MANUFACTURED/ 
MOBILE HOME SAFETY

 Every Day

 

 







✓Identify a Safe Place: Have a family 
plan that includes ideas for shelter 
spaces emergency locations, and 
accommodations for pets. If there 
are current plans, review them.
✓Know Evacuation Routes: Have 
routes planned out for evacuating 
your home in the event of severe 
weather. Keep up to date on 
potential road closures in your 
community.
✓Timing: Know how long it will take 
you to evacuate your home during 
severe weather.
✓Be Weather-Ready: Check the 
forecast frequently to see if you are 
at a risk of severe weather. Listen to 
local news or a NOAA Weather 
Radio to stay informed about 
tornado watches and warnings.
✓Sign Up for Notifications: Know 
how to get watches and warnings in 
your community. Check media alerts 
in your area.

Day Before Severe Weather
✓Verify Your Shelter: Check with your community’s Emergency Management on if shelters will be open in your area. Ask questions and consider the needs of pets.
✓Coordinate with Family/Friends:
Share your plans with family and friends, and discuss spending time at their home if it is safer.
✓Help Your Neighbor: Encourage those around you to prepare for the possibility of severe weather. Check on them and offer to help them get to a safe place.
✓Stay Weather-Ready: Continue to listen to local news or a NOAA Weather Radio to stay updated about future watches and warnings.
✓Transportation: Make sure all cars are filled up with enough gas to get you to a sturdier shelter. If you do not have a car, contact friends  family to prepare transportation.

Day of Severe Weather
✓ Execute Your Plan: If a tornado watch is issued in your community and storms are headed toward your area, it is time to evacuate your home to a studier shelter. Take
important documents with you.
Don’t forget your pets.
✓Stay Informed: Keep listening to local news or NOAA Weather Radio for more updates about tornado watches and warnings impacting your area.
✓ Contact Your Family and Loved Ones: Let your family and close friends know where you are
evacuating to. Ask if family and close friends in vulnerable housing need to relocate as well.
✓ Last Resort: If a Tornado Warning is issued for your community before you evacuate, it may already be too dangerous to evacuate to a safer location. Last resort options include a vehicle (seatbelt on and start carto activate airbags/safety features)
or in a protected area outside shielded from potential debris
or flooding.

You can replace your possessions...

...but you cannot replace a life.


National Weather Service

weather.gov/safety/tornado



Tornadoes Can Be Deadly

How to Get Warning 

Information:

72% of all tornado fatalities occur in homes 
(permanent, mobile, manufactured, etc.) 
54% of the housing fatalities occur in mobile/
manufactured homes, even though MHs only make up 
6% of the US housing stock.1

Wireless Emergency 
Alerts

Internet / Weather Apps

Local TV and Radio

NOAA Weather Radio

Outdoor Sirens

Friends and Family

Previous research showed that residents are 15-20 times 
more likely to be killed in a mobile/manufactured home 
compared to a permanent home.2 Complete destruction 
of a MH is expected for wind loads approximately 45% of 
winds expected to destroy a permanent home.3

No One Is Safe
No matter what type of manufactured home you live in, it 
is not a safe place to take shelter during a severe weather 
event. MOVE TO A SAFER STRUCTURE. 

Single family homes are safer, but not completely safe. 
After coming to a well-built single-family home or commercial 
building, it’s still important to move to the lowest 
floor, preferably underground. Keep as many walls between 
you and the outside as possible. 

Protect your head with a helmet.


For more information on tornado safety visit:

weather.gov/safety/tornado

1: S.M. Strader, W.S. Ashley, Fine-scale assessment of mobile-home tornado vulnerability in the Central and Southeast U.S, Weather Clim. Soc. (2018)

2: Brooks, H. E., and C. A. Doswell III, 2002: Deaths in the 3 May 1999 Oklahoma City tornado from a historical perspective.

3: J.R. McDonald, K.C. Mehta, A Recommendation for an Enhanced Fujita Scale (EFScale), Wind Science and Engineering Center, Texas Tech University, 2006.


National Weather Service

weather.gov/safety/tornado