Every year, tornadoes, hurricanes, and other extreme windstorms
injure and kill people, and cause millions of dollars' worth of
property damage in the United States. Even so, more and more people
build homes in tornado- and hurricane-prone areas, possibly putting
themselves into the path of such storms. Having a safe room built
for your home or small business can help provide "near-absolute
protection" for you and your family or employees from injury or
death caused by the dangerous forces of extreme winds. Near
absolute protection means that, based on our current knowledge of
tornadoes and hurricanes, the occupants of a safe room built
according to this guidance will have a very high probability of
being protected from injury or death. Our knowledge of tornadoes
and hurricanes is based on substantial meteorological records as
well as extensive investigations of damage to buildings from
extreme winds. It can also relieve some of the anxiety created by
the threat of an oncoming tornado or hurricane. All information
contained in this publication is applicable to safe rooms for use
in homes as well as in small businesses. Should you consider
building a safe room in your home or small business to provide near
absolute protection for you, your family, or employees during a
tornado or hurricane? The answer depends on your answers to many
questions, including: Do you live in a high-risk area? How quickly
can you reach safe shelter during extreme winds? What level of
safety do you want to provide? What is the cost of a safe room?
This publication will help you answer these and other questions so
you can decide how best to provide near-absolute protection for you
and your family or employees. It includes the results of research
that has been underway for more than 30 years, by Texas Tech
University's Wind Science and Engineering (WISE; formerly known as
the Wind Engineering Research Center or WERC) Research Center and
other wind engineering research facilities, on the effects of
extreme winds on buildings. This publication provides safe room
designs that will show you and your builder/contractor how to
construct a safe room for your home or small business. Design
options include safe rooms located underneath, in the basement, in
the garage, or in an interior room of a new home or small business.
Other options also provide guidance on how to modify an existing
home or small business to add a safe room in one of these areas.
These safe rooms are designed to provide near-absolute protection
for you, your family, or employees from the extreme winds expected
during tornadoes and hurricanes and from flying debris, such as
wood studs, that tornadoes and hurricanes usually create. In August
2008, the International Code Council (ICC), with the support of the
National Storm Shelter Association (NSSA), released a consensus
standard on the design and construction of storm shelters. This
standard, the ICC/NSSA Standard for the Design and Construction of
Storm Shelters (ICC-500), codifies much of the extreme-wind shelter
recommendations of the early editions of FEMA 320 and FEMA 361,
Design and Construction Guidance for Community Safe Rooms (first
edition, July 2000). FEMA 361 contains detailed guidance for the
design and construction of community safe rooms, which also provide
near-absolute protection, the level of protection provided in the
residential safe rooms of this publication. It is important that
those involved in the design, construction, and maintenance of
storm shelters be knowledgeable of both FEMA guidance and ICC
standards that pertain to sheltering from extreme winds. The safe
room designs presented in this publication meet or exceed all
tornado and hurricane design criteria of the ICC-500 for both the
tornado and hurricane hazards. The safe rooms in this publication
have been designed with life safety as the primary consideration.
General
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