Shelter from the storm: Kansas City braces for severe weather season

Off a gravel road in Harrisonville, Missouri, Mike Vogt sells something he hopes buyers never have to use.

"If you mathematically figure it out, the odds are in your favor," said Vogt, the owner of Staying Home Corporation. "But if you have no place to go when they come through, they are incredibly devastating."

RELATED: 1 person killed after tornado blows through Perryville, Missouri

Staying Home Corporation manufactures storm shelters that bolt into cement slabs. Each screw can sustain thousands of pounds of pressure, so people without basements rely on these during tornado season. Vogt said even those with basements will buy them as an added level of safety.

"The shelters are something that are forgotten about as long as there isn't any significant weather," he said. "Then people get concerned, they want to react very quickly when the weather starts."

That's what's happened in the weeks since an EF4 tornado touched down in Perryville, Missouri.

Both Vogt and Powell said now people are hyper aware that severe weather season is here to stay for the next six months or so, so they need to be prepared.

"We've been looking at snow and focused on that and now as we saw on the last day of February out-of-the-blue came severe weather," said Gene Shepherd, the Emergency Manager with Kansas City, Missouri. "We want to make sure that everyone is prepared ahead of time and ready to go with the spring season coming on."

And while they say a storm shelter isn't necessary, having someplace to shelter from the storm is. Just make sure you decide on that place before the storm strikes.

According to KCMO Emergency Management:

An alarming poll conducted in 2012 by the Adelphi University Center for Health Innovations found that many of the adults surveyed were not prepared for an emergency. Among the findings were:

• 44% don’t have first aid kits
• 8% lacked emergency supplies
• 53% do not have a minimum three day supply of non-perishable foods and water at home
• 52% have not designated a family meeting place if they are separated during an emergency
• 42% do not know the phone numbers of all of their immediate family members
• 37% do not have a list of the medications that they take

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Terra Hall can be reached at terra.hall@kshb.com.

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