Posted on 03/21/2006 1:44:58 PM PST by finnman69
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - With red flags flying high for the 2006 hurricane season, consumers who are thinking about sprucing up their homes this year may be better off adding a lifesaving "storm room" instead of that fancy whirlpool.
Chemical maker DuPont (Research), which invented such products as nylon, Teflon and the bullet-resistant Kevlar fiber, has been testing the market for pre-built storm rooms in the tornado-prone regions of Texas and Oklahoma for the past two years.
DuPont says its 'storm room', made of bullet-resistant Kevlar, can provide protection against wind speeds of up to 250 miles an hour.
The FEMA certified Kevlar storm room can also serve as a walk-in closet or a wine cellar.
"We worked with a few authorized distributors in those regions and found that the concept was well received," said DuPont spokesman Anthony Farina, adding that the company later expanded the pilot test to hurricane-affected areas like Florida.
"Farina said DuPont's storm rooms are certified by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) as a protective shelter against tornadoes and even a powerful category 5 hurricane.
Additionally, the walls and door are reinforced with Kevlar, the same material used in bullet-resistant vests.
According to company information, Kevlar is five times stronger than steel and provides a powerful and highly resistant barrier against wind borne debris, which Farina said is one of the leading causes of injuries in major hurricanes.
The pre-built storm room comes in two sizes of 4 feet by 6 feet and 4 feet by 8 feet but the custom-made sizes can vary, Farina said."
(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...
Or for us married guys ... for those times when the little woman is ... shall we say ... being visited by her little friend?
I would like to buy one of these round and padded inside, so I could try to ride a tornado.
The author's an idiot who felt the need to shoehorn the recent hurricane prediction into the story of a product that is clearly designed for tornado alley.
So who goes in the room? (ducking and covering)
Make sure it has wheels on it.
When I was a kid growing up in KS, we lived at a house accross from the railyards. Somebody had buried a railroad tank car in our backyard for a storm or bomb shelter. Of course, for a kid, this was a submarine.
Just big enough for a twin bed, a computer/TV, a microwave, and a small fridge full of beer.
Ahem....ahem.........wellsir.....I'm a'guessin' if the missus reads what you just wrote, you're gonna be needin' a kevlar vest double-quick.
[...............damned good idea, though.......................]
HAHAHAHA .... luckily she's out shopping!!!
Or at least a kevlar jockstrap!
My folks just talked to a rep and ordered one of these to be installed in their garage. Not a bad setup, really. You can order with all sorts of amenities inside, so if the weather service says "tornado", you can be quite comfortable sitting in there for several hours. There are several more sizes in the catalog my Mom showed me this weekend.
If we build another house, I'm considering putting one of these in myself. Tennessee ain't Oklahoma, but we get our share of "watches" and "warnings", fer dang sure.
This thread would be an ideal place to plant an ad for my house in central CT.
9 rooms, .4 acre, with 18x11 shelter with 16 inch concrete reinforced walls and 16" ceiling all below ground, for sale.
Thank you for your support.
Hey moderators...if you have this kind of shelter you should be able to post it too!
I would have loved one for all the years we lived in W. TX and the Dallas area (where we actually were hit by the tornado that hit DeSoto/Lancaster in 1994). It would have really set my mind at ease, to know there was a really safe spot to herd all the kids into. I'm way less afraid of hurricanes, even after being in several the past 2 years.
susie
I recall a documentary about a primitive tribe in a jungle somewhere. Evidently, their principal contribution to civilization has been forgotten or has yet to be realized: they had constructed a large hut on the perimeter of the village, which was used exclusively to house women during their monthly visitation. At other times they were allowed to return to their family huts.
Geez, guys, you don't need one of these structures. Just a pound of Godiva Chocolate and tickets for YOU to take the kids out to a movie should be plenty. LOL
movie of 2x4 being shot out of a cannon into the shelter
http://www.stormroom.dupont.com/media/Cannon.mpg
FEMA 320- Taking Shelter From the Storm: Building a Safe Room Inside Your House
http://www.fema.gov/txt/fima/fema320.txt
In a series of tests conducted by an independent lab, the engineered panels built into the DuPont StormRoom™ with Kevlar® were able to deflect a 12-foot, 15-pound two-by-four piece of wood shot out of a cannon at 100 miles per hour. This represents the speed that a 250 miles per hour wind during a tornado would propel the timber. View some of the testing conducted at Texas Tech.
With a strong steel door it would make a nifty gun safe.
I would think a rebar reinforced concrete room would be just as safe and cost half as much.
I was wondering if it could float.
I was thinking the same thing myself, plus you get mass which would provide you radiation shielding.
I live in Kansas and we have a great feature in the homes here. It is a room underground with access from either inside your house or from outside. It's called a basement!
Or you could use a car, like this guy: The Tornado Rider
How about a good Army surplus CONEX container? ; > )
Don't forget storm beds
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/4490864.html
And you can make it yourself - if you have a welder, sheet steel, etc, etc......
Likewise, I thought those that lived in tornado alley had below ground shelters.
I saw a news piece a while back about a professor that built an air gun that could shoot 2x4s at ~225mph. For the purpose of
testing what it would take to build a tornado resistant shelter at minimal cost. But that was with reinforced
concrete or brick.
BTW, what's the useful life of kevlar? Doesn't it lose its effectiveness?
Sixteen-inch ceiling? I'm sure most folks would like something a bit taller.
Oh yeah! Absolutely!
Strange, the girls and I never really thought of it as a "friend". More like a big pain in the b**t.
I keep telling Mrs. Slim I want a walk-in gun closet.
Now all you need is to tile the inside of it and put in a steam generator and you've got the perfect home steamroom.
You mean the red tornado?
Great if you can have a basement. My grandma in northern Oklahoma had a basement. However, just south of central Oklahoma the water table is too high. My brother ended up with an indoor pool under his front porch...where the 'fraidy hole was supposed to be. It really wouldn't have been comfortable during a storm.
Aunt Flo?
See my post #37. Then there are also places like Austin, TX. We live on rock. I think we have 2 or 3 inches of dirt on top of the rock. The cost of drilling into the rock to put in a shelter is extreme. Believe it or not you won't find that many backyard pools here for that same reason. Had the hubby move a shrub one day. Thought it would be an easy job. Only took 4 hours as he had to almost drill the hole. No shrubs have been moved or planted since.
I know. But we had to buy a house in one of those stupid HOAs and they don't like the explosive things. It would make life easier!
...oops! Thankfully our yard was already landscaped when we bought it. It was just that one shrub that was in a really strange spot.
Damm HOAs...
Um...do they float?
They showed on on the Extreme Home Makeover show a week ago. They built a house in Oklahoma. The one they showed didn't have a floor because they needed the air flow under the walls into the room. So I don't think they float. At least not that model.
You are probably right. In an F-5 underground would be the only place to be. But the shelter is better than nothing in lesser tornadoes where most people are killed by flying objects and not from being swept away.
Aunt Flo?
A 16" ceiling!!! Ya' have to be mighty short thar partner....
***Tennessee ain't Oklahoma,***
What do you mean! Remember the tornado that tore up down town Nashville?
But, in down town Nashville, who would notice?
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