Tornadoes in Kansas City...

Yup. What was probably a relatively small tornado touched down tonight in our home area of Excelsior Springs-Lawson...and blew the windows out and did some serious damage to Chuck Anderson Ford...where my son Derek is a car salesman. The storm roared up the road...most of the damage was small after that...but passed not far away from our current homestead. No damage here...but I suspect probably a lot of downed limbs (can't see 'em in the dark). Good thing I just bought a chainsaw.

Derek went and surveyed the situation. Said a piece of glass had blown out of the window and lodged in the wall in his office. All the computers were destroyed. Not sure how much car damage was done. Quite a bit of hail.

Is there no end to the tornado season down there? At least you guys are all ok.

The hail damage nightmare!! We seem to get hit hard here just about every other summer. A lot of insurance companies have pulled out. Too small a population for so much in damage costs. I get sick of replacing my roof every other year and paying higher and higher deductibles. I'm thinking of just building a concrete bunker and living in there.

There's been a bunch of Tornados in Iowa. But none in Des Moines. I've heard there's never been a Tornado in Des Moines. I heard it has something to do with Des Moines being at the intersection of 2 rivers, the Des Moines River and the Raccoon River, but maybe that's just a myth.

Tornado siren has not gone off all year here in south central MO. it's weird,and I've never got to see one.

Moving next year so probably never will.

Sorry to hear that Ted. As far as I know, we didn't get much more than high winds and some heavily needed rain here in my part of the city. We even took a trip down to the Plaza to view the lights later on in the evening and the bad weather appeared to have cleared off.

Stay safe, and let me know if you need anything.

Doing fine, Ani...thanks!

Actually, we were over at Derek and Alisha's for dinner last night, Deb and I, Andrew and his fiance Jen, Derek, Alisha, and Preston. They have a split level with the kitchen and dining room upstairs and the living room downstairs, but it's not a basement. I was upstairs, uh...stuffing my face on dessert, and Deb was out having a cigarette, and she came running in and the wind was just HOWLING...like you always hear 'em say a "freight train" is going by. Hail was coming down in sheets, and the sirens were going off. They all made tracks for the downstairs bathroom, while I called work (like the nimrod I am) to find out if there was really rotation on the Doppler. It was over in a couple of minutes...when I went into the bathroom, Deb was sitting in the shower. For some reason it reminded me of that scene in "Signs" where Joaquin Phoenix and the kids are sitting on the couch wearing tinfoil hats.

But, it's true, if you don't have a basement, generally the bathroom is the safest room in the house.

Mr. Donovan...it is completely false that Des Moines can't get hit by a tornado. There are a lot of rumors about river-induced local effects, but in most cases that's happenstance. I believe it was in 1954...the city of Waco, Texas, had never had a tornado, and they thought they were immune. Then a huge monster F5 came down and wasted the town.

Tedster,

I was under the impression that this rule of thumb has changed. As I understood it to be, the reason the bathroom was the safest place to be, when without a basement, was because of the weight of the old cast iron tubs and their anchoring to the underground plumbing (drain). With the fiberglass tubs that have populated the market and replaced most of the cast iron tubs; I'm not too sure that I would trust the bathroom as a safe haven against a Cat 5 tornado.

We don't have a basement here, and also we live in one of the higher points of the Northland... elevation wise. The tornado that wiped out Carriage Hills a couple of years ago actually had me worried. The tornado was travelling up 169 HWY and took a turn east somewhere between 64th St and 68th St; I'm at 78th. I can step out in my front yard and watch the highway traffic; I can look to the North and see the Big Yeller Police Station, just to give you an idea how close it came. Had the tornado ventured up the HWY another mile before taking its' turn; my home would have been leveled. As it was, we only got the golf ball sized hail that lasted for about a minute.

I really should consider having a storm shelter built beneath the home; it's on a crawl space and not slab, so it would be possible to do so.

I do know that my insurance premiums skyrocketed even though my home was not affected. They changed the zoning on the area to project a hazardous weather conditions and rates went up accordingly. I get to hlep pay for everyone elses damage without seeing the benefit of a new roof myself.

I dunno that much of anything will help in a Cat 5 tornado.

