Replies

just don't because of expense. And because of structural issues. We have so much clay content in our soil...it expands and contracts so much...most everyone with a basement has major problems...with water seepage, and other issues. Almost impossible to keep one from cracking up bad. During the hot summer...the clay drys out and contracts...and then in cool wet weather...it expands and that constant expansion and contraction reaks havoc on basements and slab foundations.

Why is it that people in the south dont have basements, is the water table high there?
Everyone in Nebraska has one.

I grew up in Ponca City, OK; dead center in "Tornado Alley"...although Ponca itself
has hardly ever been hit.

Many older farmsteads have "cellars" next to the farmhouse which doubled as
a place for canned preserves and a storm cellar for tornado season.
Quite a few homes in the area also have basements; the high school in nearby
Blackwell, OK is bermed (nearly half underground) as the previous structure was
blown away (probably 30-40 years ago).

In my first 18 years of life (all in Ponca City)...I never once saw a tornado
in person.

Why is it that people in the south dont have basements, is the water table high there? Everyone in Nebraska has one.

My father in law, a soil mechanics engineer, says it's because of the properties of the soil. It's mostly clay, not like the several feet, sometimes as much as 20 or 30, of high organic content loam, that Nebraska has. The clay expands and contracts alot when wet, yet doesn't really take up much moisture itself. So you get alot more runoff and the expansion/contraction is hell on basement walls, and the lack of absorbtion and the tendency for the clay particles to be washed away means you'd end up with a pool of water under and around your basement, probably leaking in through the cracks opened up by the expansion and contraction. You can build a basement, and many larger commercial structures do, but it makes for a very expensive basement. You have to put in gravel beds under the foundation/walls and these have to be tied into drain "lines" (can be just more gravel beds) leading away from the house, some what in the manner of a septic system, but deeper. Add to that the often very shallow soils and the bottom of that basement would be sitting on the limestone rock, collecting even more water.

Although from Nebraska, I lived in OKC while stationed there in the Air Force, 30 years ago, and then for 9 months starting about a year ago on a temporary assignement on several AF contracts with the base there. The "year" I was stationed there, we had our last tornado warning of the calender year after Thanksgiving, and the first one of the next year in mid January. I'm taling Warnings, not Watches. Bummer. Checked wih the folks I worked with there last year, everyone OK, but the twister went between two of thems residences, and they only live about 11 blocks apart. :) The '99 Tornada clipped the edge of the office park where our office was located. Blew out the windows in the building they were in at the time, and actually hit the far edge of it. This time they were a couple of miles from the tornado. That was yesterday that is.

There are basically two primary reasons why there aren't as many basements in the southern United States. One is that rainfall is typically much heavier there and, yes, the water table is higher. Flooding of basements is a constant and expensive problem. Usually, houses with basements are built on a steep slope to provide adequate drainage. Without it, you are almost guaranteed of continual flooding. No amount of waterproofing solves the problem either.
The second reason is purely economic. The frost line in the south is very high, but much deeper in other parts of the country. The "frost line" is the deepest depth at which moisture in the ground is expected to freeze on the coldest of days. All foundation footings must be built deeper than the frost line (otherwise, when the moisture freezes it will heave the foundation and crack the concrete). Out here in Colorado the frost line can be as deep as 5 or 6 feet. With a frost line like that, you might as well dig out a basement if you're going to have to lay a foundation that deep anyway. In the south, there's just not as much economic justification for digging a foundation that deep.