Kevin Simmons:
I was interviewed on Bloomberg Friday. The video link is here. One of the questions was about saferooms and given the horrible tornado in Moore last week it is an important topic. I live in North Texas and have seen my share of tornadoes. Surviving one depends on many factors but the most important are the size of the storm, the amount of time you have to prepare and the type of structure you are in when the storm hits. A well-built engineered structure is the safest. The worst is a mobile home.Permanent homes provide reasonable shelter from small tornadoes and with modest enhancements in construction can also provide reasonable shelter from many strong storms. That would account for almost 98% of all tornadoes (EF0-EF2). The Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety suggests building homes to meet their Fortified Home Program. Some communities are adopting aspects of the program in their building codes. Moore OK, is one of those. But that would not apply to homes built prior to the enactment of enhanced codes.For residents of permanent homes to get protection from violent tornadoes some type of shelter is required, in residence or underground, and the options for those are growing every year. We recently converted our hall closet to a shelter. ...The public policy question is whether or not we should require the installation of shelters by homeowners. They do add a significant cost to the price of a home. Some homeowners, myself included, are willing to pay the added cost but I’m not sure that most people would, even those that live in tornado alley. A second policy option is to offer a subsidy to homeowners for a shelter. Dan Sutter and I have written extensively about this. This is a very expensive program and will reduce fatalities but at a higher cost than programs to reduce casualties from other risks we face.
via kevinmsimmons.blogspot.com
Here is a link to Kevin and Dan's book, Economic and Societal Impacts of Tornadoes.
