Ketchikan Gateway Borough, AK Tornado Risk & Storm Shelter Cost
How likely is a tornado in Ketchikan Gateway Borough, AK?
Ketchikan Gateway Borough carries no recorded tornado touch anywhere in NOAA's 1950-2025 database - a real zero, the same result most of the Northeast and Pacific coast gets. Nationally, Ketchikan Gateway Borough ranks at the 2nd percentile for tornado frequency. Within Alaska alone, Ketchikan Gateway Borough ranks 7 of 30 counties for tornado frequency.
Ketchikan Gateway Borough's EF4-5 history
Ketchikan Gateway Borough's record has no EF4-5 tornado - its 0 tracks split 0 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 Ketchikan Gateway Borough
For a Ketchikan Gateway Borough homeowner, budget $2,890-$13,280 for a shelter or safe room ($7,645 typical) - this pass found no Alaska-specific rebate on top of FEMA's underlying 75% national cost-share program.
The outage nobody plans for
Power loss after a tornado outbreak in Alaska often reaches homes the storm itself never touched. A battery-backup unit covers the outage without the fuel and venting a generator needs.
Read this before you rely on it
This is a county-level figure, not a per-address probability. Ketchikan Gateway Borough covers about 4,857 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. Ketchikan Gateway Borough has about 13,677 residents.