better to be safe than sorry!

Answer 2

There is no such thing as tornado proof housing. Many storm shelters are made of steel reinforced concrete, but to make housing out of such materials would be extremely expensive. Also there are never any "guarantees" with weather phenomenon such as tornadoes. If a tornado hits a particular area some houses fall and yet some can be left untouched, tornadoes are classed as "Acts of God". They are complex and very unpredictable in their behaviour.

I get more perplexed by the fact that so many people are willing to build in areas that are more prone to earthquakes, like Los Angeles and San Francisco. The building boom is thriving there! Should we insist on people buiding earthquake proof houses? It's an impossible task.

Answer 3

I live in Tornado Alley. I have what protection I feel is adequate. It is a personal choice as all such choices should be. Who do you want to insist on what I do or don't have? This is America. We ought to have the right to make these kinds of choices for ourselves - we have the right to make right choices as well as wrong ones. I believe it is a good idea to have protection from tornadoes, but I WILL NOT say it's a good idea for someone else to decide if I have a tornado-proof house, or if I can live in a trailer park with a community shelter nearby, or whether I have a 'tornado room' in my house, or a cellar, or a basement, or a natural cave on the property, or an under-ground house, or whatever. Each of the above has pros and cons. It should not be any one's decision to make but mine which of these pros and cons are applicable to my situation. Nor should it be up to anyone else to decide how big or of what materials my shelter should be made of. There are too many personal questions and individual situations that need to be taken into consideration. Should it also be mandatory that a persons house be built within a set number of feet of a tornado siren? Must I keep a weather radio in the house at all times?
There are a lot of things that CAN help, but it shouldn't be mandatory for any of them to be implemented. It might be nice to have them available. A lot of people put in cellars when the Federal government offered incentives to build them, but cellars in our high humidity have their own set of problems including mold and the inability to be used after a while. There are ways to avoid mold, but like I said - individual problems, individual solutions, individual choices.

Answer 4

There is no such thing as a safe house from a tornado. No matter what it is made from. Steel, concrete and brick are not as good as other people may think. There isn't a single piece of building material out there that wouldn't get torn to bits by a tornado!

Answer 5

If you can figure out where a tornado is going to touch down, then you can build a house there, it's like trying to predict where a "Pin Ball" will bounce to, only with winds in excess of 300 MPH, and how do you build house to resist that ? Tornado's toss around "Locomotives" like they were made out of paper.

Answer 6

I think with all the money spent over the years on tornado patterns and general tornado concerns, the money spent could have been used to build one giant big-a** leaf blower or something!

Answer 7

And we talk about Bush taking away our freedom???

Tornado Alley, like Florida, has some nasty weather. I agree those who live there should take steps to protect themselves, do we a law making them protect themselves?

By the way, most municipalities have building codes in place.

Answer 8

About the only thing that's really "tornado-proof" is a hole in the ground. That's why you're supposed to go to your storm cellar during an event.

Answer 9

the residents can have "tornado-proof housing" anytime they wish....just pay for it. this is really a ridiculous quesiton. I've lived through three of them in OK/

Answer 10

There is no "tornado proof" housing.