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For several years Monolithic has been searching for an affordable door whose ability to resist tornado-force winds matched that of a Monolithic Dome. “We did not have a problem finding doors with the integrity we wanted,” said David South, president of Monolithic. “We found them, but they were in the $5000 to $7000 range. Put a few of those on a building and they really skyrocket the price of a project. We needed a door with two advantages: tornado-resistant strength and affordability. About a year ago, we found both in the Tornado Tamer.”

Ohio is probably not the first State people think of when discussing tornadoes. Oklahoma or Kansas are more likely to provoke visions of violent skies and Dorothy running for the storm cellar. Yet, 36 tornadoes already struck Ohio this year — double the total tornadoes in 2018. “We are not dealing with a theoretical hazard,” said Sean Miller at the open house of the new Delaware State Park Tornado Shelter. “This is a very realistic hazard … and campers are vulnerable.”

A new Monolithic Dome now stands on the school grounds where a tornado came tearing through 23 years ago. Catoosa, Oklahoma, a suburb of Tulsa, was the site of a F4 storm in 1993 that killed seven people and injured many more. Thanks to a new Monolithic Dome, people at the school can now feel safe from another such storm.

Sadly, it’s official. This year will go down as the deadliest tornado year since record keeping began, according to The National Weather Service. More than 500 people have died in tornadoes in 2011, with nearly half of the fatalities occurring in Alabama. Missouri ranks second with 139 deaths from the Joplin tornado alone. 

Even though we’re in the midst of hurricane season, the memories of the 2011 tornadoes are still fresh in the minds of most people. This year will go down as the deadliest tornado year since The National Weather Service began keeping records, with more than 500 fatalities. That’s one of the reasons why Jon Thompson wrote a feature story on the protection that Monolithic Domes can offer on Architecture Suite 101

New Monolithic Dome safe room in Pawnee, Oklahoma is large enough for the whole town. Local TV station, KFOR, profiled the dome during a school tornado drill. As the students quietly walk to the dome, Superintendent Ned Williams explains the advantages and why they built the safe dome.

In an online article featured on the KFVS12 website, Michael Cobb is a physics professor at Southeast Missouri State University states that a Monolithic Dome might be the answer to surviving severe tornadoes. Cobb said FEMA has certified the dome structure as nearly indestructible. He said it can withstand winds up to 350 miles an hour, and hold off 2×4 boards traveling at 100 miles per hour.

The Monolithic Dome was recently featured in The New York Times Dot Earth Blog by Andrew Revkin. After Sunday’s spate of deadly tornadoes, Revkin says it is time to "think outside the box—and inside the dome. Revkin points out that Monolithic Dome Schools meet FEMA standards for community tornado shelters and can provide safe haven for residents as well as students and teachers. “A growing number of school districts in tornado or hurricane hot spots, many with grants from FEMA have chosen this option,” he says. Enlightening, interesting and on the mark. The Monolithic Dome is hard to overlook with all of it’s outstanding benefits, safety being a major one. It’s time to think round.

Deaths, injuries and property damage caused by tornadoes and hurricanes can be prevented. That’s the primary and most important conclusion FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) reaches in its manual, Design and Construction Guidance for Community Shelters. But this manual doesn’t stop there. It not only says that structures strong enough to survive tornadoes and hurricanes can be built, it actually tells people how to do that.

Residents of mobile home parks are among the most vulnerable to tornadoes. According to the National Severe Storms Laboratory, about half of tornado fatalities occur in mobile homes even though only 7 percent of the population lives in these types of manufactured homes.

A tornado outbreak, Sunday evening, wreaked havoc throughout the south. Residents in Starkville, Mississippi, took refuge in a Monolithic Dome safe room.

Romain Morgan was no stranger to tornadoes. She said, “I had been in a devastating tornado in 1957 in Kansas City, where our house exploded, and we were thrown around. I ended up under a refrigerator, holding one of my babies. So that’s why I decided on a Monolithic Dome and why my daughter and her family come here when there’s a tornado watch.”

On Tuesday, February 28, David South and Nanette South Clark, his daughter, met with a group in Branson, Missouri, interested in a FEMA grant for a Monolithic Dome tornado shelter. Once the meetings ended, David and Nan immediately started back to Texas. That was fortunate because a tornado hit the area that night!

On April 27, 2011, an F3 tornado, with winds between 158-206 mph, hit the small town of Durant, Mississippi, including the Monolithic Dome home and garage of Mr. and Mrs. Lee Avery.

