Here you go,
@Chronicle_Cat --
Lots of people in Georgia and Alabama have basements. I think it depends on the age of the house sometimes, or the size of the house. Both houses I have lived in had partially underground basements, with outside entrances, housing the furnace and hot-water heater and used for storing lawn mowers and other yard equipment and also good as tornado shelters. In one house it was basically what is called "crawl space", you couldn't stand up straight but you didn't actually have to crawl. In the other house we could walk upright. I've also been in lots of houses that had fully finished basements, with steps down from inside the house, and rec rooms and/or bedrooms and a bathroom. or laundry room.
In some neighborhoods I have known in Alabama houses don't have basements but are built on concrete slabs. I don't know why, except I've heard it costs less to built a house on a concrete slab than to dig a basement. But I would want a basement for tornadoes!