Your Home Is Your Fortress?

The Washington Post ^ | 030303 | By Ellen McCarthy

[Archangelsk]

Your Home Is Your Fortress?
Maryland Firm Bets a 'Safe Room' Boom Is at Hand

By Ellen McCarthy
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, March 3, 2003; Page E01

You can keep your duct tape and your flimsy gas masks. Jeff Quante prefers steel. Several thousand pounds of it, actually, with reinforced screws and bullet-resistant glass. It should be big enough for at least two people, protected with high-security locks and attached to an air purification system. And if that steel is painted silver with black accents like a Cadillac -- well, all the better.

The safe-room business is not big; there are no numbers available that show how many of these ultimate-security products are sold in the United States each year, but it is probably a relatively small market served by custom construction companies. Zytech Engineering LLC, a Maryland manufacturing company, hopes to be one of them, and is taking a decidedly proletarian tack. While safe rooms, which are designed to guard inhabitants from hazards ranging from bullets to mustard gas, have mostly been sold to high-ranking government officials and especially fearful and rich private citizens, Quante and his partners are laboring under the hope that, very soon, everyone in America will be wanting one.

"Once you're in here, the bad guys stay out there," claims the serious, dark-suited announcer on Zytech's television commercials. Sturdy young men in hard hats portray villains pounding away with sledgehammers, but the structure appears impenetrable and a previously vulnerable family is shown frolicking happily through a green field by the end of the ad.

[Archangelsk]

Have we become such a bunch of fearful, little pissants that it has come to this?!? There was a time, at least so I'm told, that men were tough and knew how to defend hearth and home rather than cowering in a safe. I'll take some heat for saying this, but any guy who seriously considers this as a measure for his family better put on a pair of panties and learn to zip it on the side.

[joesnuffy]

trapped like a rat in your "safe" room....while they burn you out?
No thanks rather teach everyone in the house hold how to shoot...and we cause them to pick someone easier

[dawn53]

There was a time when I was growing up when many Americans had bomb shelters.

If someone lives in tornado country and has a "storm cellar" are they overreacting?

[Puppage]

Gimme a break. A tornado doesn't CHOOSE where to hit/land, etc. Criminals, on the otherhand make a choice.

[Archangelsk]

There was a time when I was growing up when many Americans had bomb shelters.

If someone lives in tornado country and has a "storm cellar" are they overreacting?

Different issues. The Soviet Union could obliterate a city with their long range bombers. Tornados are regular occurrences in the midwest. Building a bomb shelter or having a storm cellar was prudent at the time.

That said, the chances of anyone outside of a major financial center or government town getting killed by an act of terrorism is so remote it's laughable. Like I said, I'll take some heat, but this afraid-of-our-own-shadow act is making me testy.

[dawn53]

I think the author of the article was talking about terrorism and the need for a safe room in the event of chemical or biological agents. I think the chances of my being affected are pretty slim, but I can no more predict where terrorism will hit, than I can where a tornado will hit.

If someone wants to make themselves a safe room, so what. They've had safe rooms in Israel for years, and I wouldn't exactly call the Israeli people wimps.

[AFreeBird]

I'll take some heat for saying this, but any guy who seriously considers this as a measure for his family better put on a pair of panties and learn to zip it on the side.

Well, as the Boy Scouts are fond of saying: "Be Prepared".

Nothing wrong with providing defenses against a multitude of scenarios. I have shotguns, handguns and long guns, but they can't do jack $#!t against tiny little microscopic bugs, or gaseous chemicals.

The US Military seems to think the same way as well, considering that they have NBC suits, sealed armor and APC's.

[jjm2111]

Here's an interesting story. I was on the subway and a gangbanger wearing Crip colors was playing rap music LOUD on a boom box. 100 years ago a handful of Gentlemen would have told him to turn off the music. Now no-one (yours truly included) will. The crooks are armed and you are not, and if you struck some punk teenager for being disrespectful you'd be the one in jail.

Crazy world.

[freeper12]

>> the chances of anyone outside of a major financial center or government town getting killed by an act of terrorism is so remote it's laughable.

I agree, and the chances of someone knocking down the WTC with airplanes is just as ridiculous...it could never happen.

[Archangelsk]

I agree, and the chances of someone knocking down the WTC with airplanes is just as ridiculous...it could never happen.

Once again, apples and oranges. Also, reread my post about major financial centers and government town. Terrorists know where to get the best bang for the buck. That's why they didn't attack a corn field or a suburban community center.

I stand by my statement, we are becoming a nation of weenies and fraidy cats.

[blau993]

I'll stick with my plastic and duct tape. I've got the parameters of my room all figured out, including access to the wine cellar.