A small Missouri school district has received funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to build a Monolithic Dome shelter that will double as a preschool classroom. The dome is the first building of its kind approved for FEMA funding.

When the Avalon Independent School District in Texas needed a new multipurpose building, Superintendent David Del Bosque had safety at top of his mind. Since the nearby Italy school district had just completed a Monolithic Dome multipurpose center of its own, the decision was easy. “I personally was concerned about safety for students: the stability of the building in case of a storm,” Del Bosque said, adding that when he saw Italy’s dome, he knew that it was “the safest structure anywhere.”

Monolithic has been teaching, training, promoting and building these domes for 35 years. Some 4000 Monolithic Domes are in use, working and well proven in 52 countries and 49 American states. But they are still a secret!

Construction crews building a new middle school and high school in Geronimo, Oklahoma will be turning heads on Monday, October 6th (weather permitting) when they use giant fans to inflate a huge balloon, known as an Airform to create the shape of the school’s fifth and final dome building.

May’s tornadoes, specifically the one that rumbled through Avalon, served as a reminder of how precious and dear our children, school and community is to all of us. While we feared and marveled at nature’s fury, we counted our blessings that no one individual was harmed.

As they say on TV, “Don’t try this at home.” Don’t shoot holes in your home with a 30-06 caliber rifle. To test the bullet-resisting strength of a Monolithic Dome, Gary Clark, our VP of Sales, fired at our Monolithic Dome storage buildings.

In the tornado-prone area of Tornado Alley, school districts and officials are building more and more Monolithic Dome storm shelters.

Every spring, tragic stories abound of the devastating effects of tornadoes. One such example is the EF-5 tornado that ripped through Smithville, Mississippi in April 2011. In addition to destroying numerous town structures, this particular tornado passed right over the high school and flattened the gym.

Located in the heart of what is dubbed “Tornado Alley” sits Oklahoma. Since a recent tornado slammed through schools, districts are working to make schools safer for their students. One district is doing that with a Monolithic Dome.

The Monolithic Dome school in Geronimo, Oklahoma was recently toured by Oklahoma’s Own newson6.com news reporter, Kelly Ogle. In his report, Ogle interviews NOAA Research Meteorologist Dr. Harold Brooks where he agrees that Monolithic Domes are safer and cheaper options for schools.

According to Niangua Superintendent Andy Adams, it’s not unusual for one tornado per week to rip through southwest Missouri during tornado season. That’s one of the reasons why the school district opted to build a Monolithic Dome preschool building.

Dade County, Georgia was one of many areas of the southern United States hit by deadly tornadoes this past spring. An EF-3 tornado struck the area on April 27, followed by two smaller EF-1 twisters. Although several homes were destroyed, one resident weathered the storms with no worries at all.

Just a day after the devastating tornado in Moore, Monolithic began receiving phone calls and emails about that tragedy. We greatly appreciate all comments.

Spacious and spectacular Monolithic Dome churches provide near absolute protection from fire, tornadoes, hurricanes and earthquakes.

A new Monolithic Dome safe room is under construction in Birmingham, Alabama. It’s part of a broader initiative to provide community storm shelters following the devastating Tuscaloosa-Birmingham EF4 tornado in 2011. It is the fourth dome built in the Pratt City area, which was hardest hit by the monster tornado.

As tornadoes tore through parts of their state on Easter weekend 2020, many Louisville, Mississippi, residents made their way to their community safe room — again.

A recent news article at KMOV-St. Louis features a video interview with Valley R-6 officials in Caledonia, Missouri. Quoting, ‘At first glance the five domes that make up Valley R-6 Elementary School in Caledonia, Missouri look odd, but school officials say they are the safest buildings in the face of a tornado. “They are tornado proof – hurricane proof – fire proof and so our kids are very safe,“ says Valley superintendent Brad Crocker.’

NewsOn6.com has a great story about the a Monolithic Dome inflation in Catoosa, Oklahoma earlier this month. The 136-foot diameter facility will be a cafeteria for the school and a safe shelter during tornadoes for the students and community. There’s an excellent time-lapse of the inflation in the story.

Construction is in full swing at the new Smithville School, with ongoing work on a number of projects that all stem from the deadly EF-5 tornado that swept through the town in April 2011.

