Clark County, WA: Tornado Risk and Shelter Cost
Clark County's tornado history, by the numbers
NOAA's Storm Prediction Center has recorded 14 tornado tracks touching Clark County since 1984 - about one every 5.4 years on average. That puts it in our Low band nationally. Against the rest of the country, that is the 39th percentile for frequency. Among 39 Washington counties in this dataset, Clark County ranks 2 for how often a tornado touches down.
Has Clark County ever had a violent tornado?
Nothing violent in Clark County's file: 14 tracks total, topping out at significant (EF2-3) strength on 0 of them, zero at EF4-5.
Paying for it, if Clark County's history says you should
A storm shelter or in-residence safe room typically runs $2,890-$13,280 nationally, around $7,645 for a common single-family installation. No state-administered rebate program specific to Washington was confirmed for this site - FEMA's own Hazard Mitigation Assistance grants fund 75% of an approved safe room nationwide, but only some states currently run a homeowner-facing application on top of that.
The gap a shelter does not cover
Tornado outbreaks routinely knock out power across Washington for days, separately from any single house getting hit. A portable battery bank keeps a fridge, phone chargers and a radio running through that gap - cheaper and faster to set up than a generator.
County-level, not address-level
Treat this as a county-wide figure, not a prediction for one address. Clark County covers about 629 square miles, so a single touch here counts the same as a single touch in a county a fraction of that size. And records from before the 1990s, NOAA notes, undercount weaker tornadoes in areas with less storm-spotting coverage at the time. Clark County has about 527,269 residents.