Tornadoes Already.

On the news, two die in Florida from a tornado. That got me to thinking about the devastation Hurricane Andrew caused. It leveled mobile home parks in Florida and homes that weren't built to code. Some of the house devastated, the nails holding the decking down missed the rafters. In another neighborhood where building standards were followed, those homes faired better.

As for me, Indiana has its share of tornadoes. I'll take my chances in stick build house with a basement that passed a building inspection. The house might be leveled, but there is the basement. Some homes even have a safe room. Do you have a safe room or basement?

Four things I don't look forward to, hail, tornadoes, straight line winds and ice storms. They leave me a mess to clean up, not to mention repairs.

Then I got to thinking about those on YT who want to convert a pole barn into a house, no building codes to follow. Is that really a good thing?
How well will a tall pole barn last in a straight line wind, tornado, roofs holding up under a snow load?

If you can't tell, I don't have anything to do today except read the news on internet, 2 degrees and -14 wind. BURRRRRRR
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Pics of pole barn hit by a tornado.

There are pole barns in our area that are older than I am. My house is over 100 years old and only has outside access to the basement. We never go there during a storm. Every time the wind blows hard on the east coast the price of lumber goes up. I remember after one hurricane you couldn't find any ply wood. It all went to fix the storm damage. If people want to live in those areas they should live in concrete bunkers.

After hurricane Andrew the older mobile homes in the retirement park my brother managed folded up like your pic of barn. I've seen snow bring barns down too.

Following the second major hurricane in Florida, all the insurance companies left the state. The state of Florida became the insurance company, Citizens. They no longer provided replacement insurance for the 40-50 year trailers. Only insured them for their value, almost nothing.

Then the state of Florida started enforcing building codes. You see code enforcement driving around like cops.

Daughter's house in Maple Valley (western) Washington has a concrete walled and ceilinged room in the basement- probably put in as a fallout shelter in the early 60's (no tornados here). Mrs. and I call it "the vault", and tell her of our plans to move into it rather than a rest home, in our dotage. She said they're going to put in a chute from upstairs, so they can just slide the TV dinners down to us. And she'll come down once a day, to empty the thunder bucket into the swamp.

Getting hit by a tornado is extremely rare, but I have an insulated concrete room with a door that locks to the basement under my back porch.

In retirement I live in 16 x 80 in my woods. In the event of a tornado with sufficient warning we plan on visiting an old friend living just south of Terre Haute Ind.

Yea, you could live in my pole barn. Didn't you recently have a pole barn come down?

I did only 2 Weeks old straight line winds of approx. 100 took shed that was 30 years old also.