Personal scare pushed couple to sell shelters

Having dodged tornadoes twice in one day, Cindy and Steve Willis decided they needed a safe place to hide.

They started a tornado-shelter company and built one in the yard of their Caroline County home.

"Our first customer was ourselves," Cindy Willis said.

Since it was formed in May, Safe Zone Shelters has installed five underground fiberglass shelters, with a sixth planned.

"You feel like you are in the hull of a boat" inside the white-sided shelters, Cindy said.

Costs range from $4,495 for a four-person shelter to $9,795 for an 18-person shelter. There are also shelters for 6, 10 and 12 people.

Cindy, an account executive for a credit-union cooperative, is keeping her day job for the time being. Steve, a contractor, is working more and more on the shelters.

It's unusual for a company to build tornado shelters in Virginia, said Bob Spieldenner, a spokesman for the state Department of Emergency Management. Shelter companies are more predominant in the more tornado-prone Midwest and West.

Spieldenner said his agency tries to get people to take basic precautions such as making a plan for family members to follow if a tornado approaches. But "we're happy for people who want to take additional steps to ensure their families are prepared."

Dino Kontsis has long been afraid of tornadoes and wind storms -- he has endured two close calls -- and believes his modular home near Louisa is particularly vulnerable.

Kontsis, 72, bought a six-person shelter from the Willises in early October. "I've got peace of mind now. That's your life you're talking about."

There is no official tornado season. One can strike anywhere, anytime, according to the Department of Emergency Management.

And Virginia sometimes sees a spike in tornado activity just before Thanksgiving because of seasonal changes in weather patterns, said Mike Rusnak, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Wakefield.

From 1950 through 2007, tornadoes struck Virginia 578 times, killing 27 people, injuring 539 and causing $814 million in property damage.

This past April 28, 11 tornadoes struck central, Southside and eastern Virginia, injuring scores of people.

A person has to judge whether the risk of being hit by a tornado is worth the expense of a shelter, said Ernst W. Kiesling, executive director of the National Storm Shelter Association, a trade group in Lubbock, Texas.

"The probability of being killed by a tornado is relatively small wherever you live," Kiesling said. "But the biggest benefit of having it is . . . knowing there is a safe place to go if you do have an event."

In September 2004, Cindy and Steve Willis were visiting relatives in the Thornburg area, about 25 miles to the north, when a small tornado approached. They dove into the damp and dirty crawl space under the house.

"The conditions in the crawl space were pretty horrible," Steve Willis said. "It was either that or take a ride with Dorothy and Toto."

The twister missed the house, but "it snapped these huge pine trees like they were toothpicks," Cindy said.

About two hours later, the couple were recovering at home. "The skies started looking really funny here," Cindy said. "The next thing you know, [Steve] starts yelling, 'It's a tornado -- get underneath the stairs.'"

Again, the small twister missed the house, but, Cindy said, "you could feel it as it went by."

The tornadoes were among several reported in Virginia that day as the remnants of Hurricane Frances moved through the state.

"After that, I told Steve, 'We've got to do something,'" Cindy said.

It took a while to find the type of shelter they wanted to own. They liked the ones offered by Southern Illinois Storm Shelters in Buckner, Ill. No one sold them here, so the Willises decided to do that themselves.

Now that they own a shelter, they hope they never need it.
Contact Rex Springston at (804) 649-6453 or .