Helter-skelter Where to take shelter
 

The local forecast for this winter season calls for more storms and a greater chance of tornadoes. As my new house doesn’t have a storm shelter or basement, where is the best place to hunker down in the house?

I know about staying away from glass windows and near supporting walls. As many of the houses in TV are similar in design, I thought there might be a recommended location for a particular house design in this planned community. The man who I contacted at the Villages Public Safety department did not know of any such recommendations.

I suggested that he talk to others about creating a plan for tornadoes that would direct Villagers to the safest location in that particular house design. As I am still new, do others know of such a study? Please don’t say that recommendations can’t be made because of liability concerns. Safety should come first.

We live in a 2-bedroom with a pocket door leading to a short hallway. This leads to a guest bedroom and bath. If there is a tornado/high wind, our safety plan is to close the doors to the bedroom, bath, and pocket door. This provides us with a short hallway that is away from the outside wall(bathroom), any windows (guest bedroom), and next to a supporting wall.

That's our plan. Won't know if it's a good plan until we need it. I suppose if the roof goes, we could get sucked out of the house!

Laundry room for most homes in TV

In most designers, it will be the master bedroom closet, and make sure its the one that is not on an exterior wall-been thinking about making our closet into a safe room-will loose a lot of interior room , if we use concrete block or line the walls & overhead with 3/8" steel.

The big tornado in The Villages (Groundhog day 2007) most were sleeping in their bedroom as it hit about 3:00am. There were eight deaths in Lady Lake. Something like 1,000 homes were damaged in The Villages. No deaths in The Villages----46 to hospital.

The fact it was 3:00 am was a blessing. Apparently, asleep in your bed isnt a bad place to be. We were living in the Village of Caroline---two blocks away from our Villa, homes were completely destroyed.

Tornados of this type are very rare.

I remember growing up in Ohio the advice was the southwest corner of your basement. If no basement, the southwest corner of an interior room was the safest place, if there is such a safe(r) place. I haven't the first clue as to why the southwest corner.

No wonder Ron likes him.

See post #7!

I didn’t know about the 2007 tornadoes hitting the Villages. It’s on the Sumter county site -> Tornadoes | Sumter County, FL - Official Website

Thanks for all of the suggestions. As I live in a Holly, I may beef-up the walls of the walk-in closet off of the master bedroom that backs to the interior living/TV room wall. I believe that wall is a load carrying wall.

BTK - 2007 was an unusual year in the El Niño cycle. This coming year is projected to be even more intense in CFL. The more we learn how to protect ourselves the fewer injuries The Villages residents may suffer in the event of a serious weather event. Thanks for pointing this out.

Sorry for such a dumb question but what months are considered tornado season? I guess I shouldn't be so lazy and just google it :024:

Thanks.

Or, maybe I should use the walk-in closet off of bedroom # 2 as two of the walls are cement brick walls that form a corner of the house. I hope some agency/builders in the Villages would offer advice as to the safest place in the house rather than my guessing.

thanks.. like i don't have enough stress tonite.

We have an interior laundry room. No windows and doors sealing off all wall openings. Try to stay away from windows and exterior walls. We also have an interior corridor that can be sealed off from the main part of our home, the 2nd bedroom, office, and 2nd bathroom. Both have extra support over doorways and at least 2 wall separation from the exterior of our home.

No stress necessary if you know what to do. CERT does a presentation periodically called "R U Ready" to assist us in preparing for hurricanes, tornados, and wild fires.

I wonder if the 2007 tornado was a tornado warning rather than a tornado watch?
I guess it doesn't matter if people are asleep in their beds at 3 AM.
Our Weather Radio is set to alert us if there is a tornado predicted.
We turn on the weather channel on our television, listen to the predictions, and make our decision on whether we think the tornado is passing close to us.

We were on our Lifestyle Preview a couple of weeks after the 2007 tornado.
There was a lot of property damage and clean up going on.
It didn't deter us from buying a home that Spring.

There are no load carrying walls in the interior of these houses thanks to trussed roofs.

In that case best to stick your rear in the air and grab it with both hands, unless you're a contortionist in which case you can kiss it good-bye:1rotfl:

I don't think it's dumb.


You may find your answer here;


Florida Tornadoes

If our house would have been built in 07 the tornado went right over our lot. So I am hoping we are good

I was told due to the rotation, tornadoes move from S/W to N/E, so any debris will be in the N/E corner.

There has been one tornado that caused death or injury in Sumter County Florida since 1950 and that was the one in 2007.

