WOODVILLE, Alabama -- Tim Richardson was disappointed.

He had conceived the idea and pulled off, at a cost of $25,000, an attempted demolition of one of his tornado shelters.

He had seen the shelter's stoic reaction to the assault -- being rammed by a car, blasted by 600 mph wind gusts from a rocket engine, pounded by 6,000 pounds of fallling bricks and lumber and then, finally, the car -- during a private test session in a remote area of Jackson County.

He came away convinced that the shelters made by his company, Valley Storm Shelters, could look at the most evil EF-5 tornado and reply, "That all you got?"

But, yes, he was disappointed.

"I've been dreaming about this for a long time," said Richardson, owner of Scottsboro-based Valley Storm Shelters. "I wanted to be in the shelter through all this. I was talked out of it by several people.

"Looking at it right now, it would have been no problem."

And while the event was little more than a two-hour publicity stunt for Valley Storm Shelters, Richardson said the hope was for the tests to reveal weaknesses that needed to be strengthened. He also wanted to demonstrate the sturdiness of an above-ground shelter to counter what he said was the widely-held belief that shelters needed to be underground.

Anchored by 21 7 1/2 inch bolts in 15 inches of concrete, however, the shelter never budged.

Along the way, it was a spectacular feast for the senses -- the commercial from which you couldn't turn away.

"If there was a problem, we were going to let everyone see it," said Carlton Guyse, president of Supercell Shelters -- which has exclusive rights to sell Valley Storm Shelters in Alabama in Tennessee. The Supercell showroom is in Madison, featuring a basic shelter like one under attack Wednesday for about $7,300 -- just in case you were wondering.

State newspapers and television statements were invited to document the events, which Guyse said had never been done before to a storm shelter. Before getting started, Guyse said they expected damage to the shelter.

"We found out we far exceed anyting that can happen from a direct hit from an F-5 tornado," Guyse said. "We threw everything at it possible and there is virtually no damage.

"We did not know what we were going to see. And we were OK with that. Because anything we see here is an opportunity for us to get better. And that's what we're trying to do all the time."

Guyse pointed out the events were professionally videoed from several angles, including above the shelter, and those videos would be carefully studied for signs of weakness.

But Richardson said that may just be a waste of time.

"I was hoping we would have done more damage to it," he said. "We were doing this to see how we could improve it. We can't improve it. We're done."

Follow me on Twitter @paul_gattis or email me at paul.gattis@htimes.com.