Residential Safe Rooms: Background and Research (2003)
A residential safe room is a small, specially designed (“hardened”) room, such as a bathroom or closet, or other space within the house that is intended to provide a place of refuge only for the people who live in the house. In areas subject to extreme-wind events, homeowners should consider building a residential safe room. Wind hazards, such as those associated with tornadoes and hurricanes, vary throughout the United States. The decision to build a safe room will be based largely on the magnitude of the wind hazard in a given area and on the level of risk considered acceptable.