Safe Room Articles

The tornado sirens sound, and the countdown begins. A family in Central Oklahoma hears a warning and faces a split-second choice between a familiar basement staircase and a steel safe room bolted to the slab in their garage. The next decision determines the margin between minor injury and life-altering loss, between safety and disaster. Tornado…

Why Community Shelter Sizing Matters More Than You Think The size of a community shelter can be a matter of life and death during severe weather events. Overcrowded shelters have led to dangerous conditions. During recent tornado outbreaks, some shelters reported turning away dozens of people due to a lack of space, forcing families to…

Why Safety Sells: The Overlooked Market Power of Tornado Shelters Tornado shelters are no longer just a safety upgrade; they’ve become a significant market differentiator for homes in storm-prone regions. Recent surveys reveal that more than 60% of U.S. homeowners want detailed information about storm safety features when buying a home, and nearly half actively…

Why Tornado Shelters Are More Than a Legal RequirementTornado shelters in schools aren’t just about checking a legal box; they are a life-or-death safeguard for students, staff, and the wider community. The U.S. experiences around 1,000 tornadoes each year, the highest frequency globally, resulting in hundreds of injuries and dozens of fatalities. In 2024 alone, tornadoes injured…

If you’re looking for a tornado shelter company in your area, it can be hard to know who to call. After all, you have choices. Should you go with a regional supplier or one with a more national presence? You can always roll the dice and Google this information, but there is probably no comprehensive,…

This post was created in November 2013, but has been updated in 2023 for accuracy and to reflect current details. The National Storm Shelter Association (NSSA) was formed in 2001 with the idea of protecting people from tornadoes and other disasters by ensuring that their members produce and sell the highest quality storm shelters possible. The…

In 1998, FEMA published a guide called “Taking Shelter From the Storm.” The publication, currently in its Fifth Edition, includes construction plans and specifications for building a storm shelter safe room for your home. It is officially called FEMA P-320, but is most commonly referred to as FEMA 320.The tornado shelter construction plans are still…

Want near absolute safety in a tornado or hurricane? Install a safe room or community storm shelter. That’s the advice from the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA), which has established guidelines to make sure community members are safe during extreme-wind events. Those FEMA guidelines for the design and construction of community safe rooms are based…

Last Updated: August 3, 2016 In the survivalist community, prepping is as natural as breathing.  As one website states, “If you’re awake, you’re prepping.”  For the rest of us, a cute logo might catch our attention, but often times it takes something like a world catastrophic event or disaster to begin to get us in the…

Last Updated: July 28, 2016 The other day, some of my friends and I had an open discussion about which residential storm shelter we each preferred for our own homes.  There were several opinions, and the consensus was that a garage tornado shelter was the favorite.  But then, which one?  Is a tornado shelter in garage…

Last Updated: July 28, 2016  Survival Bunkers – everyone has a different opinion about them. But in the prepper community, having your very own survival bunker is as natural as breathing. Who doesn’t want to be prepared for anything? One look around the world in which we live, finding a safe haven in the chaos is…

Last Updated: July 28, 2016 Ask anyone who has seen the devastating effects of a tornado and they can tell you how traumatizing it can be to see bits and pieces of your home and community on the ground. Many individuals living in states that experience high rates of tornadoes such as Oklahoma, Kansas, Alabama, Mississippi,…