Iowa schools urged to build safe rooms

By Mike Wiser, Gazette-Lee Des Moines Bureau

DES MOINES More schools should have severe weather safe rooms, the head of Iowas emergency department said Monday.

Mark Schouten, director of Iowa Homeland Security and Emergency Management, told reporters there arent enough buildings outfitted with special rooms that can withstand high impacts. He spoke during a news conference on severe weather preparedness.

Clearly, it is an important thing to keep our schoolchildren safe in event of a tornado or other severe weather, he said. It is something we are promoting, and I expect you will see more safe rooms in the future.

The department makes money available for school districts that want to construct safe rooms, which the Federal Emergency Management Agency defines as a hardened structure specifically designed to meet the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) criteria and provide near-absolute protection in extreme weather events, including tornadoes and hurricanes.

According to FEMA regulations, rooms should be designed to withstand winds of 250 mph and be able to resist a 15-pound 2x4 board traveling at 100 mph horizontally and 67 mph vertically.

Homeland Security Department spokeswoman Stefanie Bond wrote in an e-mail the department has helped pay for or set money aside for 40 tornado safe-room projects, which includes projects in 33 school districts. Of the projects, 32 of the 40 are complete.

The cost for all 40 projects is $42 million.

If a school/district has constructed a safe room that wasnt funded by us, its not on this list (although I am not aware if there are any that havent been funded through us), Bond wrote.

Gov. Terry Branstad said although the state doesnt provide additional funding for school safe rooms, districts that want to build them should look at the federal funding distributed through the state Homeland Security department.

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Iowa schools urged to build safe rooms