Dubois County, IN: Tornado Risk and Shelter Cost
Dubois County's tornado history, by the numbers
NOAA's Storm Prediction Center has recorded 27 tornado tracks touching Dubois County since 1954 - about one every 2.8 years on average. That puts it in our Elevated band nationally. Against the rest of the country, that is the 64th percentile for frequency. Among 92 Indiana counties in this dataset, Dubois County ranks 25 for how often a tornado touches down.
Has Dubois County ever had a violent tornado?
Nothing violent in Dubois County's file: 27 tracks total, topping out at significant (EF2-3) strength on 8 of them, zero at EF4-5.
Paying for it, if Dubois County's history says you should
Indiana's Indiana Department of Homeland Security's Residential Safe Room Program is the number that matters for a Dubois County homeowner: 75% of an approved shelter, capped at $5,000, cutting the typical $2,890-$13,280 national range to about $722.5-$8,280 net.
The gap a shelter does not cover
Power loss after a tornado outbreak in Indiana often reaches homes the storm itself never touched. A battery-backup unit covers the outage without the fuel and venting a generator needs.
County-level, not address-level
Treat this as a county-wide figure, not a prediction for one address. Dubois County covers about 427 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. Dubois County has about 43,629 residents.