Precast Concrete Fema Shelters Keep Communities Safe

MULTIUSE PRECAST CONCRETE FACILITIES MUST WITHSTAND WIND SPEEDS UP TO 250 MPH AND FLYING DEBRIS, ALL WHILE SERVING THE COMMUNITY IN AN AESTHETICALLY PLEASING STRUCTURE

BY MONICA SCHULTES

Designers in Tornado Alley, the region of the United States where tornadoes occur most frequently, rely on the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) P-361, Safe Rooms for Tornadoes and Hurricanes: Guidance for Community and Residential Safe Rooms, for current guidelines on planning, designing, and constructing safe rooms that provide near-absolute protection from a tornado. All safe rooms constructed with FEMA grant funds must adhere to theircriteria to withstand the extreme winds and wind-borne debris.

The 2018 International Building Code requires the construction of storm shelters be included when K-12 schools and first-responder facilities are constructed in areas inside the FEMA wind zone of 250 mph.

JOPLIN MISSOURI PUBLIC LIBRARY

Joplin’s new public library required that a community safe room be incorporated into the design of the new facility. A large meeting room built of precast concrete panels was located in the center of the building along the front façade as an anchor to the transparent wings on either side. A series of tall windows moving up and down across the face connect the precast concrete structure to the rest of the building. Photo: Gayle Babcock, Architectural Imageworks.

• Sapp Design AssociatesArchitects PC, Springfield, Mo.

• Prestressed Casting Co., Springfield, Mo.

• R.E. Smith Construction, Joplin, Mo.

NEOSHO HIGH SCHOOL CLASSROOM ADDITION, NEOSHO, MO.

Photo: Gayle Babcock, Architectural Imageworks.

• Sapp Design Associates Architects PC, Springfield, Mo.

• Branco Enterprises Inc., Neosho, Mo.

• Prestressed Casting Co., Springfield, Mo.

MONETT PERFORMING ARTS CENTER

The Monett school district made a long-range commitment to provide safe rooms at all of its campuses. With the help of a FEMA grant, a new performing arts center at the high school doubles as a 13,000-ft 2 community safe room. Photo: Gayle Babcock, Architectural Imageworks.

• Sapp Design Associates Architects PC, Springfield, Mo.

• Prestressed Casting Co., Springfield, Mo.

• R.E. Smith Construction, Joplin, Mo.

CARL JUNCTION HIGH SCHOOL. INTERMEDIATE AND ELEMENTARY SCHOOL SAFE ROOMS. CARL JUNCTION, MO.

The Carl Junction school district opted to build safe rooms on several campuses without FEMA funding. To save the time and expense of additional applied finishes, and to break up the higher volume of their precast concrete indoor practice facility/fieldhouse/safe room at the high school, thin brick and a recessed band and graphic were cast into the precast concrete panels.

At Carl Junction’s K-1 facility, two colors of thin brick cast into the panels as well as a mixture of applied metal panels and painted sections of the precast concrete give the illusion of a large corner window and created a fun, bright exterior at the main entrance to the school.

At the intermediate school, thin brick was also cast into the precast concrete with additional recessed banding and undulating heights on the brick as a base to motivational words, creating an inspirational graphic on the side of the safe room near the school entrance. Photos: Gayle Babcock, Architectural Imageworks.

• Sapp Design Associates Architects PC, Springfield, Mo.

• Prestressed Casting Co., Springfield, Mo.

• Crossland Construction Company Inc., Springfield, Mo.

Highland Manor Community Shelter and Safe Room Location: Madison, Wis. Designer: Assemblage Architects, Middleton, Wis. Owner: City of Madison, Madison, Wis. Engineer: raSmith, Madison, Wis. Contractor: Miron Construction, Madison, WI PCI-Certified Precast Concrete Producer: Spancrete, Waukesha, Wis. Photos: Assemblage Architects.

MAYFLOWER ELEMENTARY GYM & SAFE ROOM, MAYFLOWER, ARK. Photos: (top) Jackson Brown Palculict Architects LLC;

• Jackson Brown Palculict Architects LLC, Little Rock, Ark.

• Moser Construction, Bryant, Ark.

• Coreslab Structures (ARK) Inc., Conway, Ark.

