I understand where you are coming from. My last place had an in ground shelter (outside). My new home has a saferoom off the master bedroom that has the MB closet built into it. If you didn't notice the vault door on the way in or the fact that it dampens all sound, you wouldn't know it was a saferoom. Pretty nice to have air conditioning, power, internet, places to store items in the event you get stuck in there. The in-swinging vault door is also nice because I wouldn't have to worry about keeping the door shut like I would on my old in-ground with the outswinging flimsy metal door. I also like not having spiders, bugs, etc in my shelter. Once we had to take shelter at the old place and about 15 minutes into it, my daughter notices a giant black widow up in one of the corners.... no thanks
We live in the country and north east of OKC, which puts us in the path of storms after they go through OKC. I cannot hear sirens from my place, so I rely on a combo of NOAA weather radio, SAT internet, and dish network. When I lose TV and SAT Internet during a warning, we head to the shelter as I cannot make an educated guess on where the danger is or what its vector is. It was good to hear the special weather statements during the Moore F5.
I too am concerned about an F5 and the debris it might be carrying and slinging at high rate of speeds. I was stressing out about this while we rode out the cell that sparked the Moore F5. I lost Dish/SAT internet about 5 minutes after I watched the tornado lift. I attribute this to the hail and the debris that the tornado was carrying interrupting the signal. It was not raining yet, so I doubt that was the cause. I live northeast, the debris/hail was southwest, right in the line of sight. I was thinking that a tractor trailer, vehicle, etc would possibly be thrown into my home and would impact the shelter.
Then it hit me. I live way out in the country and it is very doubtful that something that size would be carried that far. The only thing I really need to worry about is the property across the road and my own two vehicles in the garage. I have looked, but can't find data on how fast these vehicles might be accelerated to, but when they hit 8" of re-enforced concrete after they get through the brick wall/wood, I think they would do minimal damage as they have only gone 10 feet and had no time to accelerate. The saferoom is on a two foot thick slab that sits under the main slab, so I don't think it could be sucked up. Trees would splinter and the rest of the debris would mainly be stuff I wouldn't worry about. I explained this to her and she seemed to show some buy in to my theory.
Then my wife asked me what we would do if we got hit and the house caught on fire and we stuck were in the saferoom....
thoughts?
