Bourbon County, KY Tornado Risk & Storm Shelter Cost
Bourbon County's tornado history, by the numbers
Since 1956, NOAA has logged 5 tornado tracks crossing Bourbon County - one about every 15.2 years, which lands it in our Minimal band. Nationally, Bourbon County ranks at the 16th percentile for tornado frequency. Within Kentucky alone, Bourbon County ranks 90 of 120 counties for tornado frequency.
Bourbon County's EF4-5 history
Bourbon County's record has no EF4-5 tornado - its 5 tracks split 5 weak and 0 significant. That does not rule one out in the future, only that none has been recorded since 1950.
What a storm shelter costs near Bourbon County
For a Bourbon County homeowner, budget $2,890-$13,280 for a shelter or safe room ($7,645 typical) - this pass found no Kentucky-specific rebate on top of FEMA's underlying 75% national cost-share program.
The outage nobody plans for
A direct hit is not required for Bourbon County to lose power - outbreak-wide outages across Kentucky regularly reach homes and businesses well outside the actual tracks. A battery bank covers that gap without a generator's fuel and venting needs.
Read this before you rely on it
This is a county-level figure, not a per-address probability. Bourbon County covers about 290 square miles, so a single touch here counts the same as a single touch in a county a fraction of that size. Pre-radar-era records (before the 1990s) are also documented by NOAA as undercounting weaker tornadoes in sparsely-instrumented areas. Bourbon County has about 20,333 residents.