

Ask HN: What are the best tornado resistant home technologies? - Egregore

Also what of those technologies are echo friendlier and easier to insulate?
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claudius
Avoiding places with tornadoes in the first place is likely the best long-term
solution.

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ghshephard
This would be a useful reference:
[http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/05/01/weekinreview/0...](http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/05/01/weekinreview/01safe.html?_r=0)

~~~
claudius
It is also useful to take into account that it is relatively easy to protect
against earthquakes (cf. Japan) and floods, provided that money is less of a
concern, whereas hurricanes and tornadoes are somewhat more problematic.

Or put another way: To protect against wind meaningful you have to protect the
whole surface area of a building _and_ every high-voltage electricity line
etc. etc. To protect against floods, you ‘only’ have to build reasonable dams
(easy) and to protect against earthquakes, you have to build reasonable houses
(less easy, but doable).

~~~
ghshephard
Protecting your property against high-level tornadoes is expensive - probably
not worth it for most residences - It makes more sense to insure, and let the
occasional tornado/hurricane do its damage.

Protecting your personal safety against an earthquake can be difficult, even
with a lot of money (also, cf. Japan) - though clearly safe guards can be
taken.

But - with the state of the technology and advance alerts/monitoring today,
your personal safety against a tornado/hurricane, if you chose to take some
precautions, is almost certainly assured.

An underground storm shelter is basically invulnerable to a tornado - you only
have to worry about floods and fire.

The Moore, Oklahoma residens had hours of advance warning that "Tornado
Weather" was developing, and had almost 30 minutes advance notice of the
actual tornado that hit them. They also had recent experience with a
catastrophic Tornado in 1999.

But - the cost of $5000/family for a storm shelter is just something that we
as a society (and individuals living in tornado prone areas)- just don't want
to spend, even if you consider it to be a one time insurance policy that never
has to be renewed again.

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eip
<http://www.monolithic.com/>

