Tornado season is nearly upon us. And that means one thing to us Midwesterners – shelter.
GD and I were at the mall yesterday (MK was playing in pep band at a volleyball game) buying the cool hat I had promised him if he made a B on his Geometry test (I’m so proud!) when we stumbled (literally, it was set up in the middle of the of the walkway) across a huge steel box.
We walked in, turned around and walked back out. The box was about six feet high, and about five feet by eight feet wide, just enough room for six average-sized adults.
I grabbed a brochure. Why? Because this is something we’ve been seriously considering for our family.
Hey, don’t laugh. When you live in tornado country, and you live in a house with no basement, you think about these types of things. And you sweat about these types of things when those ear-piercing sirens start going off.
Do you KNOW how scary it is to be in the path of a tornado and NOT have any safe place to take shelter? It’s terrifying. Tornadoes are wild, unpredictable and very powerful – if you’re unfortunate enough to be caught in the middle of one, all you can do is grab on to something and pray.
Kevin did cut a hole out of our pantry floor so that we could access the crawl space without having to go outside but let’s be real here – a crawl space is really not the place to be if a tornado rips into your house – the whole structure could collapse on top of you. Well, technically, it could do the same thing with a basement, too.
Our current option? Either huddle in the pantry, which is barely big enough to hold all four of us (especially now since the boys are bigger), or grab a blanket and crouch in the hallway.
Yeah, not great options, right?
So, we’re thinking about a storm shelter. It would likely be a flat-top underground shelter because above-ground shelters don’t make any sense to me. Sure, they’re extremely durable and heavy, but I’m betting if a category F5 tornado were ever to hit your area, that steel box would be reduced to a child’s wooden block.
I’d rather have a flat-top underground shelter so it would be a little less noticeable, something we could sort of disguise and keep from being a neighborhood eyesore.
Do any of you have a storm shelter? What do you do when a tornado warning happens in your area? Where do you go? Do you have a plan?
Seriously, if you haven’t thought about it, think about it. It’s always better to be prepared than not.
Write From Karen 