“For as long as I can remember, my dad has wanted a Monolithic Dome home,” said Alise Burke in an email about her dad’s new tornado shelter. It’s actually an Ecoshell — a concrete-only dome thinshell. They painted it to look like a Minion from the movie Despicable Me. Burke lives in the country next door to her dad, Ed Kelton, near Farmersville, Texas. Last December “a tornado tore through our rural community and many of our neighbors and my students lost their homes and one lost their child.”

Monolithic Domes are proven survivors of tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, fires and bullets. They meet or exceed all regional building codes and requirements. They also meet or exceed FEMA’s specifications for a structure to provide near-absolute protection against tornadoes and hurricanes.

Crews recently completed a Monolithic Dome shell in Louisville, Mississippi for a FEMA rated safe shelter. The shelter is part of a larger state initiative to protect communities from tornadoes like the deadly outbreak in April 2014 that claimed 10 lives in Louisville alone.

“The higher you go, the more susceptible a building is to hurricane or tornado damage,” said David South, president of Monolithic, at a discussion of the latest in warehouses, distribution centers and storage facilities. “That’s why the Monolithic Dome makes an ideal automated warehouse,” he added.

It’s time to solve the tornado problem, once and for all

The tornado-resistance of Monolithic Dome structures will be one of the featured topics at the Rebuild Joplin Strong workshop scheduled for July 8 and 9 on the campus of Missouri Southern State University. David B. South, president of the Monolithic Dome Institute, is slated to speak at the event, which is designed to bring survivors, planners, and builders together with experts in storm-resistant, green construction practices. 

Permies.com is a website that hosts discussion forums on permaculture, green building and sustainable practices, among other topics. Recently, a forum participant asked a simple question: Why do people in tornado/hurricane zones still build the same destroyable houses?

After reviewing the FEMA requirements for a structure capable of providing a safe shelter for people in areas where hurricanes and tornados represent a real danger, the Monolithic Dome, because of its very nature, heads the list for economy and strength to resist extreme loads.

The tornado-resistance of Monolithic Dome structures will be one of the featured topics at the Rebuild Joplin Strong workshop scheduled for July 8 and 9 on the campus of Missouri Southern State University. David B. South, president of the Monolithic Dome Institute, is slated to speak at the event, which is designed to bring survivors, planners, and builders together with experts in storm-resistant, green construction practices.  

School children were killed in the tornado that hit Moore, Oklahoma in the spring of 2013. That need not happen at your school – or any school. It is possible to have A TORNADO-SAFE and AFFORDABLE SCHOOL.

Archie R-V School District recently hosted its first basketball tournament in its new gymnasium, a steel-reinforced, concrete Monolithic Dome that will double as a community disaster shelter. building was funded in part by a $1 million grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The federal agency helped pay for the building because Monolithic Domes meet the agency’s standards for near-absolute protection from tornadoes. The structure is designed to withstand an F5 tornado, and can accommodate a large number of people in case of severe weather.

Channel 23, a Fox Affiliate for the Missouri, Illinois and Kentucky, reported on a video interview of Professor Michael Cobb, Physics Professor of Southeast Missouri University. In the video, Professor Cobb explains just why the Monolithic Dome is the safe housing answer for tornado prone areas.

Global warming and the severe weather associated with it have heightened interest in energy conservation as well as tornado and hurricane preparedness. It also has generated increased interest in a futuristic type of building that may offer one of the best solutions to both these concerns: the Monolithic Dome.

FEMA approved a grant for the Monolithic Dome safe shelter at Dodge City Community College. The dome will be their new student activities center and also the campus tornado safe room. Plans include a full basketball / volleyball court, locker rooms, classrooms, fitness center, student lounge, and more.

Because of their disaster-resistant qualities, Monolithic Domes are ideal for storing critical data and other essential records that must be protected in case of a tornado or hurricane. That’s why American Business Continuity Domes (ABC Domes) has dedicated its business to building disaster-resistant Monolithic Dome data storage facilities.

When the Federal Emergency Management Agency agreed to help fund construction of a Monolithic Dome in Niangua, Missouri, an area that had been hit by tornadoes in the past, school officials across the nation took notice. When FEMA announced in December that it was also going to help fund a Monolithic Dome in South Texas, the media started taking notice too.

Companies need secure buildings – especially if they host computer systems and store data. Monolithic Domes make secure, solid, permanent facilities that can withstand tornadoes, earthquakes, wild temperature fluctuations and even rifle fire.