Herman by Jim Unger for May 23, 2020

And you can tap into the swamp gas for heating and cooking…

A great house in tornado alley.

But how do you get in it?

“You never have to paint it or wash the windows. Tornadoes skip right over it.”

Talk about sinking real estate values.

Around 1958, I went my mother to visit a friend on the outskirts of Denver (east of Aurora, there were few houses around). The house was like this, except the roof was flat. Windows all around but like basement windows in some houses. Walk down to get in the door.

It was indeed a nice design for a place where tornadoes ramble and rumble through. Not sure what happened in a heavy rain, though. Or a heavy snow…

Some people have converted old missile silos into domiciles.

Underground temperature is usually around 55 degrees year round. Saves a lot on heating and air conditioning.

Say, this area isn’t prone to mud slides, is it?

A BOMB SHELTER home…..Enter through the trap door in the back….

Well, he was looking for a home with a low profile.

This is how our home will look in a few years. We have so much ground water, and the rising sea levels aren’t helping. We don’t call this place the Rice Paddy just to be clever.

“Yes, the house did settle a little. Why?”

Good news, it’s built to resist tornados; bad news, it’s in a flood zone.

I’ve never seen a square sink hole…

Looks like a greenhouse ‘house’.

Not quite what I’d have in mind for an “earth sheltered” home.