Very few houses built anywhere nowdays have basements, even the one's in "tornado alley" in the midwest. The problem here is less of the water table variety (although it's still an issue) but more to do with the red clay base in the soil, and the limestone bedrock.
Contractors won't build housing projects with basements because they don't know how deep they'll get to dig before they hit limestone.
Basements here are only built on lots where the grade of the land allows for it. If you have a basement here, it's actually above the foundation of your home in relation to sea level.
There were actually people killed here by these storms that were in their basements... they were literally sucked out of there.
The strange thing about this particular bunch of tornados that hit last Wednesday was that there really wasn't a safe place to be from them because they were so intense. If you were in the path of these tornados, it's pure luck if you survived.