Tornado safe roomsOhio helps resident pay for tornado safe rooms

Many Ohio residents living along “Tornado Alley” have rehearsed their escape plans several times to prepare for the next time a tornado touches ground. In recent years, Ohio has averaged twenty-three tornadoes annually. At least thirty tornadoes were recorded in 2013, while 2014 saw fewer than twenty. The state also experienced winds topping 70 mph during Hurricane Ike in 2008, 100 mph in the derecho during the summer of 2012, and near hurricane-force winds along Lake Erie in northeastern Ohio during superstorm Sandy in the fall of 2012.

To prepare residents, since 2013 the Ohio Emergency Management Agency (EMA) has been helping qualified homeowners pay for safe rooms which can withstand the most destructive windstorms.

The Ohio Safe Room Rebate Program is a lottery system in which qualified applicants’ properties must meet certain environmental requirements. Historic-preservation guidelines are considered for homes which are more than 50-years old. Selected homeowners must first pay to have the safe room built and installed, then the state will issue a rebate for up to 75 percent of the cost.

The Columbus Dispatch reports that Ohio received roughly 900 applications for the first round of rebates and has already received more than 100 in this current fourth round, which has an application deadline of 31 January. Steve Ferryman, a mitigation branch chief with Ohio EMA, said that since the first safe rooms funded by the program were built in 2013, Ohio has reimbursed a total of $405,663 to seventy-two homeowners. Money for an additional forty-three safe rooms has been approved, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which funds the program, is considering approval for an additional twenty-eight safe rooms.

Some residents prefer to rely on their basement to survive a tornado, Ferryman said, but the state has urged residents living in vulnerable areas to apply or reapply for the rebate program even if they were not selected in previous rounds. “If a house collapses and debris falls, where does it go? It goes into the basement,” he said.

Safe rooms protect occupants from flying debris, the greatest threat in a tornado. “We do feel this is the only way to protect yourself from a high wind,” Ferryman said.

Concrete or steel safe rooms can be above-ground, free-standing structures or built underground, designed to withstand enormous amount of force. “Trust me, in a safe room, you’re safe,” said Daniel Clevidence, a mitigation specialist at Ohio EMA who works on the rebate program. While the state does not track the demographics of applicants, Clevidence notes that many applicants tend to be people who have been through a tornado or serious storm before.

Mary Kirstein paid $7,200 for her safe room and received $6,000 from the state. She acknowledges that she would not have spent money on the shelter without assistance from the rebate program. While hoping she never has to use it, “there is great peace of mind in knowing it is there,” Kirstein said. “After living in Texas, where it’s flat land and you can see tornadoes coming for miles, you learn to not underestimate the power of the wind,” Kirstein said. “We didn’t build it for nothing, and we’ll use it if we have to.”