Q: How is it that a house will be ripped off the concrete slab foundation but a tornado shelter won’t?
A: Houses lift off their slabs because they’re made of wood & brick and anchored every 4 feet or so. They are not designed to withstand EF-5 250 mpg winds like a safe room. Tornado Alley Armor Safe Rooms are made of tempered steel and anchored no more than every 10” around the entire perimeter.
The slabs always stay behind because they have enough mass and a low profile, and a safe room is engineered with enough anchors to provide hold down and shear resistance that is orders of magnitude greater than maximum EF5 forces. There is a mountain of evidence online documenting the level of safety of above ground safe rooms, and verifying they are just as safe as anything below ground.
If a safe room is built by a National Storm Shelter Association Producer Member, all aspects of the design, construction, documentation, installation and quality control measures have been independently verified to meet or exceed FEMA, ICC-500 and NSSA design recommendations. Other associations or non-associated producers don’t offer that level of compliance verification.
Thanks for your question!
Reading your blog is just enlightening. I had no idea that there is so much documentation about the safety levels of “above ground safe rooms”. In fact, for long I thought that underground was the only way to go. These Armor Safe Rooms do look great, hope to getting my hands on one in the future!
Warm regards,
[url=http://www.seoulfood.so.tl]Seo[/url]
PS. Thanks for the great read Leslie.
I am interested in a tornado shelter and live in Minnesota. Which is safest? One of my grand daughters was at her other grandmother’s and the house was hit by a tornado they made it to the basement in time.
All Tornado Alley Armor safe rooms are built to the same NSSA standards and are capable of withstanding EF-5 tornadoes. You might take a look at our models page to see our different sizes and options. http://www.tornadoalleyarmor.com/models. Let us know if you have any other questions, or you can call us directly toll free 918-518-1551.
Thanks!
Leslie