Prepare to protect: Operating and maintaining a tornado safe room
Abstract
Operating and maintaining a tornado safe room can be critical to the effective continuity of business operations because a firm’s most valuable asset is its people. This paper describes aspects of operations and maintenance (O&M) for existing tornado safe rooms as well as a few planning and design aspects that affect the ultimate operation of a safe room for situations where a safe room is planned, but not yet constructed. The information is based on several Federal Emergency Management Agency safe room publications that provide guidance on emergency management and operations, as well as the design and construction of tornado safe rooms.
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Author's Biography
Andrew Herseth is a physical scientist with the Building Science Branch, Risk Management Directorate at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Headquarters in Washington, DC. Andrew has over 20 years of building science experience, including structural design and forensic engineering. He is licensed as a structural engineer and a professional engineer, and certified as a building inspector by the International Code Council. Andrew is responsible for FEMA’s role in wind engineering guidance and related building codes and standards.
Jennifer Goldsmith-Grinspoon is a physical scientist with the Building Science Branch, Risk Management Directorate at FEMA Headquarters in Washington, DC. She has deployed to more than a dozen disaster events, where she has helped communities rebuild their infrastructure with an eye toward life-safety and reducing or eliminating damages during future events. Jennifer primarily focuses on safe room guidance and multi-hazard mitigation.
Pataya Scott works in the Resiliency Engineering and Security group at AECOM in Germantown, MD and is also working on her PhD in wind engineering from Texas Tech University. She has over six years of experience in the safe room and storm shelter industry. She has contributed to the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s recent publication updates on safe room design and construction guidance.
Citation
Herseth, Andrew, Goldsmith-Grinspoon, Jennifer and Scott, Pataya (2017, June 1). Prepare to protect: Operating and maintaining a tornado safe room. In the Journal of Business Continuity & Emergency Planning, Volume 10, Issue 4. https://doi.org/10.69554/CDQJ8987.
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