In this case, it’s important to have a safe place to hide in your home, especially if damage has already occurred and evacuating from your area has been deemed too dangerous to do so once the hurricane makes landfall. They can easily turn in direction or pick up more speed, making a once-safe area now in the path of a severe storm. In other cases, evacuations aren’t mandatory, and residents may stay if they feel safe in doing so with what they know about the incoming storm.īut, just like other weather phenomena, hurricanes can be unpredictable. In many cases, there may be a mandatory evacuation issued by your county-in this evacuation, you must leave your home and seek shelter in a safer area as experts have determined your area may experience life-threatening storm conditions.

This would become our in-house safe room, made to become our safe haven for future hurricanes, tornados, or severe storms. In 2006, when my parents decided to add on a new addition to the home, they made room for one special room, covered with thick concrete walls and ceiling, and reinforced with rebar steel. Although evacuation is the best and only option in many circumstances-and you should always follow the emergency directives put out by the National Weather Service-my parents did everything they could to make hunkering down at home as safe as possible for all of us. Stuff like tossing all our patio furniture into our pool to prevent it from becoming a projectile during hurricane-force winds, waterproofing all of our important documents and most cherished photos, and packing up all of our most important things, our pets, and flying or driving out to a state where we knew we’d be safe, leaving behind a house we just might not come back to.Īs natural homebodies, my parents couldn’t bear the idea of leaving behind their home because of an incoming hurricane.

Growing up on the coast of Florida, I became aware of the real dangers of hurricane season at a young age, and what it meant for my family.

Diy metal saferoom