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Tornado Shelter/Safe Room-Smoke and Mirrors

Isn’t it amazing when something that is very popular whether it be a type of sunglasses, boots, shoes, lawn chair, car or boat, there is always someone waiting in the wings to offer a cheap knock off or a “better mouse trap” that truly isn’t better albeit cheaper but definitely not equal or better quality. And guess what? It has hit the tornado shelter industry.

I’m always amazed at people’s creativity when it comes to designing tornado shelter/safe rooms. Sometimes they are really good ideas however, a lot of instances, the ideas are just ludicrous. There are a couple of instances where people that believe that designing and constructing a tornado shelter/safe room for our schools are saying that shelter just cost too much and there are some alternatives in the “mean time”. My experience in designing K-12 schools most of my career, is “mean time” or “temporary” actually means they are permanently temporary due to many factors beyond the scope of this blog.

Recently, I saw an internet news article where a school district was being provided with helmets for the students to help protect them in a tornadic event. These helmets were not what you would see an Indy or NASCAR driver wearing, more like what you would see during a visit to your local park.

Today, a friend and colleague of mine sent me an article about two individuals that have developed a blanket…yes…blanket to be utilized by school children to help protect them in a tornadic event at a cost of $1,000 each. They have been ballistic tested and passed those tests…

OK, hit “Pause” for a second..

There have been a lot of ballistic tested materials out there whether it be steel, glass, composite materials, meshes, etc. and have passed those tests. Bullets are a high velocity but low mass object so they dissipate energy very quick. That’s how bullet proof vests work and that’s great! However, put that same vest against a 15 pound 2×4 at 100 mph and the outcome will be different. The vest may keep the 2×4 from penetrating it but it doesn’t keep the force from being applied to it. That’s why you don’t see bullet proof vest advertised as a form of “personal tornado shelters”.

OK…hit “Play”

Someone missed that the kids that perished in Plaza Towers Elementary School, Moore, Oklahoma, per the medical examiner, were killed by “mechanical asphyxiation”…they were crushed by the building materials collapsing on them and could not breathe. No helmet, no blanket, no bullet proof vest would have stopped this from happening.

Cost savings? Let’s see, 600 occupants at $1,000 per blanket = $600,000 plus you need the space to store them! You’re ¾ the way to a full blown shelter that would give a school additional space!

The helmets and/or protective blanket concepts in schools, in my opinion do nothing but give parents a false sense of security however “temporary” they are. Whatever the motivation and intentions, these efforts are misdirected and in the end could easily cost someone their life.

Be careful out there!

Post by Corey Schultz, AIA, LEED AP BD+C

Public Tornado Shelter/Safe Room Management-Part 2

Let’s discuss a couple of the most important issues regarding opening a community shelter/safe room to the public and that is when and who opens the shelter/safe room?

First, let’s exam the difference between a tornado WATCH and a tornado WARNING. A tornado watch simply means that the National Weather Service (NWS) has analyzed the conditions in any given area and have determined that the conditions may be conducive for tornadic activity. The watches can cover a fairly broad area and time frame. A tornado warning means that either the NWS has determined by radar that a tornado may be forming, or a tornado or funnel cloud (tornado that has not reached to the ground) has been spotted by law enforcement, trained spotter, and/or the general public. Simply stated;

Tornado Watch – Be aware there COULD be a tornado
Tornado Warning – THERE’S A TORNADO!!!!

There are those in the general public that get really nervous when there is a tornado watch and more so when there is a thunder storm associated with that watch area. They want to be somewhere they know they are safe in case of a tornado. And on the contrary, there are some that when there is a tornado warning issued, they grab their camera and run outside! (Let’s leave that to the storm chasers and another blog!) Point being is everyone is different and if you are going to open a shelter/safe room to the public, then you need to consider when someone may show up to take advantage of the shelter/safe room. In the past, FEMA has suggested that shelter/safe rooms are opened at the time that a tornado watch is issued.

Who opens the shelter/safe room? It really doesn’t matter, what matters is the shelter/safe room is open when people show up! The owner of the shelter/safe room should establish who is going to open the shelter/safe room, and that should NOT be one person! I would suggest that there are at least 4-5 people designated to open a shelter/safe room at any given site so there is some redundancy. Those people need to communicate with one another on a regular basis. This was a problem in a recent event where one individual was slated to open a shelter/safe room and did not realize there was a tornado warning! That left 4 people standing outside one of the community shelter/safe room watching the tornado rip through their town. THEY WERE LUCKY!

When should it open? If you are committing to opening the shelter/safe room to the public then it is YOUR responsibility to have that shelter/safe room open and available to those that you have promised the use of the shelter/safe room. NOAA states currently that the average warning prior to the tornado showing up at your door step is 13 minutes. That is an AVERAGE! In my humble opinion, at the very LATEST, the doors to the shelter/safe room should be open at the exact moment a tornado warning is issued…no later! Earlier would be better!!! If the shelter/safe room is not open when people show up, do they know for a fact that the shelter/safe room IS going to be open? Do they wait until someone shows up or should they go ahead and seek shelter elsewhere thus exposing themselves even more to the event? These are all questions that could take time to answer in one’s mind and could cost them their life!

Finally, who and when the shelter/safe room is going to be opened needs to be communicated with the public on a regular basis. Not just once! New people move into communities all the time and they need to be informed! There should be a system in place for this.

If you cannot fulfill these shelter/safe room management requirements, then you need to think long and hard whether or not to open your shelter/safe room to the public. Your good intentions conducted poorly could actually cost someone their life. What a travesty that would be!

Be careful out there!