Of course, I'm a bit concerned myself, as the Missus and I are in the process of purchasing a home w/o a basement, and we're in the fringes of tornado country here. In august a nearby (like 10 miles) town got levelled by an F3 tornado. The bathroom is on the second floor. The only place to really duck and cover is in a utility closet that also has the gas waterheater and gas boiler system. My plan is to get in tight with the neighbours so that we might be able to come hide in their basement if necessary

Oddly, houses on slabs are ridiculously common out here. I realize the costs related to building a full basement and whatnot, but a few grand more on a mortgage that's in the hundreds of dollars is probably worth it. Even just a small 'shelter' would suffice....

I watched Tedster's storm move through the SW part of Kansas City, both with my own eyeballs and on the Weather Channel's radar...I was right on the storm's southwest edge, which had me particularly worried: We got 50+ mph winds and marble-sized hail, then sunshine...the textbook location for tornado formation. I watched it as long as I could, expecting a funnel any minute. 20 minutes later, it did come down, in Tedster's neighborhood.

Yeah, Mr Donovan, the "protected by a river valley" theory is really more dumb luck than anything else. Tedster probably has more details, but back in the 1920's a mile-plus-wide tornado rolled through Missouri, crossed the Mississippi River, and continued for over a hundred miles through Illinois and Indiana. It was so big, local farmers were looking right at it and didn't realize what it was...

Another fellow Kansas City chap??? Hi Funkman... SW Kansas City??? Is that SW Kansas City, Mo .... as in the Grandview / maybe Waldo area or is that SW (Greater) Kansas City, KS ... as in Edwardsville / Bonner Springs locale?

Probably one of those O.P.'ers...

For tornado protection every town should build a dummy trailer park on the edge of town. They can't resist it.

Seriously though I believe F5s are still fairly rare.

And other than reinforced concrete rooms there are a few things you can do to strengthen an existing house.

1) Pick an interior area with no windows such as a hallway or walk-in closet.

2) With walls closer together they have a far greater load-bearing ability. Every time you halve the length of a board you quadruple the loadbearing ability.

3) If you have access to your attic you can add additional blocking and framing clips.

4) You can remove a section of the drywall at 4 foot high and add more blocks. It's more expensive but nowhere near the cost of a stormshelter.

5) If you take a direct hit from an F5

we'll miss you!

Yup...

What's the similarity between a twister and a redneck divorce?

Someone always loses a trailer...

Cool construction tips there, John. Thanks!

Yes indeedy, one o' those #$@-ing O.P.'ers!!

Q.: So how are twisters, termites and women alike?

A.: If you live long enough, one of them's gonna get your house! (Sorry, Ani!)

:D

I'm not sure what you mean by blocking and framing clips, but I have laid a 3/4" OSB board flooring throughout better than 1/2 of the attic. The only portion that did not get the flooring was about a 4' span along the eaves on both sides, no headroom or decent storage space. I left the roof braces in tact and there seemed to be several stabilizing boards to support the gables.

The home has withstood some pretty heavy weather and is well insured in both content and structure.

Originally posted by Ani :D I'm not sure what you mean by blocking and framing clips, but I have laid a 3/4" OSB board flooring throughout better than 1/2 of the attic. The only portion that did not get the flooring was about a 4' span along the eaves on both sides, no headroom or decent storage space. I left the roof braces in tact and there seemed to be several stabilizing boards to support the gables. The home has withstood some pretty heavy weather and is well insured in both content and structure.

If you haven't yet nail the osb pretty good say about every 6 to 8 inches on center. That way if a tree falls on your house it will slow it down considerably. Think of it like crumple zones in your car.

BTW I've never done construction work but I did stay at a "Holiday Inn Express" last night..

:D

There's 4 Threads Titled Tornados in Kansas City now, but this one is the original. Can those other Tornado Threads be condensed into one?

Look closely...

The others are parody threads.

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...

The storm in question hit Kansas with three seasons at once. Blizzards in the west, ice in the center and tornadoes in the east. "Mabel, this is one to tell the grandkids. It was a Blizzado."

There was a legend that a hill called Burnett's Mound would protect Topeka from tornadoes. The place was named after Chief Burnett (I can't remember his tribe), who lived there in the nineteenth century. Not long after the city built a water tank and developers started putting up apartments on the edge of it, on June 8, 1966, an F5 roared over the mound, a mile wide and fifteen miles long. It's one of the largest single tornadoes ever recorded.

"Blizzado" WBAGNFARB!!! :D