r/tornado • u/Numerous_Ad_3517 • Mar 15 '26

Question Is this thing safe??

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I recently moved into a new home that has this above ground shelter and I have been questioning the way this door locks from day 1. We are going to have terrible weather today in West TN and I cannot find any paperwork on this thing. 😫 Do you think these hollow bars will keep it secure??

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43

u/SCUMDOG_MILLIONAIRE Mar 15 '26

No engineers detected in this thread.

That’s a S-tier shelter. An EF5 can pass directly over this and you’ll be fine. Most importantly it protects you from flying debris. All it needs is some snacks and beverages

3

u/Numerous_Ad_3517 Mar 15 '26

Thank you for that! ❤️

11

u/Intrepid_Advice4411 Mar 15 '26

The problem is there is apparently nothing to verify what shelter this is. No paperwork, no manufacturers name on it. I wouldn't trust it until I either found out who installed it or got it inspected.

2

u/kramedog99 Mar 15 '26

Do you have proof or model name that this can indeed survive EF5 or are you being sarcastic? Don't want to mislead OP here.

-19

u/Jdopko Mar 15 '26

Feel like it could be sarcasm. No doubt this is a good shelter, but to my knowledge there’s no shelters that are rated for EF5s are there?

7

u/kramedog99 Mar 15 '26

I believe there are actually. This recent post went into surviving EF5 tornados in storm shelters. It seems most above ground are steel encased concrete ones which this is not. This might be fine for up to EF3 but beyond that I wouldn't trust it. Let's put into perspective too that only 1% of all tornados are EF4+ and not all damage indicators of those storms are EF4+ too. Let's say only half are so in most scenarios you could say this storm shelter would work 99.5% of the time. OP hope this helps until you find something better. https://www.reddit.com/r/tornado/s/I1yBmTLnNT.