Concrete Safe Rooms

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Residential safe rooms can take several forms:

• a room that normally serves another purpose, such as a bathroom or closet, and that has been strengthened (or "hardened') to resist wind forces and the impacts of wind borne debris
• a room specifically designed and constructed to serve a shelter space only 
• an underground space created beneath the floor o a house or an attached garage 

residential safe rooms can be built onsite in a new or existing home or can be manufactured units delivered to the site and installed.  A safe room can be built or installed anywhere in a house, but it must be a 'room within a room' . That is, its wall, ceilings, and floor must be structurally separate from the rest of the house, so that even if the surrounding house is destroyed, the safe room will remain intact. 

Properly designed and constructed in-residence safe rooms are  preferable because they offer several advantages over exterior shelters:

• the occupants of a house equipped with an internal safe rooms can reach the shelter without having to leave the house and risk exposure to high winds and debris, lightning, or other storm conditions
• an internal safe room can be reached more quickly and easily
• For those reasons, the occupants of a house with an internal safe room are likely to protect themselves adequately 

In some situations however, building or installing an exterior shelter may be the only practical choice. For example, incorporating an in-residence safe room into an existing house may be impractical when extensive modifications to the structure of the house are necessary. For manufactured homes, an exterior shelter is usually the only practical solution 

Hardening a bathroom or closet to serve as a safe room makes more efficient use of the space than building a room that serves as a safe room only