Tag Archives: Plaza Towers

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

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

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