Congrats on the success so far, but I'm sure you are preparing for a rough fall/winter.

You would not need to worry about replacing the furnaces until you have tenants moving in over winter.

Quote from @Scott Winter: It seems easy to park money in a checking account for property reserves, but that feels inefficient.Where do you keep your rental property reserves?

Straight electric is the cheapest to install, simple/reliable, Just not sure how bad the electric bills will be during the winter.

@Marc Winter, Intent that was not written down isn't even provable, is it? 

That's a decision only you can make.The best way I have found to answer those questions is to contemplate them during our winter vacation.

The long, cold, dark winters and falls really do have a bad habit of affecting people's mood and make them to get easily depressed over more or less trivial things...

That's what I tell my property manager when he told me it would be difficult to rent out our 10 vacancies during the dead of winter and we are down to one vacancy now!  

Anyway, hoping someone might be able to give me a little insight into the reality of the tornado threat…or even the harsh winter conditions...

Go check your washer dryer and see if working, find out where the leak is, fix the leak if it's plumbing related, then disconnect move to garage and let them install their own.. tell them the washer and dryer will remain in the garage until they leave.Your in a cold climate so winterize the washer before putting in garage,, run some RV antifreeze thru the washer so it gets in the pump to prevent freezing the pump. easy to do if its going to be in storage maybe during the winter..