Keeping what’s important to You safe

Time and Motion Study

A very important tool in determining the appropriate location for an emergency shelter for a home is a "Motion and Time Study". It is important to determine the time it will take for each family member to reach the safe room from living and sleeping quarters. Tornadoes usually strike with little advanced warning. Most tornado survivors say that they had less than one minute to seek shelter when they found that they were about to be hit by the tornado. Bear in mind that movement may have to be done in darkness and outside under very hazardous conditions.

Example

Assume you have determined the following travel times for various legs of the trip from a child's room to the safe room. The following is an example of the child's travel time.

StormCloset in First Floor Closet
Leg of Trip to Emergency Shelter Travel Time (seconds)
1. Bedroom to upstairs hallway 6 seconds
2. Hallway to top of stairway 5   
3. Top of stairway to bottom of stairway 10   
4. Stairway to doorway of safe room 5   
5. Through hallway safe room door 2   
   Total travel time     28 seconds
   Alert/Wake-up time     15   
   Lock-down time     10   
   Total time to shelter     53 seconds
Outside Underground Tornado Shelter
Leg of Trip to Emergency Shelter Travel Time (seconds)
1. Bedroom to hallway closet 26 seconds
2. Hallway closet door to rear exit door 9   
3. Rear exit door to bottom of outside stair 9   
4. Outside stair to shelter door 12   
5. Open shelter door 3   
6. Down stairs into shelter 7   
   Total travel time     66 seconds
   Alert/Wake-up time     15   
   Lock-down time     10   
   Total time to shelter     91 seconds

Conclusion

When precious seconds count, seeking shelter in an outside underground storm shelter can add as much 41% more travel time to safety.

Installing an in-home RemagenSafeRoom's StormCloset helps to increase your family's security - "keeping what's important to you safe".