SPRINGHILL ELEMENTARY GYM & SAFE ROOM, GREENBRIER, ARK. Photos: Stiler and Henry Photography.

• Jackson Brown Palculict Architects LLC, Little Rock, Ark.

• Nabholz Construction Corporation, Conway, Ark.

• Coreslab Structures (ARK) Inc., Conway, Ark.

Getting Grants

There are two types of grant programs that meet the requirements of FEMA P-361 and ICC-500, ICC/NSSA Standard for the Design and Construction of Storm Shelters. Funds can be obtained through FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation and Pre-Disaster Mitigation grant programs. The paperwork is daunting, however, and many school districts and communities need help with the complicated administration and reporting requirements.

“Toth Associates has been helping Missouri school districts obtain FEMA funding grants for more than 10 years,” says Brian Orr, vice president of Toth Associates, Springfield, Mo. He acknowledges the documentation is voluminous and can take hundreds of hours to complete.

Orr also shares that in addition to assisting with the grant process, they often handle structural design and grant management. They also administer the often-overlooked operations and maintenance phases of these facilities over the grant life span of 50 years.

Gimme Shelter

That is where precast concrete is an attractive solution. “Given its weight and hardened properties, precast is inherently tornadoresistant, so meeting these code requirements is not that difficult,” says Dave Robertson Jr., vice president of sales for Prestressed Casting Co. in Springfield, Mo. They have built more than 125 tornado-resistant structures in Missouri, most of which include insulated precast concrete wall panels with a double-tee roof.

At first safe rooms were small and rectangular with short spans. Many backed up to berms and typically served as a multipurpose room. “Now we are pushing the envelope with wall heights, doubletee spans, and finishes to maximize grant dollars while meeting FEMA loading,” explains Robertson.

Safe rooms now double as gymnasiums, classroom buildings, performing arts centers, and community centers. In addition to the turnkey aspect of precast concrete, the finishes, insulation, and other integral components are included in the safe envelope costs. Field-laid finishes are not covered, which enables precast concrete solutions to maximize the grant-matching dollars, Robertson explains.

Precast concrete solutions offer more architectural finishes while meeting all the FEMA requirements. “We are seeing even large classrooms several hundred feet long and two stories high using prestressed concrete,” says Orr.

As this construction has become more common over the last few years, products such as doors and windows have become more affordable. “Larger openings are now available, and you can even achieve a storefront look to allow more natural light into the space,” says Orr.

Missouri Projects

Many local school districts in Missouri have worked to add safe rooms to their schools since the destruction of the May 2011 tornado, which killed 161 people in Joplin and destroyed homes, businesses, churches, and school buildings.

Nearby Neosho school district urgently needed classroom space to replace modular units. The result was a creative addition in the form of a FEMA safe room, one of five such structures being built in the district.

With a student population of 1600, a standalone safe room would have been massive. “These large volume, dual use/multipurpose shelter spaces are becoming commonplace,” says Pam Haldiman, senior project manager at Sapp Design Architects in Springfield. They solve space needs for schools and communities, instead of a single-use shelter that sits empty and unused except in the case of emergency.

The 14,000-ft 2 , two-story precast concrete design was challenging. “It met the school district needs for much-needed classrooms, a new face on the front of the building, and utilized their FEMA grant for a safe room at the same time,” explains Haldiman.

Different embedded thin brick colors, reveals, and other finishes were used to create color and textural changes and maximized the creativity of the precast concrete. FEMA grants only pay for the basic structure of the safe room, not for additional field-laid veneers or applied specialty finishes.

With the use of FEMA P-361-tested window assemblies, more natural light can be incorporated into these safe rooms, creating light, airy spaces like the classroom addition at Neosho High School.

Sapp Design Associates has been helping school districts obtain funding and designing FEMA safe rooms over the last 15 years. Many districts have opted to build safe rooms without federal funding, even before current code changes. In Haldiman’s opinion, it is typically not a huge difference to upgrade to hardened space, depending on the construction type.

Precast concrete is often the most economical for larger volume projects, eliminating the need for bracing and scaffolding of reinforced masonry, and is less affected by weather, enclosing the structure quickly and reducing the length of construction time.

