A little off topic here but I will have to admit that I am absolutely terrified of tornados, even when it is just stormy with wind -- it is the wind that I am afraid of, not the lightening, not the thunder, not the pouring rain... which is why we have built a tornado room in our new house (which is still under construction) We are sub contracting a lot of stuff out but also doing a lot of stuff ourselves. The tornado room is only about
6x6 and is actually located under our front porch -- 3 1/2 sides of poured concrete walls and a small door. (They were gonna fill it in with gravel anyway so I spoke up and say why? Can't it be a "safe" room? Well, sure, was the answer - but we'd have to pour additional walls. Cost? The same! A real no-brainer for me!!!)
I may have gone a little overboard, but we are even installing a generator for the times that the power is out - which, btw, is pretty frequently where our new house is located. We are on the edge of the power grid and the power company is about 45 min away. Minimum down time is usually a few hours. (My husband is out of town a lot, and I don't have any family here in this area) So, we decided to try to cover all bases.
I know, off base, but I know others have their fears -- mine is a tornado. Two years ago, we lost about a dozen 80-100 ft trees surrounding our property to wind. The expert called it straight line winds. Funny how our trees were blown all different ways tho. I think it was a tornado.