storm cellar?
 

I eventually plan to move out to texas and as you all know texas is tornado country. So I figure I would build a storm cellar incase of emergency/SHTF. Does anyone have a storm cellar or has built one themselves? Any good book recommendations on the topic that you would recommend?

Thank you!

Re: storm cellar?
 

Your risk depends on where in Texas you are. Tornados seem to hit the same areas a lot. In the Austin area they seem to often follow the north south freeway, which also runs along a natural terrain change line.

Jarrel, north of Austin has had multiple killer tornados since such things were recorded. When I was in elementary school we lived in a little community on the Red River that generally got 3 tornados in town each year, so I've been in a lot of cellars. They are great for keeping canned goods cool and dark too.

The part of Oklahoma City that got that incredible killer tornado about 10 years back is also on a common path. But many parts of Texas, Houston for example, almost never get bad tornados so unless you built it as a root cellar primarily it would be a waste. The part of Austin I am in almost never gets any. Just read up on historical twisters wherever in Texas you move, and my advice is not to buy in one of the high incidence areas.

My guess is that the terrain influences the wind pattern and that is why some areas get hit all the time and others never.

Re: storm cellar?
 

yea I can see what you mean. I'd rather just build one of the hell of it. If a tornado never hits, whatever, i'll just have food and water in there anyways. But if one does hit, I don't want to be in my god damn car trying to out run the thing.

Re: storm cellar?
 

Basically, what you want is a good, reinforced root cellar. If you have a basement, you could build one in a corner, but I'm thinking slab construction with no basement is the common method there, so you'd have to go out in the yard and dig a hole for one.....probably make provisions for a sump pump too.....

Here is a thread on the root cellar I added to the end of my garage.....I just backfilled it yesterday, and parked my bulldozer on the roof for a little "test"....ahahahaaa....no cracks.

http://goldismoney.info/forums/showthread.php?t=278123

Re: storm cellar?
 

that is exactly what I was looking for.