The Joplin storm served as a catalyst for putting plans into motion to help prevent another devastating catastrophe in Neosho school district and many others throughout Missouri.

Wisconsin Project

The City of Madison, Wis., delivered on their promise that safety is not determined by zip code. Mobile homes are particularly vulnerable to damage, and this shelter not only provides safety in a storm but also serves as a gathering place for residents of Highland Manor.

To qualify for $1.2 million in FEMA grant funding, the building had to meet design criteria intended to provide a superior level of life safety protection against the extreme wind speeds and flying debris associated with tornadoes.

Given the FEMA requirements, the predominant choice was precast concrete, recalls Hamid Noughani, principal at Assemblage Architects in Middleton, Wis. “What attracted us the most was the simplicity of precast design. Precast components are simplified with roof-to-wall and wall-to-foundation connections,” says Noughani. “By limiting the points of failure, the structure can be easily inspected over its lifetime. Once you choose the [precast] system, then you deal with the aesthetics, cost implications, and schedule, and you make sure those fall into place.” raSmith engineers in Madison worked closely with Spancrete in Waukesha, Wis., to develop innovative connection details to ensure that the precast concrete components function as an integrated system. A heavily reinforced cast-in-place topping slab was used on the hollow-core roof slabs to provide a structural diaphragm to help ensure that precast concrete beams, wall panels, and hollow-core slab created a continuous load path for lateral wind pressures as well as uplift.

Bringing the project to life required the design and construction team members to learn and apply FEMA standards that provide for “near-absolute” protection. David Boldt, project engineer at raSmith, notes that currently, only a few designers have experience with these FEMA standards. He predicts that these requirements

“Precast concrete was cost-effective and allowed critical components to be fabricated off-site and shipped to the site for assembly. This allowed construction to proceed during a relatively harsh winter without delays,” recalls Boldt. He adds that continuous inspection of field welding for connections joining precast concrete components was essential to ensuring the finished structure could perform as promised.

There are typically only 14 minutes to act after a warning siren sounds, which is not enough time for a custodian to arrive to open the door. The design team added a special device to automatically provide access when the National Weather Service issues a tornado warning.

By working together with homeowners in the community, the City of Madison, and FEMA, the Highland Manor Community Safe Room project overcame significant design challenges to become what may be the largest freestanding safe room in Wisconsin. The building represents an innovative, cost-effective approach to preventing fatalities during severe weather events and serves as a model for future shelters and safe rooms.

Arkansas Projects

Springhill Elementary is a new K-5 facility in Greenbrier, Ark. It is designed for up to 600 students and has a built-in FEMA shelter large enough for 1100 occupants. The building is broken into four separate wings based on function and security. The north wing contains the combination gym and shelter, which was designed and built to FEMA standards even without grant funding.

Springhill Elementary features an artistic and colorful precast concrete exterior, as well as large colorful and clear windows on the street side. “The Greenbrier project features geometric shapes painted in homage to the well-known work of art by Piet Mondrian,”’ describes Randy Palculict, vice president of Jackson Brown Palculict Architects in Little Rock, Ark.

The reveals in the precast concrete panels were painted with photo luminescent paint. The glow-in-the-dark treatment will serve as way-finding to the shelter for the public inw case of power outage.

Palculict considers the multiuse storm shelter a better option because it is too expensive to only use in bad weather. “The school and community get better use out of it and more bang for their buck,” Palculict explains. With the vibrant colors and finishes, the new gym is the antithesis of a gray bunker.

In 2014, the small town of Mayflower, Ark., was hit by a tornado rated EF-4 on the Enhanced Fujita scale, which rates tornado intensity on a scale from 1 to 5. At the time, the community had only one storm shelter at the middle school. The construction of a standalone building at the elementary school campus has the capacity to fit the entire school population of 450 people inside.

The school project received additional donations to supplement the FEMA grant money. An exposed aggregate finish was used on the 12-in. thick precast concrete insulated panels with a reveal pattern to break up the large walls and keep within the restrictive budget.

“I have seen projects where it is clearly a storm shelter, but they have pushed the limits with what precast concrete can do,” says Palculict. In all these projects, precast concrete was key to building aesthetically pleasing, multiuse structures that keep residents safe during extreme weather events. ●