Texas underground storm shelters9/28/2023 ![]() They elevate the concrete slightly up to the shelter from the garage floor so that it diverts water around it.įor concrete shelters, make sure they’re waterproof. To avoid that, Bourdeau recommends doing what Precision Shelters does. “If they say they’re FEMA compliant, you want to get an independent source to double check on that,” Bourdeau said.įEMA did find one garage floor shelter that filled completely with water after everyone got out. In fact, he has never seen either shelter fail anywhere around the country that met FEMA’s P-320 specification guidelines. “We found that nearly everything performed well,” he said. John Bourdeau is with FEMA, and was part of a team that analyzed how aboveground and below ground shelters held up during May 20th. “I love (that shelter),” she said, “because it saved my life.” I just felt like it was just going to pull that door open, even with it locked like that,” she said.Īlthough she was exposed to the elements before taking shelter, she said the risk was worth it to get underground. “The older you get, it’s harder to get down into underground kinds of things too,” she said.Įlaine Furr was pelted with hail as she ran across the street to her neighbor’s outdoor concrete shelter in Moore, May 20th. Virginia Peters takes all of ten seconds to go from her house to her safe room in her garage. He also says above ground safe rooms are easier to get into for seniors and those with physical disabilities. “You’re not going to get trapped inside this unit.” “It’s virtually impossible to get trapped inside the thing,” he said. “So you can still open the door and try to at least force your way out,” Pettigrew said.īut Webb says above ground safe room doors are safer, because they open inward – so you could crawl out over debris. The underground shelter door slides open. “You take that abnormal circumstance where an actual car actually gets thrown directly at it, then I’d question it (the safety).”īut what about the issue of being stuck inside after the storm? Pettigrew said it’s safer to be underground because tornadoes throw around much heavier items than 2×4’s. “I don’t care where you put this,” he said. “What hits it is not coming through.” Webb’s Armor Vault above ground safe rooms passed that test. They have to withstand a 15 pound 2×4 being projected at 100 miles per hour. Videos of safe rooms and shelters getting tested at Texas Tech’s National Wind Institute shows that change. “People just grew up with people going underground. Technology has developed.” “(That’s) old school,” Mark Webb, owner of Armor Vault responded. “Like the weather people always say, when you’re facing an EF-5, the only way to survive the thing is to be below ground,” Kris Pettigrew, owner of Precision Shelters said. OKLAHOMA CITY - If an EF-5 tornado is bearing down on your house, where would you want to be? In an above ground safe room, or below ground shelter? Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated. This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated.
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