TORNADOES AND BUILDING CODES: DEATH AND PERMANENT INJURY IN TORNADO ALLEY

TORNADOES AND BUILDING CODES: DEATH AND PERMANENT INJURY IN TORNADO ALLEY

I was raised in Wisconsin, North and South Dakota and Minnesota where winters are so cold that most houses have basements to keep the pipes from freezing, keep floors warm, and provide a place for furnaces, water heaters, pipes, pumps, storage, etc. An extra advantage during tornado season is the added protection that a basement provides. By being below ground, especially when protected by a sheltered stairway or root cellar, your chances of surviving a tornado are greatly improved. Imagine my surprise as I first traveled through Texas and Oklahoma, when I learned that basements are neither common or required by construction building code. It seems that unless there is another reason for building basements--such as extremely cold winters, that safety is not high on the list of building codes. The old song about justifying the extra money spent has been well-taught in tornado alley. To their credit, some home and business owners do have storm shelters and/or root cellars. My complaint is that all-too-often on short notice, residents have no recourse but to ride out a tornado in unprotected dwellings and just hope for the best. We can do better than this as a nation. I'd like to think that in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, we are now better-prepared to handle hurricanes in the gulf coast. So what about tornado alley? How much more death and permanent injury will it take before our collective national, state, county, city, and local governments will step-up their building codes and require adequate basements, immediate-access storm and root cellars on all residential and business units? Don't complain about increased costs-of-construction, unless you are willing to tell the victims of Hurricane Katrina that fixing their pre-hurricane infrastructure was just-too-expensive! How long will it take and how many more lives will be destroyed before these requirements are finally met? Don't sacrifice any more lives to protect the mantra of cost-effective governmental oversight!

Mark Overt Skilbred