Franklin County, MA Tornado Risk & Storm Shelter Cost
Franklin County, MA: what NOAA's tornado record says
Since 1954, NOAA has logged 26 tornado tracks crossing Franklin County - one about every 2.9 years, which lands it in our Elevated band. Nationally, Franklin County ranks at the 63rd percentile for tornado frequency. Among 14 Massachusetts counties in this dataset, Franklin County ranks 2 for how often a tornado touches down.
Franklin County's EF4-5 history
Franklin County's record has no EF4-5 tornado - its 26 tracks split 21 weak and 5 significant. That does not rule one out in the future, only that none has been recorded since 1950.
What a storm shelter costs near Franklin County
For a Franklin County homeowner, budget $2,890-$13,280 for a shelter or safe room ($7,645 typical) - this pass found no Massachusetts-specific rebate on top of FEMA's underlying 75% national cost-share program.
The outage nobody plans for
Tornado outbreaks routinely knock out power across Massachusetts 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.
Read this before you rely on it
This is a county-level figure, not a per-address probability. Franklin County covers about 699 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. Franklin County has about 70,871 residents.