Toto needn't worry about suddenly relocating out of Kansas anymore.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has approved financing that should cover the cost of building a federally-approved "safe room," designed to provide protection against winds of up to 250 miles per hour and against 100 mile-per-hour projectiles.

HUD's Federal Housing Administration-insured loans now allow lenders to loan home buyers up to $5,000 more than the amount needed to buy a home. The extra money can be used to pay for installing a shelter, provided U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency-approved plans are used to build the structure.

The special rooms cost from $3,000 to $6,000 according to "Taking Shelter from the Storm: Building a Safe Room Inside Your House," the second-edition of a 28-page on-line guide to construction plans, materials, designs and cost estimates for several types of tornado "safe rooms" you can build inside your existing or new home.

While you can't actually tornado-proof your home, the safe rooms are designed to remain standing to protect you and your family from injury caused by severe winds and life-threatening flying debris even if the rest of the home is severely damaged. The rooms protect their inhabitants against virtually any injury because they are designed to withstand wind speeds rarely exceeded in the United States.

With recommendations for both new and existing homes with various types of foundations, the plans call for small (maximum 64 square feet) reinforced wood-frame, concrete or masonry rooms retrofitted into an existing home.

Available only since last summer, the guidebook includes a worksheet to help you determine your risk based on your home's location and design. It goes on to recommend the best location in your home for a safe room and the best safe room floor plan for your home. The guide also helps you and your contractor plan the shelter.

Partnership for Advancing Technology in Housing - a joint federal and private sector initiative administered by HUD - is working with FEMA to develop and deploy advanced home technology, such as the safe room design.

The safe room project is part of an ongoing FEMA initiative called "Project Impact: Building Disaster Resistant Communities," designed to encourage people and communities to take measures to protect themselves and their property before disasters occur.

To develop the guide, FEMA drew on 25 years of research by the Lubbock, TX-based Wind Engineering Research Center at Texas Tech University.

A devastating tornado that struck Lubbock on May 11, 1970 created an instant laboratory for studying the effects of tornadic wind on structures. Since that time, center scientists have made on-site investigations of more than 70 extreme wind events in 14 states plus Mexico, Puerto Rico, Guam, and Australia.

If you don't have Web access to the FEMA Tornado Safe Room page, call FEMA toll-free at (888) 565-3896.

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Published: January 28, 2000

Use of this article without permission is a violation of federal copyright laws.

Broderick Perkins parlayed a career in old-school journalism into a contemporary digital news service that really hits home. The award-winning consumer journalist, originally from Wilmington, DE, is founder, publisher and executive editor of the bootstrap DeadlineNews Group, a Silicon Valley-based editorial content and consulting service specializing in residential real estate, consumer news and related editorial consulting services. The DeadlineNews Group includes the website, DeadlineNews.com, offering real estate editorial content and consulting services, and its back shop, the Deadline Newsroom, an open house on news that really hits home. Perkins obtained his formal journalism education from University of Delaware and a journalism boot camp, the Institute of Journalism Education at the University of California-Berkeley. He went on to 20 years of service as a daily newspaper journalist at the Wilmington, DE News Journal and San Jose, CA Mercury News. Perkins covered housing on the San Jose Mercury News reporting team which earned a General News Reporting Pulitzer Prize in 1989 for coverage of the Loma Prieta earthquake. He has also produced real estate, consumer and small business content for the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, RealtyTimes.com, Nolo.com, Better Homes and Gardens, the National Association of Realtors, Homestore/Move and Intuit/Quicken among more than three dozen publications. In addition to managing the DeadlineNews Group, Perkins most recently served as chief editorial consultant for Nolo's Essential Guide To Buying Your First Home, Nolo, and writes real estate television scripts for RealtyTimes.com.