[Goodpasture]

There are lots of reasons for the lack of basements here. The clay soil is certainly one. The shallow surface dirt in many areas with huge rock formations just a few inches down, the high water table, the lack of a deep frost level that foundations have to go below, low cost land (why spend thousands for excavation when a few hundred can buy extra land?), The fact that we are a cooling climate (our houses needed to be spread out rather than stacked up......less heat retention), high winds (who wants a tall house that the winds will hit and damage?).......Houses up north required stacking up high because of high levels of snow, heat in a basement would rise to the roof, heating all the rooms, you have to go 5 or 6 feet deep to get below frost line,....just way too many differences, and lets not get into cultural differences, these are just practical ones.

[truckm6523]

Originally Posted by StillwaterTownie

But surely there is a number of towns in Oklahoma that can boast that it has never been hit by a tornado.

I doubt it. We're in "Tornado Alley", after all. Maybe a section of Cimarron County. Otherwise, we've all had at least one. I don't even think about it. Most are little twisters that are a step up from a dirt devil. We were at closing on our house yesterday and someone commented about our cellar. I said I would probably never go in it. Our attorney remarked that our house had been spared in 1971 from a tornado and we were on the South side of town.

I've gone through tornadoes, hail, hurricanes, straight-line winds, blizzards, floods and drought. Hail is always my greatest concern and has caused the most damage. I've had 2-3 vehicles totalled and came home to a place full of glass. I had to trash a bed because if was loaded with glass shards. I've seen a tile roof pouring water through the ceiling, after a hail storm.

By the same token, I've seen a full-grown, lob-lolly pine tree jammed through a house by straight-line winds in SC. We've been stuck in a blizzard in ND and I fully understood how people could get lost going 25 yards.

Get a house with a storm cellar and a garage in OK. Park the vehicles in the garage, pay for wind and hail damage insurance, it should be good. Most tornadoes travel SW to NE. The worst damage we've ever encountered, came from a hail storm in NW Oklahoma City. We lived in an apartment. I should have filed a claim, but our lease was up and we just opted to move.

Oklahoma people like to scare outsiders with stories of tornadoes, snakes, etc. Even in rural areas, it's not a big deal, usually. Scorpians will come in the house. My cat alerts me and kills them. Coyotes are a problem, this year. No one knows why. There's plenty of rabbits but they're invading neighborhoods, trash and killing pets. I won't allow my cat out after 3 pm.

As an Oklahoma resident, I don't worry about tornadoes.

[Tiffany724]

We're gonna be moving to OK also and I've been looking into info about tornadoes also. I found this site which seems to be helpful. It doesn't have the ones from this year listed, but it goes up to 2012 and shows the strength and the path of them.

http://www.tornadohistoryproject.com...o/Oklahoma/map

[StillwaterTownie]

Originally Posted by Tiffany724

We're gonna be moving to OK also and I've been looking into info about tornadoes also. I found this site which seems to be helpful. It doesn't have the ones from this year listed, but it goes up to 2012 and shows the strength and the path of them.

Tornado History Project: Oklahoma

I wouldn't worry about tornadoes much. I've live in a house with a safe room for nearly 10 years and have yet hurried in there and closed the door because I was afraid a tornado was about come. But having a quickly accessible shelter does brings a lot of peace in mind just in case.

[capcor]

Originally Posted by swake

Tornadoes are small and someone being hit four times is a very extreme example. By far the vast majority of structures in Oklahoma have never been touched by a tornado, probably 99% of homes never have been, if not more. Even when a tornado does hit and destroys a house another building just 100 feet away will be untouched. People from back east seem to think it's damage on a scale like a hurricane but with more devastation. It's nothing like that kind of widespread damage. In 30+ years here I have seen a small tornado in the clouds once and have never seen one on the ground.

Hail damage to roofs drives insurance rates a lot more than tornadoes do.

Wrong. Oklahoma has the largest most destructive tornadoes on earth.

[capcor]

Originally Posted by truckm6523

I doubt it. We're in "Tornado Alley", after all. Maybe a section of Cimarron County. Otherwise, we've all had at least one. I don't even think about it. Most are little twisters that are a step up from a dirt devil. We were at closing on our house yesterday and someone commented about our cellar. I said I would probably never go in it. Our attorney remarked that our house had been spared in 1971 from a tornado and we were on the South side of town.

I've gone through tornadoes, hail, hurricanes, straight-line winds, blizzards, floods and drought. Hail is always my greatest concern and has caused the most damage. I've had 2-3 vehicles totalled and came home to a place full of glass. I had to trash a bed because if was loaded with glass shards. I've seen a tile roof pouring water through the ceiling, after a hail storm.

By the same token, I've seen a full-grown, lob-lolly pine tree jammed through a house by straight-line winds in SC. We've been stuck in a blizzard in ND and I fully understood how people could get lost going 25 yards.

Get a house with a storm cellar and a garage in OK. Park the vehicles in the garage, pay for wind and hail damage insurance, it should be good. Most tornadoes travel SW to NE. The worst damage we've ever encountered, came from a hail storm in NW Oklahoma City. We lived in an apartment. I should have filed a claim, but our lease was up and we just opted to move.

Oklahoma people like to scare outsiders with stories of tornadoes, snakes, etc. Even in rural areas, it's not a big deal, usually. Scorpians will come in the house. My cat alerts me and kills them. Coyotes are a problem, this year. No one knows why. There's plenty of rabbits but they're invading neighborhoods, trash and killing pets. I won't allow my cat out after 3 pm.

As an Oklahoma resident, I don't worry about tornadoes.

Tell that to the People Moore, El Reno and Shawnee.

[judymill]

It seems like we are going into another period of heavy tornado activity. I saw two forming, on two different occasions right above my porch last spring. The last two big ones set world records in size and intensity. I drove by the El Reno path the other day. Nothing but tree trunks, destroyed buildings and mangled metal. This, a year later. Add that on top of the increase in earthquake activity and it's starting to feel like a wild carnival ride.

[truckm6523]

Originally Posted by capcor

Tell that to the People Moore, El Reno and Shawnee.

I used to live in Snyder that was hit by a twister in 1905. It's the school mascot.

I used to live and work in Fort Worth. I got ran into a creek-bed during a softball game, as a kid, by a tornado. I used to work in the First National Bank building which got hit by a tornado in '99-2000. How often does this stuff happen, in the same place? Not very.

In my personal experience over 50 years, in Texas and Oklahoma, the most oft-repeated damage, is hail.

My insurance premiums reflect the same.

I owned a house in South Carolina that got visited by Hurricane Hugo. That was 36 hours of torture.

I'm a Plains Dweller and I'm sure the people in Moore, El Reno and Shawnee understood what I meant.

[censusdata]

Just curious... does the soil conditions mean fewer rural homes have cellars? Most older homes in rural KY have them for both storm shelters and storing canned veggies (only refrigeration pre electricity)

[StillwaterTownie]

Here's the story on the 1990 Stillwater, the last tornado that went through Stillwater. It was bad. The 1990 Stillwater Tornado Reviewed