The room isn’t particularly large – it measures 8′ x 5′ – which is the right size for a closet and for a temporary safe room … just not the right size if you wanted to play the Milton Bradley game of “ Twister” What we have here is a single layer of 14 gauge steel plate sheathing – “minimally attached.” It looks pretty good so I’ll have to remember this for the next “living the dream” loft project I take on. This is a modern house but it isn’t so modern that the clients wanted raw plates of steel left exposed. I took these pictures when I was on site in late December – most of what you see in these images has long since been covered up and won’t be as interesting to look at moving forward. It’s a pretty good idea considering that some rooms have a fair amount of floor to ceiling glass walls. The owner elected not to go that far but other than the foundation, he wanted a viable tornado room … let’s call it a “safe” room. Since the foundation for the house was already poured, the wood floor joists in place, and walls were getting framed into place, my response to his request was “how serious are you about making this a “real” tornado shelter?” Unless you buy pre-made units – like the DuPont™ StormRoom™ with Kevlar® you have to follow certain construction rules – which in our case would have meant ripping out part of the foundation so we could isolate the portion where the tornado room would be built. We didn’t originally design this tornado shelter into the project but after an area not to far from the location of this house was hit by several tornadoes last summer, I received a phone call from the client requesting that we add one to the project. Following up on that, I live in Texas and we have a tornado shelter in the Cottonwood modern project I have been working on. Following up on that, Texas has more tornadoes than any other state.
You might be surprised to learn that more tornadoes hit the United States than any other country in the world. Tornadoes are the most violent of all atmospheric storms. Because wind is invisible, it is hard to see a tornado unless it forms a condensation funnel made up of water droplets, dust and debris. A tornado is a narrow, violently rotating column of air that extends from the base of a thunderstorm to the ground.
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