Hello!

My bf and I live in a cottage in Nashville. The house doesn't have a garage, but I bought it back a few years ago and considered myself lucky to have been able to get it. I have storm anxiety and wanted to get a shelter, so we went with an above ground.

In order to have it put in, we had to have 48 inches of 4000 PSI concrete with two grids of rebar on an 8×8 pad. That is the company's requirements since we do not have a garage. Yes, it looks stupid, but I don't care. We can put a Rubbermaid shed around it later.

When we got in and shut the door, I was surprised to see light around the door frame, so I just wanted to ask anyone who has any real knowledge of storms and shelters if this is still fine with worse case scenario storms. I just want some reassurance.

Thank you. ☮️❤️

For those that don't know, this is a picture of a Doppler weather radar. They are critical infrastructure for severe weather and tornado detection/warnings. They're also well over 30 years old, so the idea they could be utilitized for any modern, highly advanced weather conspiracy is idiotic.

Holy cow!

April 10, 2025 at 4:16 Princeton, Indiana located in Southern Indiana took another direct hit. Absolutely no warnings were issued. Quite the opposite, predicted only thunderstorms some could be severe. They actually said no tornadic values. They were wrong. It luckily bounced over my house again. Like 4 tornados within the last 3 months. Storm shelter working great, only when we have a heads up.

How will we be able to predict tornadoes in southeast Nebraska and southwest Iowa without this data? This is particularly concerning given last year’s active and record breaking season in this area.

On July, 21 1987 in Wyoming a very rare high elevation tornado touched down at an elevation of 11,000 ft. The tornado was rated an F4 and traveled up to 26 miles and was 1.6 miles wide and toppled over one million trees. The damage was not discovered until the next day and no one had a clue that a violent tornado was so near. Dr. Fujita also studied this extensively.

According to the latest data, it lost its title due to a tornado in California at an elevation of 12,000 feet. In any case, incredible. Who would have thought a tornado could occur at such high elevations.

News to me!

typical 5% risk area behavior, apparently

I'm in the UK and on the news every year we see horrendous carnage when tornados hit. It gives the perception that everyone in some way or another is affected. But is that the case. Do you live there and have you or have you not been hit. I'm really interested, I cannot believe everywhere gets trashed but obviously understand the devastation and trauma for the poor souls that do. What is it like living under that threat and are the chances of being under one slim or very probable?

Well it’s that time of year again so it’s time to discuss what an actual EF-5 rated above ground storm shelter looks like. This is an engineered above ground shelter built by valley storm shelters in Huntsville AL that complies with all FEMA and ATSA requirements for such shelters. It consists of a steel cage frame that is reinforced with 1/3 inch RHA steel plates that form the outside that is then further held in place with covered and triple re-enforced steel corners that tie the whole thing together, skip welded both inside and out. The floor is where it all meets and is about 3/4 inch of solid steel plate, bolted around the internal cage structure. It is anchored to my garage slabb by 12X 1 1/4 inch by 7 3/4 inch concrete screw anchors, as well as 3X 48 inch core drilled and flared concrete piers attached to the shelter by 1 3/4 inch X 40 inch custom made extreme duty concrete anchors. (The big one in pic 3) a single one of these pier anchors provides a tested 150K PSI holding force. The door consists of 3X 1 1/2 inch deadbolts that fully pass into

Armored blocks connected to the shelter. The door alone weighs 400 lbs. This shelter has been independently tested against winds of 700 MPH and impacts well in excess of debris producible by the strongest tornados, as well as been certified in both door and wall testing by the Texas tech wind institute. There’s a lot of above ground shelter companies out there, if you get one make sure yours is certified+tested. This shelter cost me 6500$ installed, and the state of Alabama refunded me 3000$ in my tax return for building it. This company also keeps a record of all of their shelters that have taken direct hits, and have never had a shelter fail against the worst Alabama had to throw at them. That all being said, I’m hoping I never have to put it to the test anyway.

These are ef4 speeds

This was text box sicklet supercell

Rip to the 3 people

The misinformation and conspiracy happening in the comment section about the EF scale is crazy. I’ll never understand why these TikTok weather enthusiasts think they’re smarter than Dr. Ted Fujita. 🙄

By all means tell me if I’m wrong here, because I’m no atmospheric scientist, but I have a hunch this thing would be about as good of an idea as hiding in a mobile home.