Should buidling codes require safe rooms in all new home construction?

Tornados and sever thunderstorms average killing 70 people and injuring 1500 people each year in America. Is that a sufficient threshold to require all new homes to have a saferoom for storm protection? Should we change BOCA codes to demand saferooms. I say no.

Should there be safe rooms in new school construction under BOCCA codes.....I say yes.

I agree...
For homes, no. But if I were home shopping in OK right now, that would certainly be a plus in homes that have one. On TV today, they showed a destroyed home that had a small, unharmed space below the garage. Guy said it costs $2500-$4000 to put one in a home. I say it's well worth the expense in those areas. It should not be that much more expensive to incorporate it into a new home plan.
For schools, yes. At least the schools in tornado prone areas. I don't know that it's necessary for all schools.

For schools, yes. At least the schools in tornado prone areas. I don't know that it's necessary for all schools.


I am thinking a steel door safe room which is multi risk designed for schools. If teachers could get students into a saferoom during a shooting or storm event.....would this improve survivability. I just cannot imagine seeing my grandkids going to a school which was not prepared for this event. It has to start in the design phase of new schools, and it should have a multipurpose use so it could be used as a lecture or assembly hall, or wrestling, or plays.....I think there should be discussions, and not make it madatory, but allow federal grants to encourage local districts where the risks are high to get some help.

I know, I would feel the same way. They're like sitting ducks.
If it can be done in a cost efficient way, I'm all for it. Before anyone squawks about cost not mattering for the safety of our kids...well, unfortunately, cost does matter. But I think especially in new schools, it's doable. In older schools, I would say that certainly it needs to be done in those tornado prone areas. Probably very expensive, but I would say it's a priority with the deaths we've seen in schools, including in Enterprise, AL. We lived for a short time in Enterprise and rented a home across the street from the community college. At the time, the high school was holding classes at the college until their new school building was completed. A couple of years earlier, a tornado had destroyed their school and killed a number of students. Very, very sad, especially in a small community like Enterprise. I don't know, but I hope their new school building has a safe room of some sort.

OK, I searched a bit and learned that for Alabama, a safe room is required for new schools. It's a start.

http://asumag.com/securitylifesafety/safe-room-designs-school-safety-related-video

I agree costs must be managed, and that is why I think a grant program would help local communities decide if this was a priority. I have a customer who woke up in the yard with a washing machine on them after a tornado, and her son had permanent brain damage. I was out on Navarre Beach with no basement or saferoom when about 8 years ago a tornado jumped over us and caused about a million dollars damage to retail on 98. I got warning but as my wife and I got under some stairs....we felt incredibly exposed.

I built two homes where I took the front stoop of the house and built a hollowed out stoop with concrete walls and put a steel door to enter that space below the stoop. It really only cost me about a thousand more, and the cool part was because it was flush with the basement wall, I built a bookcase and put wheels on the bookcase, and we had a hidden room where my wife and kids could go during a storm or a threat at the front door. You would roll the bookcase away, open the steel door, turn on the light, roll the bookcase back, and then lock the steel door. The cell phones actually worked, and I had neighbors and people begin copying my design. Normally the concrete walls are about four feet, and then they are backfilled with gravel.....all I did was pour 8 foot walls on the stoop, and left an opening in the basement foundation, and then suspended the concrete stoop portion using steel panels. It would have taken a direct bomb hit to hurt the occupants, and even in a fire, the door had a two hour burn rating and was air tight. I put a inch conduit to the outside for air.

We had a fortified hole in our back yard. My dad had it built while I was still in high school and I can remember a couple of time we all huddled inside. He had it stocked with plenty of water and non-perishable food. Unfortunately, nothing like that can be built in Florida because of the water tables.

nothing like that can be built in Florida because of the water tables.


Actually, it can. I built three brick homes in the Milton area a few years back, and with the new elevation requirements I had to have my first floor at 13 feet above sea level. The street was at 8 feet, so I was required to build a compacted mound of clay approximately 4 and then I elevated my floor about 2 feet so I was a full foot above the clay, or about 6 feet above the natural grade of the land. I gave serious thought to simply excavating a simple six foot by six foot area two feet into the ground and buying commercial grade industrial vinyl roofing and leaving four feet of extra vinyl which after I poured the floor, I would build a six foot by six foot concrete block room which I would locate under the master bedroom closet, and wrap the vinyl four feet up from the poured floor. I would backfill and compact the clay around the concrete box leaving ventilation between the clay base and the bottom of the first floor and simply box the rafters and pour concrete where I could extend stainless threaded bolts. Pick up a simple steel spring released heavy duty door on the floor of the master closet, and during a storm you would have easy access to safety.

The reason I did not build the safe room.....Ivan's wave that took out the I-10 bridge would have flooded the room eventually despite the vinyl, and if debris blocked the master bedroom closet hatch.....you would simply drown, however, most people evacuate during a hurricane and it would have worked perfectly on a tornado. Probably a couple thousand dollars extra cost in material, but I always build the clay mounds, so it would have just been my time, laying it out and backfilling around the room and compacting.

2seaoat wrote:nothing like that can be built in Florida because of the water tables.


Actually, it can. I built three brick homes in the Milton area a few years back, and with the new elevation requirements I had to have my first floor at 13 feet above sea level. The street was at 8 feet, so I was required to build a compacted mound of clay approximately 4 and then I elevated my floor about 2 feet so I was a full foot above the clay, or about 6 feet above the natural grade of the land. I gave serious thought to simply excavating a simple six foot by six foot area two feet into the ground and buying commercial grade industrial vinyl roofing and leaving four feet of extra vinyl which after I poured the floor, I would build a six foot by six foot concrete block room which I would locate under the master bedroom closet, and wrap the vinyl four feet up from the poured floor. I would backfill and compact the clay around the concrete box leaving ventilation between the clay base and the bottom of the first floor and simply box the rafters and pour concrete where I could extend stainless threaded bolts. Pick up a simple steel spring released heavy duty door on the floor of the master closet, and during a storm you would have easy access to safety.

The reason I did not build the safe room.....Ivan's wave that took out the I-10 bridge would have flooded the room eventually despite the vinyl, and if debris blocked the master bedroom closet hatch.....you would simply drown, however, most people evacuate during a hurricane and it would have worked perfectly on a tornado. Probably a couple thousand dollars extra cost in material, but I always build the clay mounds, so it would have just been my time, laying it out and backfilling around the room and compacting.

According to some of the news reports that I have heard today stated that 7 of the 9 children that died did so in one of the schools. Some of those were caused by drowning.

According to some of the news reports that I have heard today stated that 7 of the 9 children that died did so in one of the schools. Some of those were caused by drowning.

I am sad to hear this. Water levels must be considered in any safe room, or you are simply building a coffin.