Hyde County, SD: Tornado Risk and Shelter Cost
Hyde County, SD: what NOAA's tornado record says
NOAA's Storm Prediction Center has recorded 15 tornado tracks touching Hyde County since 1963 - about one every 5.1 years on average. That puts it in our Low band nationally. Against the rest of the country, that is the 40th percentile for frequency. Within South Dakota alone, Hyde County ranks 61 of 66 counties for tornado frequency.
Has Hyde County ever had a violent tornado?
Nothing violent in Hyde County's file: 15 tracks total, topping out at significant (EF2-3) strength on 0 of them, zero at EF4-5.
Paying for it, if Hyde 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 South Dakota 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
Power loss after a tornado outbreak in South Dakota 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. Hyde County covers about 861 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. Hyde County has about 1,215 residents.