Is It Possible To Build a Safe Room to Withstand Cat 5 Wind?

[themusk]

Plenty of researchers have worked out exactly how to build such a safe room and, yes, its very doable. If you contact your local Emergency Management office they might even be able to point you at local firms qualified to construct you a safe room.

FEMA has a lot of information available on safe rooms, mostly focused on tornados. But the only significant difference between a tornado safe room and a hurricane safe room (assuming you're out of the storm surge) is that hurricane rooms need to have more ventilation (because you spend more time sheltering from a hurricane than from a tornado). Anything constructed well enough to protect you from a major tornado is plenty strong to protect you from a major hurricane. Major tornados are more destructive than major hurricanes, and home safe rooms kept their inhabitants safe during the Moore OK F5.

(Edited to provide a link: Safe Rooms and Community Shelters )

[NorthGaWeather]

Except for that one steel re-inforced safe room I saw with an S-10 pickup truck laying in the middle of it where the family was suppose to be. Safe rooms will keep you safe hence the name but everyone agrees a large object traveling at a very high rate of speed 170 MPH or greater will severly damage a safe room. Good thing hurricanes aren't as strong as tornadoes. I just want to know why would one build a safe room for a hurricane. You may face one hurricane and waste money for nothing when you could evac. The house would still be destroyed in a major cane but your willing to remain at the house and face severe conditions.

[abajan]

...abajan....i am not doubting you by any means i was just interested if you had a link to anything that would describe the "curing" of concrete

Sorry, I don't. I saw this stuff about concrete on Discovery Channel (I think) some time ago. Some builders have told me pretty much the same thing about concrete taking many years to achieve its optimal strength.

You might try a Google search on the subject, though.

[inotherwords]

I just want to know why would one build a safe room for a hurricane.

That's easy: Charley. To me, the safe room (or in my case, the safe second story) would be where I'd go if I got caught in a last minute intensification, or was unable to evacuate due to gas shortages or bumper to bumper traffic jams. Another example is Hurricane Gabrielle which came directly in here in Sept. 2001. We had almost no notice of that one, it formed in the gulf and came directly in my town barely at hurricane strength (in fact it was upgraded to hurricane status later), but nobody had time to put up any plywood or anything. And yeah, it was only a borderlne Cat. 1, but if it had been out in the gulf even a few more hours, it would have intensified a lot more, according to some of the NOAA pilots I spoke with soon afterward for a feature article I wrote.

I also have an extensive library of antique books and ephemera. While I know there's no guarantee they'd make it, I'd feel a lot better about these things surviving on the second floor with a lot of reinforcement all around them.

Granted, if a Cat 4 or 5 is bearing down on me and I have a logical place to evacuate in time, I'll go. But as we saw with Frances, sometimes there is no easy decision to leave, and by the time you see the whole state will be affected, there's often noplace to go but out of the state, and by the time you know this, it's sometimes too late. I can see riding out a Cat I to III in a safe room but riding out stronger storms would only be in a situation where I have no other alternative.

[Persepone]

Abajan - glad to see you are back (?) on line...

[sprink52]

Build a Bank Vault inside your home. Provide for ventilation and last but not least a strong jack. Use the jack if required to open the door after the storm which may be blocked by accumulated debris.

[jlauderdal]

There's a solution - Expensive, yes but a solution nonetheless. Build it out of steel - nothing but steel.

doesnt have to be steel...reinforced concrete although the concrete is reinforced with steel mesh. lets not go overboard here...thisngs do remain standing in a cat 5.

[abajan]

Abajan - glad to see you are back (?) on line...

Thanks, Persepone but I was actually back online since Tuesday morning (or was that afternoon? I forget - either way, it was a miracle)!

(Of course I know that with so many posts being made by many people recently, it's easy to miss messages by specific posters.)


If you're willing to dig through many pages to find the subject "Report from Barbados", you'll be able to see how Barbados feared in Ivan.

[Orlando_wx]

try this link

http://www.usbunkers.com/

john

[HurricaneJim]

Monolithic Dome houses are pretty interesting. Not that they'd get past the homeowners assoc, but they'll take some serious hits and keep standing. Watertight bulkheads from a navy scrap yard would make it invulnerable.

Jim