Safe Rooms: An Analysis of Adoption and Implementation
In the early 1990s, the Federal Emergency Management Agency began working to implement a program that involved the construction of safe rooms for eligible applicants. Recently, the Natural Hazard Mitigation Association completed Hide from the Wind Tornado Safe Rooms in Central Oklahoma, which documents how the program now provides needed safe rooms and storm shelters for thousands of people at the risk of severe tornadoes. Additionally, the State of Texas has developed dual-purpose community safe rooms in coastal county school districts that have culminated in best practices and the Texas Safe Room Handbook. This session will discuss the ways in which the advances by Texas and Oklahoma are just the beginning of an enormous change in risk perception and their impact on national efforts to protect the United States from increasing risk and build a more resilient society in an era of climate vulnerability, uncertainty, and sea-level rise.
