Building a Tornado Safe Room in your home.

Building a Tornado Safe Room in your home.
Every family needs to have a designated space in their home to use as a shelter from a tornado.

Caveat emptor - The following is just an opinion built on personal experience and expert training.
Use at your own discretion.

I live in north Texas, just north of the Dallas and Fort Worth Metroplex. Every couple of years or so we have a storm large enough to produce tornadoes, and they do. We have seen what the weather service call EF1, EF2 or maybe as large as a EF3 tornado. So far the big EF5, which they say we're over due for, hasn't happened. Tornadoes are rated by the National Weather Service on the Enhanced Fujita scale. An EF3 is strong enough to do serious damage to your home but leave interior walls standing. So it make sense to take shelter in an interior part of your home during a tornado warning. A room like a walk-in closet that IS NOT on an exterior wall. If you live in a home that has a crawl space or basement, then getting below the floor is the best place to take cover. But here in Texas and Oklahoma, most all new homes are built on concrete slabs.

But what can you do to build a shelter in your home to protect yourself from the damaging winds of a tornado? You can build an interior room with additional strength to give it the ability to remain standing if your home is in the path of a tornado. It all depends on how much you are willing to spend to reinforce this room. My clients take this matter seriously and so do I. Although I realize that here in Texas we have more State Lottery winners than we have tornado victims. Meaning, you have a better chance of winning the Lottery than being a victim of a tornado. However, more and more of our clients are asking what can they do to protect themselves from a tornado.

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