Storm Shelters (house, movies, tornado)

[old-school]

Sorry but I posted this in the Tornado thread and I did not mean to hijack it from the OP so I am posting this for comments.
Having all the bad weather lately and especially with the way tornado's can pop up rather quickly what is everyone thoughts on prefabricated storm shelters? I read somewhere that they make a fiberglass sphere that you can bury in your back yard. Its self contained but you would have to run a power line to it for power to circulate the fans.
Does anyone know about these pods and the cost to have one installed. How about the old fashioned way? Concrete bunker type?
Thanks

[Ed_RDNC]

If you are looking for a shelter that will keep you safe for 2-3 hours as the storm passes overhead, then I'd say build something like a wine cellar. (If you saw the movie Twister, think of the very last scene where the farmers family comes up out of their storm shelter).
Or maybe a strip trench, like you see in the war movies. A trench that's open at the top and ends but narrow, concrete block sides. Maybe a rain cover or such on top. That would be pretty cheap to make (drainage allowing). If it worked to protect soldiers from artillery shrapnel, it would protect you from flying debris.

If you want something that will protect you for several days, (hurricane), then you'll need power, water, sewer, ventilation, etc - and something like that installed probably would cost tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. If you can afford that, then you can also afford to live somewhere safer.

All in all, I think it would be cheaper, and probably better if you just made sure you had a good Place of Refuge inside your house. Figure it out now, so when you hear that Railroad Train Roaring, you already have a plan and place to go.
My last house was a typical 2 story 4 bedroom, and while the ground floor was almost totally open, directly under the stairs was the guest coat closet. Since the stairs are the strongest supported feature in the house (after a chimney), I had a tornado plan to scoop out the storage boxes kept in that wedged shaped room and hunker down inside for an hour or three.

An Emergency Kit would be a good idea too. I'm sure there are many ideas and lists of contents floating around so I won't list them here. But one that seems to be missed a lot is to have 5-10 gal of water stored in old milk jugs in the garage. 2 drops of chlorine keeps the water pure and drinkable as a last resort, but their primary use was to re-load the toilet flush tanks. If power went out at the water tower, then the water would go out after a while, and then no toilets!

[librarySue]

Storm cellars, Storm, Bomb and Tornado shelters, Safe Rooms