All businesses are subject to the risk of severe weather, such as storms, tornadoes, hurricanes, hail, and floods. To keep personnel, visitors, and customers safe during a severe weather event, businesses should create a planned response. This often includes designating a safe room or area to shelter in place, displaying easily legible maps to locate the shelter, and participating in severe weather drills.
A business may have multiple severe weather shelter areas for different hazardous weather. For instance, the best place to be during a tornado is the basement, but that is the worst place to be during a flood.
Locations for Severe Weather Shelter Areas
The ideal place to shelter from most severe weather is a small interior room with no windows. Typically, the greater the roof span, the greater the potential for structural damage like a collapsed roof. This means that large gymnasiums and cafeterias are poor choices for shelter areas.
Many storms are accompanied by lightning, which means you should try to avoid rooms with higher electrical activity such as utility closets. Avoid exterior walls, windows, and doors.
For most businesses, the ideal location for a severe weather shelter area may be a bathroom or an interior stairwell. These areas are often free of extra clutter, small, and easily accessible. The extra benefit of a stairwell is that it is easy to move between levels if the area starts to experience flooding. Commercial building stairwells often have extra structural reinforcement like concrete or brick.
Here are the safest areas for most major severe weather:
- Floods: Evacuation is preferred. If it is too late to evacuate, get to a higher level or roof, but never an enclosed attic space.
- Tornadoes or High Winds: A small enclosed room or hallway in the basement is preferred. If there is no basement, shelter in a small enclosed room with no windows on the ground floor.
- Lightning or Hail: Shelter indoors. An open-air structure like a picnic shelter will not keep you safe from lightning.
- Hurricanes: Evacuation is preferred. Otherwise, shelter in a small enclosed room with no windows. Flooding is often a major concern with hurricanes, so if possible, a ground-floor shelter room with nearby stairwell access is the best choice.
Depending on the size of your business, you may need to have multiple shelter areas in different areas. This can help avoid overcrowding in a small shelter room and ensure that everyone on site has a shelter nearby. A ground-floor shelter may be the safest option for people with disabilities. Tornadoes can occur with very little warning, and people may only have a few minutes to seek shelter.
Read more severe weather sheltering tips here.
Good Signage Is Critical to Your Severe Weather Shelter Area
A severe weather shelter is not helpful if people don’t know it exists or don’t know how to find it. Severe weather maps with directions to the nearest shelter are crucial for helping both staff and visitors stay safe in an adverse event.
Particularly for tornado-prone areas, visitors who are unfamiliar with your facility may have very little time to seek shelter. They may feel panic, which can cloud their judgment. For these reasons, it is extremely important to have severe weather maps that:
- Are located in useful places
- Are extremely clear and easy to read
- Use widely-recognized symbols
- Show egress routing to the shelter location
- Leave no room for misinterpretation or error
If you have visitors or customers, signs on the entrances to shelter rooms are also very helpful to confirm that they have found the right place. Severe weather can cause a range of emotions, including fear and confusion, so it is better to make shelter areas explicitly clear.
Contact Building Maps for Help With Your Severe Weather Maps
Building Maps has been creating easy-to-read, clear severe weather mapping for commercial businesses all over the country. We are familiar with the various kinds of severe weather in the US, as well as the best practices for locating shelters and safe areas. We create maps that are compliant with national and local standards and codes, including NFPA and ICC.
If you’d like more information about severe weather maps for your facility or you’re ready to reach out for a quote, please contact us here. Your safety is our priority.