According to the speaker at the presentation that I attended put on at the Fire Station here by the National Weather Service about being a Weather Watcher, we have tornados in this area, but not usually of the intensity of other parts of the country.

I don't think any of you should worry too much. But you can if you want to.

If you open the chart that I posted a few posts back and go to Sumter, Lake and Marion counties, you should feel some reassurance that we are relatively safe here from tornadoes.

Bonus point for great thread title.

Agreed ! And an interesting thread.

My point is not to worry people but to have everyone make note of the safest location in ones house for the possibility of a tornado. As a pilot, I have observed that weather is extremely difficult to predict and thus I can’t say a tornado will or will not hit the Villages in the future. Let’s discover that safe location when the weather is nice rather than wait until the last moment before the storm.

As the Villages is a super planned community, I would still like to hear from experts as to the best location in say a Holly/Boxwood. If our district government can’t say, maybe one of the two Village community organizations can examine the 60 or so standard builds to suggest the safest location in each for tornadoes.

It is also important to have a minimum 3 day supply of food and water (including for cooking and sanitary needs) for each person and pet in your home. It could take several days for a rescue team to get to you depending on the severity of the storm. Cell phones will unlikely work during this period so you will need to fend for yourself potentially. The Villages CERT will work with the TVPSD to support them in the search and rescue effort, but the time frame will not be like going through a fast food drive through. Keep what you need on hand for your family at all times. (I know Fireboy can give this lecture as well. )

Here is your starting point: Build A Kit | Ready.gov

Every year at the beginning of Hurricane season in June I think it is, the Daily Sun runs information about safety and preparedness for a hurricane. If you stop by the closest firehouse you can be registered for the call system that alerts you to any danger, be it weather or a dangerous person who is loose.


I can well understand a person's concern about this situation and it is easy for us to forget that every year we have new people seeking this information. If you can't find the hurricane preparedness article, call or stop by The Daily Sun. It is very helpful and even lists a couple of churches that will shelter you in the face of a weather disaster.

Food: Food | Ready.gov

Water: Managing Water | Ready.gov

And pay attention to GG's suggestions as well. This is important stuff! We have more fun here than I ever thought possible - but let's be prepared. .

I thought I would go in the Roman shower in my master bath or the master closet. I have an Iris.

Having come out of emergency management/response I have always been close to the threat assessment/mitigation stuff. The laundry room is our choice because it has a washer and dryer that should support wood beams and such. Thank you for being aware of such threats and concerned as to what actions you might take.

When we built our house in The Villages in 1994, we knew that hurricane's came to Florida, but had no idea that tornadoes were a risk until after we moved in. We have a 3 bdr 2 bth house, but the only places which do not contact an exterior wall are 3 closets, 2 of which are linen closets which not be big enough for us, and would take time to get into even if they were because we'd have to removed shelves and contents. One other closet has sliding doors, so I doubt they would be secure in a tornado. If we had known about the tornado issue, we would have made changes to make at least one closet a safe room.

Ignore the recommendation of getting into a bathtub and covering your self. When the tornado hit The Villages in 2007, one thing we saw was that most bathtubs had debris in them, including heavy items like toilets. I heard one lady in another area of Florida say she started to get into her bathtub, but decided on a closet instead. She saved her life, because she would have been killed in the bathtub, but was safe in the closet.

As far as I know, there is no public storm shelter in The Villages, but there are some storm shelters available to be installed, in a garage. The problem with that, is one would have to have time to open the garage door, back the car out of the way, then get in the shelter and close it. Since there are no warning sirens here, and weather alert radios usually announce the storm about the time it is happening or has already gone through, I doubt people would have enough time to utilize the aforementioned garage shelter.

After the 2007 tornado, there was a brief attempt to start an emergency 911 reverse call system. It did not work, and we have heard nothing about it sense then.

Good luck!

We got warning calls all last year about severe thunderstorms and a warning that the police were chasing a bad guy. We didn't get any storm warning calls this year. Maybe there wasn't any bad storms to warn about. We signed up at the Fire Station for these calls. Anybody called this last year?

Isn't there a shelter on Powell Road? I'm not in TV but I know I saw one on a north/south road and I think it was Powell. Not TV but close. Maybe you should pay more attention to the early warnings and watch the sky.

When I was in junior high a good friend and her entire family were killed in a Michigan tornado. They were riding down the road and saw a funnel. They tried to run for the ditch but didn't make it. I was scared to death of storms after that and then my Dad took me outside during a bad storm and showed me how to watch the cloud formations and sky. I've never forgotten his tips.