Here is how we deal with tornado safety. In addition to our normal emergency preparedness kit supplies, we have a NOAA Weather Radio that automatically alerts us when there is a tornado warning in our county.

Because of the normal weather patterns in our county, the weather radio usually goes off a couple of minutes before the local tornado sirens and the storm hits. That give us time to grab the kids out of bed and get into the room we have setup in our basement.

In our “tornado shelter” we have set up a couple of chairs and stocked some books and snacks for the kids. This makes the waiting part bearable. If a tornado is actually upon us we dive under the workbench and cover ourselves with blankets for added protection from flying debris. (More ideas on tornado shelters below.)