Custome Steel Frame

Storm Shelters & Storm Safe Rooms

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One method of Steel Storm Shelter exterior endwall assembly.

Heavy duty storm door steel frame in the endwall.

Partially finished 14 gauge Steel box.

Showing steel Gable roof and end wall installation.

Shows treated plywood sheathing, Hardie Plank 6" Lap Siding, steel roofing, and steel framed exterior storage walls.

Completed Steel Storm Shelter with 250 mph wind load, 200 pound per square foot live load, and exterior storage. 

Interior view of storage closet steel framing and insulation.

Interior view of finished Storm Shelter main room with mirrored closet doors and laminate flooring.

Interior view of half bath and closet steel framing & insulation.

View of finished half bath.

View of double walled 14 gauge steel storm door with four locks, heavy duty hinges, and steel framing. 

Interior view of the entry into the finished Steel Storm Shelter through a 4' wide x 8' high x 4' long hallway from the family room. 

Steel Frame Storm Safe Rooms & Shelters

The following information may help you with that decision. Every year, tornadoes, hurricanes, and other extreme windstorms injure, cause fatalities, and damage billions of dollars worth of property around the world. Even so, more and more people are building homes and businesses in tornado and hurricane – prone areas possibly putting themselves into the path of such storms. One of the best protections you can offer your family and employees against these severe storms is to build a "Storm Safe Room” or “Storm Shelter" in your home or business.

When it comes to making the decision to building a Storm Safe Room or Storm Shelter, you need the answer to one of the most frequently asked questions: “How do I determine if I really need a Storm Safe Room or Storm Shelter to protect my family or my employees?” To answer this, consider the following questions:                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

• Is your home or business located in an area prone to severe storms that generate hail, high velocity straight winds, tornados, or hurricanes?
• How quickly can you reach a safe shelter during a severe storm with extreme high velocity winds?
• Do you have to leave the home or business to get to a public shelter? 
• Do you have time to reach a public shelter in an extreme high wind event?
• Do you want to provide this level of protection for your family or employee's?

If you answer, “Yes” to one or more of these questions, then you may want to seriously consider building a storm safe room in your home or business to protect your family or employees from these extreme high wind event threats.

Where Are Storm Safe Rooms or Shelters Needed?

Anywhere in the world that is subject to extreme storm and high wind events; home or business owners should seriously consider building a residential or business Storm Safe Room or Shelter. As noted in the following sections, wind hazards, such as those associated with tornadoes, hurricanes, and high velocity straight winds vary throughout the world. Your decision to build a Storm Shelter will be based largely on the magnitude of the wind hazard in your given area and on the level of risk you consider to be acceptable.  

What Is A Residential Storm Safe Room or Shelter?

Storm Shelter And Safe Room Design

In general, residential or business Storm Shelters and Storm Safe rooms can be built onsite as a new addition or retrofit in an existing home with materials and specifications recommended by the FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) or can be prefabricated units delivered to the site and installed by the home owner or their contractor.

A Storm Shelter that is built as a new addition can be placed onto an existing home almost anywhere you have room or that your Building Permit Department will allow.  This is a more expensive route to take due to having to pour the specified foundation for your particular storm shelter. 

A retro-fit Storm Safe Room can be installed almost anywhere in a home (preferably on the first floor, in the center of the home, or in a basement corner) as long as it is anchored to the concrete pad or foundation.

Both models of shelters must be designed as "Room Within A Room". That is, it's walls and ceiling must be structurally separate from the rest of the house, so that even if the surrounding house is destroyed to the foundation, the Storm Shelter or Storm Safe Room will remain intact thus protecting the occupants.

Normally on new additions, the Storm Shelter is designed with a short 4' wide x 4' long hallway between it and the main home structure.  This hallway is designed to break away should the rest of the home be distroyed by a storm; additional protection of the occupants in the safe room. 

A Storm Shelter or Safe Room must not have any windows or be constructed in a flood or storm surge zone.

Storm shelter must be designed to protect the occupants from winds of 250 mph.  The size of a Storm Shelter or Safe Room will depend on the number of expected occupants.  FEMA’s recommended minimums for occupant space is:

• 5 square feet per person for Tornado Shelters
• 10 square feet per person for Hurricane Shelters.

Note that these square footage figures are minimums; larger amounts of space are required for special situations. For example, the 5-square-foot minimum for Tornado Shelters assumes that the occupants will be standing for the duration of the event. Larger amounts of space are required for seated occupants and those with special needs, such as occupants confined to a wheelchair or bed. 

A good rule of thumb in calculating the space needed in your Storm Shelter is to figure each bedroom in your home will be occupied by a minimum of (2) two people, multiply this figure by the number of bedrooms in your home, and multiply the results by either (5) five square feet for a Tornado Shelters or (10) square feet for a Hurricane Shelter.  This calculation should give you the minimum square footage needed for either a home or business shelter. 

The heavy duty storm door should swing inward for easy egress of your family should the rest of the home collapse across the door face. The inward swinging steel door hardware should include (3) heavy-duty ball bearing hinges, (3) heavy-duty deadbolts with one-inch throws, and (1) locking latch handle with a one-inch throw.  MEI offers a pre-hung  double walled - foam  filled FEMA 320 - 14 gauge steel door with four locking points, a heavy duty steel frame, and with a wind load of 250 MPH (F5 rated).

Storm Shelter and Safe Room Strength - Testing and Design

The goal of the Storm Shelter design and construction is to provide "Near Absolute Protection" from the forces of wind and debris during a storm with winds as high as 250 mph. A Storm Shelter that provides near-absolute protection should protect its occupants from death and injury.

