Open house for NOLA safe house
Jefferson Parish officials expect to complete the first of its eight safe houses next week. Kontek Industries of New Madrid, Mo., designed and built the safe rooms, which will rest atop 21- to 27-foot concrete platforms. UMR researchers helped the company duplicate the power of large flying debris in its High-Bay Structures Lab on campus.
From the TImes-Picayune:
Don Utz, president of Kontek Industries, said the safe rooms were designed with some of the same principals that his firm uses in developing combat shelters for the Department of Defense. After building them to specifications given by the parish, Kontek tested their strength by hurling pieces of 2-by-4 wood at the structures at speeds topping 100 mph to simulate flying debris."If we're going to put people in harm's way, let's look at the worst-case that they'd have to experience," Utz said. "If we're going to sustain these people and they're going to be effective, they're going to need electricity and everything to continue to operate that safe house."
VIsions got the chance to witness the tests back in February.
DJ Belarbi, Curators' Teaching Professor of civil, architectural and environmental engineering at UMR, had helped Kontek Industries previously with the design of movable bollard systems for counterterrorist large truck attacks and helped them with these large missile tests as well. Though the reinforced-concrete safe house proved to be strong enough, the tests suggested a better design approach for the doors.