We don't have basements in this part of Texas. Our water table is too close to the surface.
Here at this house, Bob says there is a spring barely underground in this backyard. He says if he dug no more than three feet down at that place, there would be water. He had to put in a French drain at one place to keep water from rising. The worst place is behind the garage - the soil is slightly mushy, not solid. You can feel the mush, your shoes depress the surface when walking on it.
The only good point of this is, should an emergency destroy our water service, just dig down back there and there is the water. Having a Berkey water purifier, we will always have pure water.
The hallway in this house is the safest place to be. No windows on any side of that hall. Yesterday, when this storm was coming, I put on jeans/shirt/older good walking shoes, and if our town siren had gone off, I would put cushions and water and flashlights and my purse in that hallway. The siren did not go off.
There was damage southwest of us but haven't heard of anyone hurt. The news showed big trees down, houses hit by these trees, and at least one car totally smashed by falling tree. At its worst, straight line winds were 100 miles per hour.
Thousands in that area, plus in the Fort Worth area where Johnny is, power went out and he lost power for a couple of hours but he had backup emergency power.
I was afraid that you weren’t able to get a basement there.
That hall way could be made even safer by “hardening” it or using a Tornado Shelter safe room. Since we have a basement, I have not really researched them. I have seen them from time to time in the Springfield Mall along with brochures.
I’ve even thought about getting one to put in the safest corner of the basement, but really we should be safe with what we have now. Course all bets are off if the New Madrid has the “big” one.