The Donkey
New member
My mom called a few hours ago to let me know there was a tornado warning in our area. Turns out no twisters in our little berg, just alot of hail, lightening and thunder. Nowhere to go anyway in my home but the bathtub because our house is all one floor. The storm was headed up mom's way but she is better off as far as tornados are concerned. My parents have a house with a basement.
According to the actuaries, the chances of dying by tornado are rather high in the US -- about 1 in 60,000 per year. Suppose I should have thought about that before I moved here, huh?
Then again, nobody is really that good at thinking about risk. A Dutch study found that those somewhat less dramatic falls down stairs kill about 1 in 1,700 in the Netherlands per year.
The US versions of those falls have taken away a few good friends of my family's, including one recently. Tornados, thank God, have never taken any of our friends or loved ones so far. So our home, lacking stairs, is at least about 15 times safer than my parents' multi-story home with their basement, in terms of our combined "tornado/stair-fall risk." That's probably typical, figuring a little less than two flights of stairs on average for those of you "lucky" enough to have a multi story house.
Then I thought about this interesting little video I saw last night:
https://www.facebook.com/ezraklein/videos/vb.232843448409/10154000566913410/?type=2&theater
Videos like this certainly do not convince me that the government should stop allowing people to build multi-story houses, nor require everybody to take out their stairs and install elevators. But which of you can fault me -- or anyone -- for choosing to live in a house without stairs?
Happy as I am tonight that my parents' home has a basement in case of a tornado warning, I also am happy that the local housing code where mom and dad live requires firm banisters.
According to the actuaries, the chances of dying by tornado are rather high in the US -- about 1 in 60,000 per year. Suppose I should have thought about that before I moved here, huh?
Then again, nobody is really that good at thinking about risk. A Dutch study found that those somewhat less dramatic falls down stairs kill about 1 in 1,700 in the Netherlands per year.
The US versions of those falls have taken away a few good friends of my family's, including one recently. Tornados, thank God, have never taken any of our friends or loved ones so far. So our home, lacking stairs, is at least about 15 times safer than my parents' multi-story home with their basement, in terms of our combined "tornado/stair-fall risk." That's probably typical, figuring a little less than two flights of stairs on average for those of you "lucky" enough to have a multi story house.
Then I thought about this interesting little video I saw last night:
https://www.facebook.com/ezraklein/videos/vb.232843448409/10154000566913410/?type=2&theater
Videos like this certainly do not convince me that the government should stop allowing people to build multi-story houses, nor require everybody to take out their stairs and install elevators. But which of you can fault me -- or anyone -- for choosing to live in a house without stairs?
Happy as I am tonight that my parents' home has a basement in case of a tornado warning, I also am happy that the local housing code where mom and dad live requires firm banisters.
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