Heard a report earlier that addressed the ground there. Evidently there is a layer of top soil, and then there’s an almost impenetrable layer under that. Evidently very few homes have the traditional storm shelters in Oklahoma. (basement involved)
I’m not saying it’s true, but that was a comment made on one of the afternoon talk shows in Los Angeles (KFI).
It’s the same thing in S Texas. We had a home in San Antonio, under 6 inches of top soil is solid bedrock. No basement possible.
Many homes in Oklahoma have safe rooms built into the garage; steel beams inside cement blocks, anchored into the slab foundation, with a steel door and reinforced roof. If you don’t have a storm cellar, it’s the next best thing.
Still, you can shelter in a drainage ditch and I have done so in Indiana ~ another karstland with somewhat different topography.
I was raised in North Central Texas, about 150 miles south of there.
Where we lived, there was about 8 inches of top soil, followed by about 12 inches of rocky soil, then a 14-18 inch layer of limstone, then 6-8 inches of clay, followed by another 14-18 inches of limestone, repeated four or five times.
I know because on our ranch, my Dad had us plant about 120 trees, and each and every one of them had to be dug down below the second layer of limestone. Hand held rock busters, picks and shovels. The clay down there was always col and damp...even in the hottest summers...and those trees did very well. And continue to do so to this day, years after he passed.
All of our corner posts were the same. We belled those out under the second layer and then poured concrete in them. Not one has ever come out. They will rot off at the ground layer before that ever happens...and they were all treated poles.
Very expensive to dig very deep cellars in that. It can be done...but the costs are very high and usually prohibitive. If their soil is like that, then it is understandable.