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For the people who think I'm attacking or criticizing the people who experienced the tornado, that is incorrect. I said clearly that I'm not doing that. I'm just looking at the situation through my "prepper" lens. If there are people elsewhere in the internet attacking them, please don't lump me in with them.
anyway...
I can understand not having a basement if your home is built on bedrock. That's pretty hard to dig into. But the whole thing with clay soil and water seeping in is not a big deal (unless the water table is so high your basement would instantly fill up with water.) I've lived with wet basements all my life.
The house where I grew up in NJ, and my current house in PA both have unfinished basements that tend to get damp. These aren't beautiful expensive finished basements with living spaces in them. They are just concrete and cinder block, and we use them for laundry and storage. My current house is on clay soil, and I guess that's why my basement is frequently damp. At best, it's "clammy" down there, and at worst, after a few heavy rainstorms, I've had standing water. But I have a sump pump for when it floods and a dehumidifier for the dampness. My washer and dryer are on a platform, my storage stuff is in plastic containers, and my wine is all about a foot off the floor.
For the people in a tornado zone, I would think they would only have to shelter in the basement for under an hour during a tornado, right? I can't imagine a whole basement flooding in that short period of time. And frankly I'd rather be hunkered down in my cellar ankle-deep in water than up at ground level during a tornado. (Note: when I read stories of the kids who drowned in the one school's basement, I couldn't find anything that explained why that basement was so flooded. Can a huge school-sized basement that's like 8+ feet deep fill totally up from one rainstorm, in such a brief period of time?)
I think if I have to live in Tornado Alley, I'd have a small cellar no matter what, even if it tended to flood.
Also, I had to add this. It seems like some posters and some of the links posted talk about public (government built, taxpayer funded) tornado shelters. I was NOT suggesting that in my initial post at all. When I have the opinion that "people should have basements" I'm in no way saying "government should provide them." None of my own disaster plans involve accessing any public resources.
I grew up in a IL bedroom community of St. Louis Mo.
As a child we made use of our basement countless times during tornado warnings.
We had friends in southern Kansas that did not have a basement in their house but had a very large underground community storm room that they would frequent many times during the spring and summer months.
If I was forced due to economic necessity to live in a trailer park or an apartment building in Tornado Alley I would only rent or have my trailer in a park that had a community storm room.
I find this interesting to be so down on people in tornado zones not having a shelter. Isn't it equivalent to people living in earthquake zones, on a cliff, near a forest that burns, where there are hurricanes........ We lived in NC and AL and didn't like the hurricanes so we moved to stay out of harm's way. When I was a child, we drove through after the Palm Sunday tornadoes went through northern IN and you really need to do this to grasp what it is like, what it does. That was years and years ago. We have lived in a few cities in KS and not had a basement or shelter because seriously, the expense and availability of such and the actual chance that a tornado will hit just don't compute. Our current house has been in this location for at least 75 years and a tornado passed closely last week and we were in the basement, another one of our homes had been in place for over 100 years and the other over 50 years - all had cellars/basements but rarely needed even for a warning. I usually stand outside to watch the clouds. It just amounts to playing the odds considering the likelihood of something happening to the cost of maybe, just maybe, it being safer a time or two or not. We do this with more than weather events. I cannot see being critical of these people. ***When buying a house, we did not consider the basement as a critical item.
I hear what you're saying. This crazy neighbor next to one of the rentals wants me to cut down two trees in a row of trees because they sway more then the others and she's afraid they'll fall on her house 50 feet away Really On the flip side of the coin this is the third or fourth serious tornado to hit Moore. I couldn't live there with or without a shelter. That what if is just too real for me.
If Texas is the "Tornado Capitol", then my south plains Texas farm is in the Capitol Building. We are under a "tornado watch" this evening. I have a storm cellar at the end of the house but many summers it has been occupied by a family of skunks. I would rather face an F-5 in the open than a mad momma skunk down in a cellar. Life has risks and sometimes one has to make quick judgements as to the level of risk you're willing to accept.
When we bought our house, we didn't even consider tornadoes. However, it is a reality of life here, we are on the outskirts of tornado alley. The homes around here do not have basements but many do have storm shelters. The cost of the storm shelter is actually quite high. First, one needs to build the shelter then it needs to be covered in a ton of cement. That's not cheap nor can it be done as a DIY project. So we have no storm shelter and no basement. We have no specifically built safe room.
I find this interesting to be so down on people in tornado zones not having a shelter. Isn't it equivalent to people living in earthquake zones, on a cliff, near a forest that burns, where there are hurricanes........
I cannot see being critical of these people. ***When buying a house, we did not consider the basement as a critical item.
I never got that impression from the OP. I think we all have our thing that we think of or worry about more than other people do and that's the OP's. (And mine.) It's true that there are few places in the world that you can go to get away from the possibility of a natural disaster and if you find one it will probably be a very unpleasant place to live--like the Nullarbor Plain in Oz or something.
Anyway I was driving west on Hwy 40/64 out of St. Louis the other day and happened to notice that a lot of new building projects were going on around the MO River--can you say sprawl? Problem is that 20 years ago that entire area was under water for at least a month from the flood of '93. I do think that's dumb--weather events are getting more frequent, whether we believe it's human caused or not and that's just too big of a risk--I won't be investing in those projects I can tell you. Tornadoes are way less predictable than that though. Oh yeah, and in MO about 200 years ago we got some of the biggest earthquakes in history and we're not anywhere near a plate boundary. You just never know, but basements are one of the safety factors I can control and it makes me feel safe to have one and when I sold a house in SE MO a few years ago it practically sold itself b/c it had a dry basement. Besides, I appreciate the extra storage and brown recluse spiders prefer attics to basements.
Oh and to set something straight I said in my first post--I said that the kids in the elementary school had died by drowning in the basement but new info that came out yesterday said they did not drown and they were in the classroom, not the basement. That could be important to this discussion.
ICF construction can help, as it is rated to withstand winds and projectiles. It's somewhat more expensive than stick built. When we were building an addition on the house, we used ICF, and it is quiet, energy efficient, and hopefully with offer some protection against tornados.
We had the master closet made into a sort of safe room, with extra deep footings, concrete with rebar reinforced walls and ceiling. Only thing is, that a steel safety door was prohibitively expensive. So, we have what is a regular steel outside door, facing north. It's better than nothing, but to be really safe, such as with an F5, being underground is best. Just couldn't afford a basement, and in our county, they tax you on a basement as living space. So if you have a 1200 s.f. house with a basement, they tax you on 2400 s.f., finished or not.
This is all the stuff I thought of when this tragedy hit. I guess you really have to be there to understand it.
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Really
On the flip side of the coin this is the third or fourth serious tornado to hit Moore. I couldn't live there with or without a shelter. That what if is just too real for me.
) It's true that there are few places in the world that you can go to get away from the possibility of a natural disaster and if you find one it will probably be a very unpleasant place to live--like the Nullarbor Plain in Oz or something. 
