#Fema approved metal storm shelter install

'Everyone would like to have one, and they want them yesterday,' one sales executive was quoted as saying.Īt the same time, code officials and builders in states that have recently adopted the 2009 IRC - which includes a first-ever standard for safe-room construction - are coming to terms with what that standard might mean for them.

#Fema approved metal storm shelter install

They've been in fairly common use for at least a decade (see 'Hunkering Down in Tornado Alley,' Notebook, 10/99), but this year's grim casualty figures have set off what a recent New York Times article described as a 'storm shelter gold rush,' with companies that sell and install the protective structures struggling to meet surging demand. Safe rooms - also known as storm shelters - are designed to allow homeowners to survive a direct hit by even an F5 storm. The severity of a given tornado is often described in terms of the Fujita scale, or F-Scale, which ranges from F0 (characterized by wind speeds from 40 to 72 mph, capable of damaging chimneys and pushing over shallow-rooted trees) to F5 (wind speeds from 261 to 318 mph, causing near-total destruction of most buildings). As of midsummer - with the storm season past its peak but by no means over - the nationwide death toll for 2011 stood at 537, making it the deadliest year since 1936. Even Massachusetts - a state not ordinarily viewed as particularly tornado-prone - was struck by an early-June twister that killed three. A month later, a massive storm swept through Joplin, Mo., claiming an additional 151 lives. A multi-state outbreak in late April killed at least 322 people in several southeastern states, with 238 of the deaths taking place in Alabama alone. The 2011 tornado season has been one for the record books.