Post by Corey Schultz, AIA, LEED AP BD+C

Public Tornado Shelters/Safe Room Management-Part 3

Tornado Shelter Walls versus Kinetic Energy and Deformation

Growing up, my Dad had sitting on his office desk a little device called Newton’s Cradle. It had 5 suspended steel balls hung from a frame. You raised one of the end balls, let it go and when it hit the others, the one on the opposite end would fly up. This device represents Kinetic Energy. I didn’t understand it at the time but for a kid, it was fun to play with!

Now, using that same principal, think about one’s head leaning up against the exterior wall of a concrete or masonry tornado shelter. On the opposite side of the wall, a 15 pound 2×4 traveling at 100 mph strikes right where one’s head is against the wall. Get the picture?

Along those same lines, the ICC-500 states that a maximum of 3” of permanent deformation of an interior surface is allowed. 3”! So, you are sitting in one of these steel shelters where the only thing between you and the tornado debris is a sheet of steel that can deflect up to 3” and the shelter manufacturer has so conveniently put a built-in bench for you, on the exterior wall of the shelter with the interior surface of the shelter as you back rest. A backrest that can have a permanent deformation of 3”! How do you think one’s skull, spine, and/or shoulder blades are going to react to that potential 3” deformation?

The long and short of this is regardless of the shelter or the shelter material, during a tornadic event, shelter occupants should stay at least 3” away from the exterior walls of the shelter.

Be careful out there!

Post by Corey Schultz, AIA, LEED AP BD+C

Tornado Shelters – Are They Worth the Cost?

There is no doubt that a tornado shelter costs more than normal construction, both in design fees as well as the cost of the construction. Many say that tornadoes occur so infrequently they it is hard to justify the cost. Typically, those are people that have not been affected by one of the wind events, regardless of the intensity. There are eight sets of parents in Enterprise, Alabama, and seven sets in Moore, Oklahoma that lost children to one of the events while the kids were as school. Would they say that the cost of a tornado shelter would have been worth it? You bet they would and they have.

So let’s put the shelter cost into perspective. Currently, the FAA has established that when you step on an airplane, your life is worth $6.9 million. When we design a school shelter for 600 occupants, per the FAA, the total amount of lives would be worth $4.14 Billion (with a “B”). If this shelter has a premium cost of $500,000 – $1 million to protect $4.14 Billion, isn’t that a no brainer?

The need for tornado shelters is a proactive issue. If one waits to support the construction of a shelter until they are affected by an event,…..well, it’s too late just as it was too late for those 15 students in Enterprise and Moore. For some, the cost of a shelter is not worth it as long as it is affecting someone else. Forget what the FAA says, look at it this way; what is YOUR life worth? What is YOUR spouse’s or YOUR child’s life worth? Isn’t that a no brainer?

Post by Corey Schultz, AIA, LEED AP BD+C

Tornado Shelter Revisions in the IBC 2015

It is my understanding that the IBC 2015 will begin printing in June, 2014. There are some changes in that code relative to tornado shelters. A colleague that I have worked with for the past 10 years on the ICC-500 committee was kind enough to provide me with the exact language from the upcoming code. It shall read as follows:

423.3 Critical emergency operations. In areas where the shelter design wind speed for tornadoes per Figure 304.2(1) of ICC 500 is 250 MPH, 911 call stations, emergency operation centers and fire, rescue, ambulance and police stations shall have a storm shelter constructed in accordance with ICC 500.

Exception: Buildings meeting the requirements for shelter design in ICC 500.

423.4 Group E occupancies. In areas where the shelter design wind speed for tornadoes is 250 MPH per Figure 304.2(1) of ICC 500, all Group E Occupancies with an aggregate occupant load of 50 or more shall have a storm shelter constructed in accordance with ICC 500. The shelter shall be capable of housing the total occupant load of the Group E occupancy.

Exceptions:

Group E day care facilities.
Group E occupancies accessory to places of religious worship.
Buildings meeting the requirements for shelter design in ICC 500.

Now with that said, it does in fact have to be adopted by local jurisdiction which here in Kansas can take several years. Other jurisdictions may adopt much sooner. For my designer colleagues out there, pay heed to this revision, especially if you are dealing with projects that are being budgeted today but not designed until later, i.e. school bond issues. You could find yourself caught between a rock and a hard place.

Post by Corey Schultz, AIA, LEED AP BD+C

Public Tornado Shelters/Safe Room Management-Part I

During the week of April 28, 2014, there were a rash of tornado’s that cut swathes of destruction through several communities and took the lives of some 35 individuals. We continue to see more and more tornado shelters/safe rooms being constructed throughout the US. Many of those are private residential shelters/safe rooms but many are also community shelters, some are open to the public and some are not.

This latest round of tornadoes exposed many “chinks in the armor” regarding the operation plan and management of shelters/safe rooms that are open to the public. There are stories out there where shelters/safe rooms were supposed to be opened and were not, or members of the community could not find the shelter/safe room or did not know where the
entry to the shelter/safe room was located. These problems expose a lack of planning and a complete lack of understanding the extreme importance of managing public shelters/safe rooms regardless of the intent.

It is truly fortunate that none of the individuals that were unable to access or locate the shelter/safe room were killed. Tornadic events are NOT the time to work out the kinks in a shelter/safe room operations plan. These are peoples’ lives that were are dealing with and the general public does not want to be a guinea pig when it comes to the use of public shelters.

Opening a tornado shelter/safe room is to the public is admirable and at the same time a huge responsibility. In subsequent blogs, we will explore some of the issues to consider in a shelter/safe room operations plan.

Post by Corey Schultz, AIA, LEED AP BD+C

Public Tornado Shelters/Safe Room Management-Part 2