Family Says Homemade Safe Room Saved Their Lives

We got our first taste of Spring's wicked weather Monday. That's when a line of thunderstorms marched across Oklahoma, flipping a trailer home near Ada and killing a woman inside.

But would you feel safe riding out a twister in a tornado shelter you built yourself? A family says their homemade safe room saved their lives.

2011 will be remembered for decades as the year of the killer tornado.  Piedmont, Oklahoma; Joplin, Missouri; and the Super Outbreak in the deep South were the major events that produced the usually rare EF5 tornado.

These monster twisters were not a rare event in 2011. In fact, a record 6 tornadoes were rated that strong with winds over 200 mph and causing  290 deaths. Only two EF-5 tornadoes occurred the previous four years, by comparison.

On April 27th, 2011, more than 350 tornadoes were spawned in one violent spring afternoon. 322 people were killed, hundreds more were injured and thousands were left homeless.

As people rebuild from that massive disaster, some are looking at lessons learned from the tragedy to plan ahead for the next storm season.

Kevin and Sarah Beth Harrison and their toddlers Mason and Sophie made news around the world last year after an EF5 tornado plowed through their Huntsville, Alabama suburb.

Kevin and Sarah Beth are engineers and Kevin's dad is a concrete mason.  They researched the government guidelines for building a reinforced room to withstand winds of 250 mph and built their own above-ground tornado safe room out of reinforced concrete. It saved their lives.

"We decided, let's go ahead, it was that first year, and we put a safe room in the garage," Kevin Harrison said. "We saw where they shoot stuff at safe room walls, and we remembered the 8" block wall being poured solid and my dad deals with that kind of material as a concrete mason.  We rebarred it and poured it solid, put a roof on top and used a steel door."

They followed the  FEMA 320 guidelines.  FEMA says you should use qualified materials such as reinforced concrete, a quality-tested door, proper ventilation and you should use its guidelines on where to place the shelter.

Safe rooms are not an option for everyone. Some people don't have the resources. Residents of apartment complexes and mobile home parks need a community shelter solution instead.  But for those who live in wood frame homes, the above-ground safe room may be the best answer.