Sturdy Arlington church doubles as storm shelter

Pastor Scott Youngblood stands next to the cross that will be hoisted on top of the new United Methodist Church in west Arlington. The building is being described as "tornado-proof," due to considerable reinforcement and extensive use of metal.

By PATRICK M. WALKER

Fort Worth Star-Telegram

ARLINGTON -- When a tornado threatened his construction site on April 3, Kevin Drake knew just where to seek sanctuary: inside the unfinished home of Trinity United Methodist Church.

Turns out, the 75,000-square-foot building on West Green Oaks Boulevard near Pioneer Parkway was spared a direct hit, although the site was showered with debris from the twister that hit a nearby nursing home and neighborhood.

With a framework of insulating concrete forms, the church will offer refuge against not only worldly temptations but also howling winds -- able to withstand the equivalent of a 15-foot two-by-four hitting it at 100 mph, according to testing done by the Wind Science and Engineering Center at Texas Tech University.

"This is one of the safest sites in Arlington," said Drake, construction manager for Fort Worth-based FPI Builders. "I would think it would fare very well" in a tornado.

Projects like Trinity's raise public awareness of tornado-resistant construction techniques and may lead to greater acceptance of them, said Ernst Kiesling, a professor of civil engineering at Texas Tech and executive director of the National Storm Shelter Association.

The 17 tornadoes that hit North Texas that afternoon caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage but took no lives. At the very least, Kiesling said, the outbreak should be a wake-up call for the need for more storm shelters, whether public buildings or reinforced rooms in a home, he said.

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Sturdy Arlington church doubles as storm shelter