MY STORY FEATURED ON KSDK NEWS!
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Help my family get a life-saving storm shelter...
When the tornado sirens sound in Moscow Mills, Missouri, my heart races. My husband and I grab our two children and face an impossible choice: stay in our mobile home that offers zero protection, or attempt to drive to a brick-and-mortar building in dangerous conditions.
Every single time, I pray we're not in the path.
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My name is Jenny, and I'm a mom fighting to protect my family. We live in a mobile home in Lincoln County, Missouriâpart of tornado alley.
As someone who writes for a weather website, I understand how tornadoes work. I know how fast they form and how devastating they are, particularly to mobile homes. I've seen mobile homes wrapped around telephone poles from F1 tornadoes.
Mobile homes offer virtually no protection. Yet my family of four has nowhere else to go.
Our nearest safe building is miles awayâand rarely even open to the public. So, when warnings are issued, we huddle in our hallway bathroom, and I pray for our safety.
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THE PROBLEM
After extensive research, I found the most affordable storm shelter option: $3,200 delivered and installed from a small, veteran-owned company. This does not include additional expenses, such as a concrete pad.
We can't afford thousands upfront, and we can't get financing due to past credit challenges, mostly from medical bills.
Here's what I discovered:
- Missouri offers zero state funding for residential storm shelters
- Most lenders require excellent creditÂ
- Other states help families get shelters; Missouri does not
We work hard, pay our bills, and are building our future responsibly. But we can't access traditional financing.
We're stuck: no state help, no financing options, and a price tag we can't afford.
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WHY WE LIVE IN A MOBILE HOME
Mobile homes are affordable housing that allows us to save and build toward our goals. Our home will be paid off in 3 years. We have plans to save for a few years after that and move to Florida. Mobile home living fits our goals.Â
The bottom line: families living in mobile homes shouldn't have to choose between affordable housing and their children's safety. We deserve both.
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OUR GOAL: $4,500
This should cover:
â
Storm shelter (3'x5'x6'âfits our family of 4)
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Delivery to our propertyÂ
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Professional installation on new concrete pad
â Possible unforseen additional expenses
Once installed, my children will finally have a safe place to go when tornado warnings are issued.
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WHY THIS MATTERS
This isn't just about my family. Thousands of Missouri mobile home families face this same impossible situation. We're the most vulnerable during tornadoes, yet the least able to afford protection.
I'm not just asking for helpâI'm also advocating for change. I'm doing media interviews...
and working to raise awareness about the lack of storm shelter funding or resources in Missouri. I have my concerns already forwarded to our local county's commissioner board, and I am on the books for a meeting with Lincoln County's Emergency Management Director to discuss my concerns about the lack of proper tornado preparedness in my area.
MAKE A CHANGE BEFORE THE NEXT DISASTER
On May 16, 2025, a violent tornado carved a path more than 20 miles through urban St. Louis â the first tornado to kill residents in the city since 1959. Four people died. Thirty-eight more were injured. FEMA officials said the scale of residential destruction was the worst they had surveyed since the 2011 Joplin tornado. Over 5,000 homes were affected, and damage estimates have reached $1.6 billion.
But here's the part that should keep every Missouri family up at night: in some of the hardest-hit neighborhoods, the tornado sirens never went off.
Not because of a technical malfunction. Not because of a power failure. The city's emergency management commissioner was at an off-site workshop and wasn't available to activate them. Other staff couldn't do it on their own. So while a tornado was tearing through a major American city in broad daylight, residents in its path had no warning at all.
That's not a freak accident. That's exactly the kind of systemic crack that people fall throughâand die in. Sadly, it took four deaths and $1.6 billion in destruction before St. Louis overhauled its protocols. The same can be said after the devastating Kerr County floods that claimed so many innocent livesâtragedy had to happen before anyone asked whether proper safeguards existed. That shouldn't be how this works. But time and time again, it is.
Now think about what that means for those of us living in mobile homes in Lincoln County, in the middle of the night, with no storm shelter, no community bunker, and no sufficient protocol in place currently.
MY INITIATIVE
My goals beyond my family shelter include:
Making noise at the county level for proper tornado preparedness
Providing a list of options for residents in need of proper shelter
Making it easy to access these resources for all residents
Creating a website that outlines various options for a "Tornado Action Plan" for residents while providing direct connections to storm shelters
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WHAT YOUR DONATION MEANS...
Your donation helps my family AND brings attention to this crisis affecting thousands of Missouri families.
ANY AMOUNT THAT SURPASSES OUR SHELTER...
Funds surpassing the cost of our shelter will go directly toward my initiative to help other families in my county, and possibly beyond, get access to adequate shelter during severe weather.Â
WHY NOW?
Severe weather season is already starting. Weather is getting more severe. I don't want to spend another storm season praying my family is safe.
With your help, we can have a shelter installed before the next tornado threat, and we can work toward helping other families do the same!
Until real policy change happensâmore FEMA-funded community shelters, state-level financial assistance for residents, mandatory accountability from local emergency management agencies, and more options for financingâfamilies like mine are left to figure it out alone.
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THANK YOU
Whether you donate $5 or $500, you're helping keep my children safe and potentially other families. By donating, you're saying that working families deserve protection.
And if you can't donate, please share this campaign. Every share helps!
From the bottom of my heart, thank you for caring about my family's safety and this important initiative.
With gratitude,
JenniferÂ
Moscow Mills, Missouri
Mom, weather writer, and advocate for storm safety
#MissouriStormShelters #TornadoSafety #ProtectOurKids
