That’s an interesting figure, where does it come from? Link?
Expensive houses in the US quite often are of brick. I’m not sure why we aren’t into concrete so much (maybe because it seems too “modern” and most people like houses to be traditional), although in Puerto Rico, a US-governed island in the Caribbean that gets a hurricane or two every year, most houses are concrete to withstand the storms.
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There’s one odd thing, that I’m not sure if other people have addressed yet in the comments, and that is the assertion that: “‘low-probability, high-consequence event.’ When faced with such events, we tend to focus on the low-probability part."
This seems incorrect to me. After all, there’s all this money we’re spending to counter terrorist threats, which are the epitome of low-probability, high consequence events. The same fears extend to shark attacks and plane crashes. They’re extremely unlikey to happen, yet people fixate on them when the actual probability of them happening is exceedingly low. We have to keep posting charts saying that it’s more likely for you to win the lottery than die in a plane crash.
So I’m not convinced that Oklahomans don’t have basements because they don’t see tornados as likely. That kind of thing would be the perfect event for people to pay more money to get a defense against something that doesn’t come by often.
The cost of housing is potentially a more persuasive claim to me, and inertia from whatever first cause of lack of basements happens of course. It just seems like tornadoes are the perfect sort of event for people to spend tons of money to defend against even if no tornadoes ever come close to them.
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I too live in central BC and I suspect the 10% figure is wild speculation based on a small sampling size. I have noticed a trend for newer homes to have multiple floors and no basement but, in my experience, it’s rare to have a basement unused if it’s available.
One thought is that it is one thing to personally spend money (on a basement) and a completely different thing to know that the government is spending some undisclosed amount (terrorist threats). Also, I think that the “low-probability, high-consequence events” refer to familiar situations. Tornadoes happen a lot there, so the “low probability” part is that a tornado is going to hit you and be strong enough to cause damage. Sort of how you can drive your car a lot and ignore the possibility of a severe accident because it is unlikely to happen. I also think that the attention paid to shark attacks and terrorist attacks make them seem like “high probability” events to many people.
[quote=“FFabian, post:17, topic:3920”]
Why are all those houses build out of wood and plaster?
[/quote]Because they can be. Florida, on the other hand, has some of the strictest state building codes in the nation to ensure they don’t get blown to hell in every hurricane.
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Denver, eh?
I don’t know if the “Because it’s crap” part is intentional double-irony, but I find it hilarious. It’s as if we wouldn’t know Oklahomans aren’t all stupid and inbred if you hadn’t reminded us.
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That brick is almost always a one brick thick veneer over a stick-built frame. We build wooden houses because we have lots of wood, and we build to a price point, and we move frequently, but there are some 350 year old wooden houses in America. It can be durable. In Europe, often the same family will live in a house for generations if not centuries. That alone changes the calculus of what you build with. And to be fair, masonry construction is a much worse choice in seismically active areas. A stick built house is easier to engineer for earthquake, and they naturally flex. Concrete doesn’t, but it’s nice and strong right up until it fails.
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But they didn’t have those strict building codes prior to Hurricane Andrew, and the ones they had were not enforced.
Perhaps you could look harder?
Perhaps you could look harder?
And therein lies the rub, because I don’t have to look hard to find this conversation.
Just out of curiosity, what about the alternative of a rudimentary storm cellar, as opposed to a full-blown basement?
Yes. You can buy prefab units that you can install in your yard or underneath your garage, but these can still run a minimum of $2K (check me on this fellow Okies.) You can retro-fit or build a closet as a safe room-- but I wouldn’t want to be in one during an EF5. We need a Bruce Sterling-esqe technology company that will weave a carbon fiber and kevlar storm shelter for you on site for $500.
Where I grew up, in Norman, OK, we had the watertable issue as well. I don’t know anyone who had a basement on my side of town.
Much cheaper, and probably more effective, would be for people to actually follow the updated building code (although it’s only a recommendation) and put hurricane-proof anchor bolts on their foundations.
I remember some older men telling me that there were no basements in the south because there is no need for a boiler or storing coal to burn in it, and basements in the south don’t get cold enough to store meat. When there is a basement it’s called a root cellar since that’s the only thing a hole under your house is good for.
When I lived in OK for two years we were concerned about tornadoes, so we had one of these installed. Cost about $3K, as I recall. It was dug into the garage floor, and was narrow enough that it fit between the wheelbase of a typical car, and was maybe 4-6 feet long. If I stood up in it, my head was above the garage floor, so it was maybe 4-5 feet deep. In the two years we lived there we only got into it twice, but it was almost unbearably hot. So, they do exist and while $3k is not cheap, it’s a lot cheaper than building an entire basement.
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I agree that surely there are some cultural factors in play here. But I’d say that practicality and money are probably bigger factors. As other people said, in places where you already have to dig down to keep the pipes freezing, it relatively easy to put a basement in while your down there. In Oklahoma, you don’t have to and so that’s been the default (thought there are basements in a lot of the houses build in the first quarter or so of the 1900’s). And if you’re a contractor that is not custom building for someone, it’s going to take a lot of pressure to upset the status quo at the expense of building a basement that may or may be worth as much to many prospective buyers.
I’ve lived in central Oklahoma for 30 years (though I happened to grow up living in an underground house, so I’m not the norm in that regard) and I have lots and lots of extended family here as well as many friends and acquaintances. That said, I don’t know a single person who has been even injured by a tornado and less that half a dozen whose homes have been damaged at all. My house does not have a basement. It’s been standing since 1935 and I’d have to drive at least 4 miles in any direction to find a building that has been leveled by a tornado in my lifetime.
This is not to say that I and other Oklahomans don’t take tornadoes seriously. We may not have basements or shelters in every home and we may not have figured out how set up an official, well-oiled public storm shelter system, but we have created some pretty impressive meteorological innovations that have been the major reason tornado death counts are as low as they are (search Wikipedia to see the tolls tornadoes took before doppler radar and NWS warnings). And as soon as a tornadic storm is detected, you can bet you ass that I’m on my way to a basement down the street.
I’m finding this discussion very interesting. Given the statements about ground-water, I wonder if a modified steel shipping container, anchored into the ground, and mounded around with earth, might make a safe refuge, also usable for storage, hobby workshop etc?
You know, if you had a good old fashioned timber frame house the tornado would just pick you up and deposit you in Oz. It’s only these modern stick-built and balloon framed wooden houses that are flimsy; just ask Dorothy or Toto.
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The shipping container idea is better than nothing. But an EF5 can suck the asphalt off a highway, so for the amount of concrete needed to anchor something that big to the ground, it would probably be cheaper to build a regular storage building and a smaller below ground shelter. The Moore tornado was about a mile wide with a 4 mile wide debris cloud, which means that if your structure was not pulled off its foundation (or was even in the direct path), it was pummeled by remains of everything that was.
My storm shelter was built to FEMA specs. It has 10 or 12 inch concrete walls and is about 8 x 4 feet in size. Had we not built the house ourselves chances are we wouldn’t have one.
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