18.2 The shelter room in your home or apartment

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Reference case: a household with adults and small pets, on the ground floor of a 2–3 story wood-frame complex. Adapt whatever differs in your home. Chapter 10 explains where to go during a tornado and chapter 15 the logic of the fallout shelter. This section is about preparing that room ahead of time so it works for several days.

How to choose it

No exterior walls, or as few as possible.
No windows. If it has one, make it a small one that you can cover with mass.
Near water: the interior bathroom is almost always the best choice (tub, sink, toilet).
Away from the front door and the sliding patio door. With enough space. For a tornado, FEMA calls for at least 3 ft² (0.28 m²) per person in a residential safe room; for a hurricane, 7 ft² (0.65 m²), because the stay is longer. For a chemical leak, the American Red Cross estimates 10 ft² (0.9 m²) per person for about 5 hours of air (see chapter 16).

In practice, a typical interior bathroom measures between 35 and 50 ft² (3–4.5 m²) including the tub: enough for your household to hold out for minutes or hours, not days. That is why it is worth thinking in terms of a core zone: the interior bathroom plus the adjoining hallway and closet. Use the bathroom in the most dangerous phase (tornado, first hours of fallout, chemical cloud) and the core zone for sleeping and living when the danger allows, following the authorities' instructions.

How to prepare it (one weekend)

Measure the room and the core zone. Write down the dimensions of each window, vent grille, and exhaust fan: you need them to cut the plastic.
Clear it out. Remove whatever is in the way and leave floor space so everyone can sit or lie down.
Install fixed items that need no construction: a battery-powered carbon monoxide detector, a smoke detector in the hallway (see chapter 9), an adhesive hook for the flashlight and the radio.
Keep the shelter kit inside or next to it: a labeled container with the sealing kit, filter, flashlights, radio, first-aid kit, and sanitation supplies (full list on the sheet at the end of this chapter).
Plan the mass: decide which furniture and containers go against which wall (section 18.3) and leave most of it already in place if you can.
Rehearse. Once a year, time it: everyone inside, with the pets and the kit, in under 2 minutes. Then set up the full seal and measure how long it takes.

Figure 18.1. Example of a ground-floor apartment with a core zone (interior bathroom, hallway, and closet), added mass on the core walls facing the bedrooms and living room, and equipment placement. Your floor plan will be different: apply the same logic. — **Figure 18.1.** Example of a ground-floor apartment with a core zone (interior bathroom, hallway, and closet), added mass on the core walls facing the bedrooms and living room, and equipment placement. Your floor plan will be different: apply the same logic.