Clearly, to provide the desired level of protection, a Storm Shelter needs an extremely strong structure and anchors to resist high-wind forces, up lift, and an extremely resistant envelope (walls, ceiling, floor, and door) to resist high winds and the impact of windborne debris.

Storm Shelter designs based on the results of the Texas Tech research typically call for stronger construction materials than designs for standard residential construction. Every Storm Shelter's design and materials must meet or exceed FEMA’s minimum specifications. Storm Shelters built according to the FEMA  minimum 250 MPH guidelines (no penetration of a 15-pound, 12-foot-long 2” x 4” board moving at 100 mph) are expected to provide "Near Absolute Protection" for the occupants. 

New Construction vs. Retrofitting

An additional consideration is whether a Storm Shelter will be built as a new addition or retro-fit construction. Building a Storm Shelter as a part of a new home or as an addition may be more costly than retrofitting (modifying an existing room to meet the specific design requirements).

Retro-fit Storm Shelter construction involves making all changes necessary to strengthen an existing room or area of a home so that it will provide the required resistance to wind forces, debris impact, and is usually a less expensive project than building a new addition. This process involves anchoring the safe room to an existing concrete floor and modifications to a room that will result in a small loss of floor space, interior wall, and ceiling height.

Accessibility

Residential or business Storm Shelters or Storm Safe Rooms should be constructed in such a way that they are readily accessible to all occupants of the home. The path to the shelter should not be blocked with furniture, equipment, or stored items. Also, if the shelter is normally used for another purpose (a closet for example), care should be taken not to clutter the floor with anything that could restrict the usable floor space. Special needs, such as those of vision or mobility-impaired users, should be considered when decisions are made concerning the design and location of the Storm Shelter or Storm Safe Room.

Occupant Comfort

The primary goal of a residential or business Storm Shelter or Storm Safe Room is to provide for the safety, not the comfort, of its occupants. The comfort of shelter occupants will depend largely on the amount of space provided per occupant and adequate lighting, water, food, and toilet. The amount of space required per person depends on the duration of occupancy. For this reason, the required space differs between Storm shelters intended for tornado protection and those intended for hurricane protection. Historical data indicate that a Tornado Storm Shelter will typically have an average maximum occupancy time of 2 hours. By contrast, a Hurricane Storm Shelter may have a average occupancy time of 24 to 78 hours.

Supplies of water are essential for both Tornado and Hurricane Shelters. Food and water should be provided in Hurricane Shelters, but food is not a major consideration in Tornado Shelters, because of the short duration of use. To be prepared, all residential Storm Shelters should be equipped with emergency supplies, including drinking water, flashlights, fire extinguishers, first-aid kits, radios (preferably battery operated weather radios with extra batteries), and a signaling device (such as an air horn or Police Whistle).

Residents In Hawaii Urged To Build Storm Shelters

These issues are more than intellectual exercise for the residents of Kaua‘i, who suffered devastating hurricane damage in 1982 (Hurricane Eva) and 1992 (Hurricane Iniki – Category 4). Kaua‘i is the first county in Hawaii to enact a law with recommended guides for Storm Shelters and to provide tax breaks for residents who construct a Storm Shelter in their home or on their property that meets FEMA's specifications.

Other states across the nation are adopting similar programs and incentives. You may want to check with your local City, County, and State Officials for information on incentives for building a Storm Shelter in your home or business; you may also want to check with your Home or Business Owner's Insurance company for any discounts they may offer.

Read our Frequently Asked Questions about Steel Frame Storm Shelters

Understanding the Hazards:

Tornadoes

A tornado is a violently rotating column of air that extends from a thunderstorm cloud to the ground. On average, more than 1,200 tornadoes have been reported nationwide (United States) each year since 1995. Since 1950, tornadoes have caused an average of 89 deaths and 1,521 injuries annually; also, devastating personal and commercial property losses. Tornadoes occur primarily in the central and eastern portions of the United States (Refer to Map A).

 Map A

Tornadoes are rated by the National Weather Service according to the “Fujita Damage Scale”. Fujita ratings vary from F0, for light tornado damage, to F5, for total destruction. All tornadoes produce high winds and carry windborne debris that can pose a danger to lives and property. Violent tornadoes (those rated F4 and F5) are capable of tremendous destruction with wind speeds of 155 + mph near ground level. Violent tornadoes can rip buildings apart down to the foundation.

Hurricanes

A hurricane is a type of tropical cyclone (the general term for all weather systems that circulate counterclockwise with extreme high winds over tropical waters) originating in the Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico., and Pacific Ocean.  Around the core of a hurricane, winds can grow with great velocity. As the storm moves ashore, it can push ocean waters inland while spawning tornadoes and producing torrential rains and floods.

On average, 10 tropical storms (6 of which become hurricanes) develop each year in the Atlantic Ocean. Approximately five hurricanes strike the United States mainland every 3 years; two of those storms will be major hurricanes Category 3 or greater on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale (Refer to Chart 1).

Chart 1

In-land freshwater flooding from hurricanes

Hurricanes can produce widespread torrential rains. Floods are the deadly and destructive result. Excessive rain can also trigger landslides or mud slides, especially in mountainous regions. Flash flooding can occur due to the intense rainfall. Flooding on rivers and streams may persist for several days or more after the storm.

The speed of the storm and the geography beneath the storm are the primary factors regarding the amount of rain produced. Slow moving storms and tropical storms moving into mountainous regions tend to produce more rain. Between 1970 and 1999, more people lost their lives from freshwater flooding associated with land falling tropical hurricanes and cyclones than from any other weather hazard.