Tornado and extreme winds: choose a refuge in the home
Use renovation planning to identify a low, central interior area away from glazing without claiming an ordinary room is a certified safe room.
VERT / GREEN
Choose the shortest route to the basement or most central interior room and keep it accessible.
JAUNE / YELLOW
Renovation can improve emergency lighting, secured storage, alerts and access to the chosen refuge.
ROUGE / RED
Calling a room a “tornado shelter” without certified design, or using a highly glazed/wide-span area as refuge: do not make structural promises.
Quick triage
What the professional checks
The structural/emergency professional distinguishes refuge planning from a designed safe room and checks heavy contents, glazing, access and services.
Official sources
Checked 2026-08-23
Post-disaster and legacy systems
V32 connects contamination, storm damage, legacy materials and recommissioning before rebuilding.