Panic Room (Safe Room)

Panic rooms, also called safe rooms, have become more desirable in houses and other buildings as natural or human threats to occupants are perceived to have grown in frequency and magnitude. Perhaps the most common panic rooms are included in structures to protect people from wind-blown debris in the event of tornadoes or hurricanes. Less often, potential targets of terrorists, abductors, or assassins desire a securable enclosure to which they can rapidly retire, temporarily lock themselves away, and confidently remain safe from firearm discharges and small detonations. Depending on the threat that panic rooms are designed to thwart, the comfort in which the protected parties wish to be secured, and whether the enclosure is included when the structure is built or retrofitted into it later, their costs can range from a few thousand to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Protection from natural disasters is one of the primary reasons for a household to include a panic, or safe, room. A Category F4 (violent rating) storm occurs in about 1% of recorded tornadoes and imparts wind speeds of up to 260 miles per hour. Such winds may propel 8-foot-long, 2-by-4 wood studs at velocities up to 100 miles per hour to pierce walls not designed and constructed to prevent their penetration. Hurricanes do not bring winds of 260 miles per hour, but the debris they scatter can be deadly and also make a panic room valuable. The room's location in the structure might be determined on the basis of secondary effects of the event. Panic rooms constructed in zones susceptible to hurricanes should be elevated above the expected storm surge of a Category 5 event. Similarly, if river flooding can accompany weather for which a panic room is built, then the room should be constructed at least 2 feet above the 100-year design flood level. Threat assessment demands that all aspects of the undesired event be considered. Besides flood hazard and storm surge, factors such as a high water table, cost, accessibility, comfort for long-term occupancy, and probability of wind-borne debris impact should be considered.

While protection from natural disasters is usually the purpose of safe rooms, there may be other motivations for their construction. Older Americans will recall the bomb shelters advocated during the early 1960s, which might qualify as panic rooms nowadays. Due to provocations by Iraq during the Persian Gulf War of the early 1990s, some Israelis who did not have a public underground shelter nearby were compelled to seek security in personal safe rooms. Today, Israeli building codes mandate the construction of such rooms to protect against continued hostilities in the Middle East. In the United States, deep earth survival pods, bomb shelters with fairly sophisticated accommodations, may be more common than most realize. Cautious people may find that a panic room built for protection from natural threats can help thwart attacks against themselves and their families. Celebrities, [Page 540]politicians, or wealthy private citizens may be the objects of attack, so comprehensive security schemes will almost certainly include a panic room among their array of protections. Panic rooms can also keep documents and personal property safe from loss and damage. Details of what the room is expected to accomplish affect design criteria. For the highest security, information about the design, construction, and location of a panic room is carefully restricted. In some instances, laborers who build a safe room or install devices in it are blindfolded for travel to and from the location, so they cannot disclose it.

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