Designing an earthbag tornado shelter has been on my to-do list for years. My intent was to modify my free plans at Instructables.com (see below). Yesterday I can came across the following article at Yahoo and found out concrete tornado shelters are costing thousands of dollars. So I decided to write this blog post to summarize how to make your own storm shelter out of earthbags (sand bags), local soil, gravel, barbed wire and plaster. The dome shown above cost about $300 a few years ago. A smaller dome used only for emergencies could probably be built for half that cost if you eliminate the buttresses, the living roof (earth and plants on top) and are clever in making a door out of salvaged materials.
