When a severe storm struck Lawrence last Monday — carrying with it the possibility of a tornado — Jane Graves didn’t take her family to the basement. She doesn’t have one in her west Lawrence home.

Instead, she called a friend who lives a block away. That friend’s neighbor had a basement. And that’s where the Graves family took shelter until the storm passed.

“We’re lucky we have a really nice neighborhood, with lots of nice families,” Graves said the next day. “Generally, somebody knows somebody who has a basement.”

But Graves doesn’t think protection from storms should depend on luck. She’s asking the city to pass a new rule requiring that all new homes and apartments include an underground storm shelter or a federally approved “safe room.”

“This is a chance to do something before something horrible happens,” Graves said.

City officials are listening, and they may put the item on the Lawrence City Commission agenda before the end of June. They’re aware, however, that such a requirement might raise the already-high cost of housing in the city.

“We’re concerned about safe and affordable housing as well,” said Bobbie Flory, director of the Lawrence Home Builders Assn. “That continues to be a balance, between safe and affordable housing, but (the shelter proposal) is something we need to explore.”

Graves and her husband, Paul, bought their home in 2000. It is a “slab home” with no basement. They were concerned about the lack of storm protection, she said, but didn’t have many options.

“In our price range, there weren’t a whole lot of homes available with basements,” Graves said. “We were looking for a first-time home, and that was what was available.”

Plus, she said in a letter to Mayor Mike Rundle: “We were told by two different real estate agents, ‘Tornadoes never hit Lawrence.'”

Homes without basements aren’t unusual, said Barry Walthall, chief building inspector for the city.

The Graves family, from left, Paul, Maretta, 5 months, Elise, 3, and Jane, has to run to a neighbor's basement when severe weather approaches because their house is built on a slab. Jane Graves is lobbying city officials to require storm shelters or federally approved safe

“In Lawrence, there are a lot of slab houses,” he said. “I would say, in the last five years, an estimate — oh, probably 30 percent” of nearly 1,800 one- and two-family dwellings that have been built.

Very few, he said, have shelters or safe rooms.

“We’ve seen that on occasion,” Walthall said, “but it’s not common.”

Graves’ concerns about storms became more acute in May 2003, when — contrary to the agents’ claims — a tornado hit southwest Lawrence, laying waste to an apartment complex and surrounding neighborhoods. In that storm, Graves’ family sought shelter in a house three blocks away.

No one was killed during the storm, and the tornado dissipated before it hit Graves’ neighborhood. She started researching, however, ways to keep her family and others safe. The week before last Monday’s storm, she sent her proposal to Rundle.

Worth the cost?

Graves had found that the Federal Emergency Management Agency had approved plans for safe rooms, a reinforced room contained within a house that can withstand most storms — even when the rest of the house is falling apart in high winds.

The cheapest models run about $2,000 to build in new homes. A basement, Flory said, can add $18,000 to $20,000 to the cost of a new house.

“They are much more cost effective to put them in during the design and building phase of a home than to retrofit — in fact it’s almost cost prohibitive to retrofit a home for them,” said Paula Phillips, director of Douglas County Emergency Management.

Flory said she needed to learn more about the costs of Graves’ proposal.

“I’m interested to learn what that means to every new single-family house,” Flory said, and added, “We’re for safe housing.”

Rundle said he was intrigued by the idea.

“I don’t think it adds greatly to the costs,” he said. “When you can incorporate something that’s going to add life safety at minimal cost, I think I’d vote to do it.”

Phillips said safe rooms would provide “good mitigation” against tornadoes.

“They shouldn’t add that much to the cost of brand-new housing,” she said. “In the scope of things, $2,000 isn’t that much, but we live in a high-cost area.”

In the meantime, the Graves family is looking for a new house with a basement. Jane Graves said she would pursue the new rule regardless.

“What we’re looking at is saving lives,” she said. “If we keep allowing buildings to be built that aren’t safe, we’re being negligent.”