The National Storm Shelter Association’s Executive Director is Dr. Ernst Kiesling P.E., Ph.D, from Texas Tech University’s Wind Science and Engineering Research Center. Dr. Kiesling is recognized as one of the premiere authorities in the world on wind energy research and safe room design protocols. Dr. Kiesling and his staff at TTU worked extensively with FEMA in the late 90’s to develop what is now FEMA’s Publication 320, 360 & 361 guidelines for small group and community safe rooms for tornadoes, as well as hurricane shelters. Ernie does not own an interest in any storm shelter company. His primary concern is for public safety and integrity in the storm shelter industry.
As we understand it, the “other association” was formed by two shelter manufactures, one of which was dismissed from the NSSA. Additionally, as we understand it, there is no one associated with the their executive committee who has anywhere near the reputation, professional training, knowledge or experience of Dr. Kiesling when it comes to wind energy and shelter design.
This “other” association was formed about three years ago, primarily due to a new FEMA requirement for FEMA rebate participation. The new requirement was put in place due the large number of sub-standard manufacturers that were jumping into the business every time a major tornadic event would occur. They would start up a business, crank out storm shelters with little regard for FEMA’s design recommendations and prey on the general lack of public knowledge of their design compliance.
FEMA’s new requirement was intended to protect the public by mandating that for any purchaser to be eligible for a FEMA rebate reimbursement, the manufacturer of that shelter had to be a member of a professional association. The NSSA was the only association at the time, so if a manufacturer was unwilling or unable to meet the NSSA strict requirements, that manufacturer wasn’t eligible to provide rebate recipients with their product. That disqualification also held true for former members of the NSSA who were previously dismissed from the NSSA for non-compliance to the NSSA’s guidelines.
The fees are much lower to join the other guys, as is the time and cost requirements to meet and maintain compliance, so the second-tier manufactures quickly flocked to this association. How they could be allowed to form such an association without requiring the independent verification step is beyond us. This “other association” was approved with its current requirements by the Texas Railroad Commission (the TX governing bureaucracy for this sort of thing), so you can draw your own conclusions from that.
As our website says, it’s a difficult, time consuming, expensive and on-going task to gain and remain in good standing with the NSSA. But, when the public’s safety is on the line, it’s an essential process to ensure only the highest quality shelters make it to the general public.
Now to answer your question…
The “other association” has demonstrably lower verification and compliance requirements than the NSSA. The bulk of the their requirements have been copied & pasted from the NSSA requirements. However, they omitted what is arguably the most important step, the requirement for an independent 3rd party peer review by an unbiased professional engineering firm of the original design AND any modifications made after the original review. There is a short list of approved engineering firms that have engineers on staff who are intimately familiar with the FEMA, ICC-500 and NSSA requirements. Since the industry is unregulated, there is a real potential for some “home-cookin’ ” when it comes to engineering calculations, and the independent peer review will expose that, forcing the manufacture into compliance. With them, there is NO requirement for independent verification of engineering calculations, FEMA design compliance or design modifications.
At every trade show you’ll find non-NSSA manufactures who tout FEMA 320 compliance yet it is immediately clear by any number of visual indicators that they are not, in fact, compliant…things as simple as counting the number of hinges and latch points, or checking the anchor spacing just to name a few items. So let the buyer beware! Look for the NSSA logo.
Thanks for your question! If you have any other questions please call us at 918-518-1551 or you can send an email to sales@tornadoalleyarmor.com.