More than 1,000 tornadoes touch down in the United States each year, according to the Weather Channel, ripping through communities with wind speeds of up to 318 mph and exerting enough wind force to shred structures and injure or kill any person unlucky enough to be caught outdoors. Many homeowners in tornado-prone areas of the country are seeking tornado protection by including safe rooms (also known as storm rooms) in their home plans.
“Customer requests for safe rooms have risen over the last three years from 10 percent to as high as 75 percent with some custom builders in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex,” says Richard McCalley, president of KeepSafe Industries, a manufacturer of safe rooms designed to protect against tornado forces.
Severe storms are not the only reason for increased interest in safe rooms. Threats to a family’s safety, such as terrorism (both national and personal) and burglary, have many homeowners on edge. Having a safe place to retreat to during a break-in or terrorist event can ease concerns.
“Whenever people are reminded that we live in a world that’s more dangerous, we get more calls,” says Los Angeles custom builder Gary Paster, owner of Paster Construction and American Saferoom Door. He says that American Saferoom Door’s Web site drew 1,500 potential customer contacts the week the war in Iraq began.
Safe rooms designed to protect occupants from human threats and those designed for storm protection are engineered to address different concerns. Storm rooms must resist wind loads and the impact of flying debris, and they must be anchored to a solid concrete foundation. Personal protection rooms, in contrast, have a slightly lower degree of wind resistance; are frequently concealed; and can incorporate an array of high-tech communications, alarm, and surveillance systems.
The most practical application, according to most manufacturers, is to completely finish a home’s safe room to serve a dual purpose, such as a master bathroom or closet. The room should be located near the main living or sleeping quarters for fast and easy access, whether serving as a retreat from a tornado or an intruder.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s publication 320, “Taking Shelter From the Storm: Building a Safe Room in Your House,” contains information and building plans, specs, and materials lists for building a storm safe room. The plans can be used as is, or as a starting point for more elaborate or larger safe rooms. However, all altered designs and plans should be analyzed by a licensed engineer to determine whether they meet FEMA’s National Performance Criteria for Tornado Shelters. According to these criteria, safe rooms must be able to resist wind pressure loads of up to 250 mph, failure from overturning or uplift, and loads from windborne missiles (debris) flying at approximately 100 mph, among other requirements. The National Storm Shelter Association (NSSA) and the International Code Council are currently developing standards.
Many manufacturers of storm safe rooms also design beefed-up units for use as personal protection safe rooms. A wide selection of safe rooms made of reinforced concrete, ballistic fiberglass, steel, and even armored materials used by the military have been tested and certified by the Wind Engineering Research Center of Texas Tech University, which performs debris impact tests on safe rooms and their components. “Like anything else, ‘Buyer beware,’” says custom builder Tom Wisner of Wisner Building Company in Melbourne, Fla. “You want to see engineering from a licensed engineer and a seal of approval from the NSSA.”
According to KeepSafe’s McCalley, custom builders should ask clients looking to incorporate a safe room into their home about their protection and accessibility needs; whether the safe room will serve a dual or dedicated purpose; and the number of people to be protected.
“Builders need to understand the threat that they are designing against,” says Jim Ranson, product manager for DuPont StormRoom, “and represent the offerings that are tested to protect against those threats. And they should look to established government bodies that provide design codes and standards.”
