Those schools will be receiving federal assistance aimed at incorporating safe rooms into temporary facilities that are expected to be completed by November when the fall tornado season that begins.
In August, FEMA awarded more than $1 million to help the schools build safe rooms into their temporary school facilities as they recover from April’s tornadoes.
Though the safe rooms and school facilities are temporary , they are being built to the same standards as permanent structures, according to Art Faulkner, director of the Alabama Emergency Management Agency. “Some of the places where they’re putting these temporary school facilities are in locations where they wouldn’t be able to leave it there long term,” Faulkner said. “In that situation, they would remove this modular unit and it would not stay there past the time that the temporary school facility was there.”
The state is building tornado shelters that are designed for a two-hour duration rather than hurricane shelters that are rated for 24 hours because of the limited warning available for a tornado, said Alabama Building Commission Director Katherine Lynn. “In our public schools, the thinking is that if there’s a hurricane that’s predicted, the school systems will know well in advance of when that event occurs, and they will dismiss school. With a tornado, you may have 15 minutes [notice] that a tornado is going to hit or it’s been spotted.”
Faulkner said the construction of the safe rooms conforms with FEMA requirements.
The four schools that combined serve more than 2,400 qualified for funding on a 75 percent federal, 25 percent state and local cost-sharing basis.
Two Hours of Safety
The five schools are building tornado-rated safe rooms designed to keep occupants safe for two hours following the storm. The structures are being built to withstand 200 to 250 mph winds, and the force of a 15-pound, two by four-inch piece of wood traveling at 100 mph against the outside of the structure. The safe rooms also provide minimal light, between 5 to10 square feet per person, toilet facilities, a fire extinguisher and a first aid kit.
“That will keep people in that shelter safe for two hours,” said Lynn, “which is what we anticipate it would take for emergency or first responders to get to that shelter and get people out.”
To receive funding assistance, the superintendent of the school system explained to the federal coordinating officer the nature of the space intended for the safe room and whether it was a new facility or it was to be built in conjunction with a damaged facility. If the safe room was to be new construction, then the request had to describe the students and staff to be served and show that the request was cost-effective because there was no existing structure that could serve the same purpose.
According to a news release, FEMA left the selection of the construction standards up to the states. Lynn said Alabama decided to implement International Code Council 500 standard that describes requirements for building storm shelters. “It’s a very easy thing to enforce because it’s written in code language,” she said.
In 2010, the state passed a law requiring all new school construction to include a tornado shelter following a tornado that struck Enterprise High School in March 2007, killing eight students and severely damaging several buildings.
As a result of the law, the Alabama Building Commission adopted International Code Council 500 to set standards for the construction of safe rooms in conjunction with schools. Prior to the law’s passage, Lynn said builders complied with FEMA’s guidance for building and operating safe rooms.
