Planning having a Safe Room for your
house
The movie Panic Room was praised mainly for its
impressive script and cinematography. Other than that, people have
to thank this movie for bringing into light the importance of having
a panic room or a safe room even though the circumstances are not as
harsh as the ones in the movie. Even without millions to rob from
your house, it is also practical to have a safe room for emergency
cases after all these rooms will serve as your abode should there be
anything that will cause you to keep yourself away from harm. There
are two main reasons why you should keep a safe room or a panic room
and we shall discuss this before we go into planning of building
your own version in your own home.
The first reason is for security reasons. This is part of our being
vigilant and being ready in case bad intruders force their way into
our homes. It is best if your houses have easy exits so that it is
easier to run out and ask for help but if your house is a complex
structure and there is no way to have lots of easy exits or no space
to go out to then a panic room is your best option. You can run into
your panic room during this sort of situation.
The second reason why safe rooms should be built is because of the
weather. If you live in an area where any sort of natural disaster
like storms or tornadoes are frequent visitors then do not think
twice about building a safe room because having one can be your
ticket to staying alive. The National Weather Service has quite a
large number of details of casualties caused by tornadoes. It is sad
because the deaths could have been prevented by having safe rooms to
run to.
Planning the things that should be inside the safe room and the
architecture of the safe room should be thought about but first
thing in mind should be the location. The usual location for safe
rooms is the basement so if you have a basement or if you have an
area in your lot wherein you can dig in and build a basement safe
room then that should be the first choice. There are cases though
wherein a certain area of the house can be assigned as the safe
room. After the location, the next important thing is the material
of the structure.
The safe room should be built from something sturdy because it
should be able to withstand both man made and natural factors. In
the movie, the room was made of 4 inch steel that kept the bullets
away. In other movies with weather as the destructive factor, the
safe rooms are built of more than just wood to keep away the water
and the wind from easily destroying the infrastructure.
There should always be a telephone in your safe or panic room and it
would be intelligible for this phone line to be independent of your
existing phone line that might be easily cut off by bad elements.
Other than a phone line, it would be wise to have ready food and
water supply should you be trapped longer than you expected. A first
aid kit will surely come in handy as well. |
