Storm shelters and safe rooms

What is the difference?

People use the terms loosely. In code language, a storm shelter is a structure built to the ICC 500 standard. FEMA uses the term safe roomfor a shelter that meets FEMA's criteria in FEMA P-361 (community and residential) or FEMA P-320 (homes and small businesses), which build on ICC 500 and are stricter in some respects. For a homeowner, both mean a small, hardened room meant to protect people from extreme wind and flying debris.

Why an ordinary room is not enough

FEMA explains that in a 250 mph wind, a 15 lb wood 2x4 can travel at about 100 mph, enough to go through most common home walls. An interior closet helps, but it is not designed to stop that kind of debris. A tested shelter or safe room is.

Your options

• In-garage shelters: A steel or concrete unit installed in the garage, either set into the slab below the floor or bolted to the slab as an above-ground room. You reach it without stepping outside.
• In-ground (underground) shelters: A buried steel, fiberglass or concrete shelter in the yard or under a new slab, entered through a door or hatch at ground level.
• Above-ground safe rooms: A steel or reinforced concrete room anchored to a concrete slab, inside the home (a closet or interior room) or outdoors on its own pad.

Questions to ask any installer

• Has this exact model, including its door, been tested to ICC 500 and FEMA P-361? Can I see the test report?
• How will it be anchored, and has anyone checked my slab or soil?
• Who pulls the permit, and is the price all-in (delivery, excavation, anchoring, permit)?
• What warranty comes with the shelter and with the installation?
• Can the shelter be registered with my local emergency management office? Some Texas communities keep a voluntary registry so responders know where to look.
• Do you carry general liability insurance? Can I see a certificate?