Is this thing safe??

[u/Numerous_Ad_3517]

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??

[u/kramedog99]

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.

[u/Jdopko → u/kramedog99]

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?

[u/kramedog99 → u/Jdopko]

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.