Storm shelters and safe rooms in Huntsville and Madison County

North Alabama does not get to treat tornadoes as a spring-only worry. The F4 that killed 21 people across south Huntsville in 1989 struck on a November afternoon, at rush hour. The April 27, 2011 outbreak dropped six tornadoes in Madison County alone. If you live here, you have probably already had the conversation at the dinner table about where everyone goes when the sirens start. This site is for the people ready to answer that question with something stronger than an interior hallway.

We explain the choices plainly, with numbers from FEMA, the National Weather Service and the State of Alabama, and when you are ready we pass your request to an independent shelter installer who works Huntsville, Madison and the county towns.

The main kinds of residential shelter

Not sure how big a unit your household needs? The shelter size guide turns FEMA's floor-area rule into a quick table. For dollars, start with what a storm shelter costs, then read how the Alabama storm shelter tax credit can take up to $3,000 off your state income tax. To put your own numbers in, use the storm shelter tax credit calculator.

Why FEMA's guidance matters here

FEMA splits the country into four tornado zones based on more than seventy years of records. North Alabama sits in the high-risk band, and for Zones III and IV FEMA's homeowner guide, P-320, says a safe room is the preferred way to protect people from extreme wind. It also explains why an ordinary house is not enough: inland homes are generally designed for winds of roughly 104 to 115 mph, while FEMA designs residential safe rooms for 250 mph and tests them against a 15-pound 2x4 fired at 100 mph.

A shelter built and installed to that guidance, which FEMA calls a safe room, gives what the agency describes as near-absolute protection. The phrase that matters when shopping is not "FEMA approved." FEMA does not approve or certify any product or installer and says sellers may not claim it does. What you want to see is documentation showing compliance with FEMA P-361 and the ICC 500 storm shelter standard.

Public shelters are thin inside the cities

The Huntsville-Madison County Emergency Management Agency states that the cities of Huntsville and Madison have no public safe rooms. The community shelters that do exist sit mostly in the county towns, are run by fire departments, churches and town halls rather than the EMA, and generally open during a tornado watch. Driving to one during a warning is exactly what the EMA tells people not to do. Our Huntsville tornado history page lists those community shelters and explains the private shelter registries.

How this site works

We are a referral website, not a shelter company. You tell us the town and what you have in mind; we send it to an independent installer who covers that part of Madison County. They visit, measure, quote, and do the installation. The price is between you and them.

Good questions

Is an above-ground safe room as safe as an underground shelter?

According to FEMA P-320, yes, provided it meets FEMA P-361: an above-ground safe room built to that guidance is just as safe as one below ground. The difference is that above-ground units must pass debris-impact testing, while buried units get much of that protection from the soil around them.

Does Huntsville have public tornado shelters?

The county EMA says Huntsville and Madison have no public safe rooms. A number of community shelters operate in towns such as Harvest, Gurley, Meridianville, Owens Cross Roads, Triana and New Hope, each run locally with its own opening rules.

Which towns does this site cover?

Huntsville and Madison plus the rest of Madison County, including Harvest, Hazel Green, Meridianville, New Market, Owens Cross Roads, Gurley, Brownsboro, Triana, Toney and New Hope.