A credit union headquartered in Oklahoma City has begunoffering its members loans they can use to finance the constructionof tornado shelters. This year has been a record year for killertornadoes across the Midwest and South.

“We've got members in all the affected areas. We want to do ourpart to help make storm shelters financially feasible”, said LarryShropshire, CEO of Communication Federal Credit Union. “Thesetornadoes made us realize the necessity of an affordable,convenient shelter program. Many people simply don't have a shelteror get caught trying to make it to shelter.”

Communication has roughly 47,000 members and $800 million inassets.

The credit union said the loans would be available to homeowning members living in Oklahoma and Kansas and that the interestrates would be 2.99% over the course of the loan. Communicationsalso indicated it had some flexibility in the program to make surethat families found the loans sufficiently affordable that theshelters got built.

Stephen Lark, vice president of marketing for Communication,reported that Communication began offering the loans the day aftera series of storms hit the Oklahoma City area and that the CU hadapproved roughly 60 and, so far, had booked 10.

“We are seeing loan amounts ranging from $3000 to $12,000,” Larksaid, adding that the shelters ranged from those built undergroundor into basements to full on “safe rooms” that people were buildinginto their houses. The latter are particularly popular, he said,for members with a disability that preclude their being able tomake it down stairs into an underground shelter.