Local company continues to produce severe weather shelters
JOPLIN, Mo. — Although it’s most likely to happen in the spring, severe weather can, and has struck the four-state area, virtually every month of the year.
May 22, 2024, marks the thirteenth anniversary of the EF-5 tornado that struck Joplin back in 2011.
Not long after that event, which claimed the lives of 161 people, a Joplin company that was already designing and building bike and skateboard ramps saw a need to add a new product line — called it Atlas Safe Rooms — they’ve been building them ever since.
“Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, Arkansas, Missouri, that’s primarily where we sell them as tornado shelters, but also really anywhere in the Midwest where there’s tornado threat, we’ve sold safe rooms in almost 30 different states,” said John Hunter, C.E.O., Atlas Safe Rooms.
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But John Hunter says shelter from a storm is not the only protection the structures can provide.
“But for some reason, if someone breaks into your house, you can go in, lock yourself in and you’re safe in there, they’re bulletproof up to uh obviously a certain caliber but it just creates a barrier from you and a potential intruder,” said Hunter.
Outside the U.S., Hunter says the product is becoming more popular as protection against active shooters.
“And we have a lot of people that buy those on the coasts but also we’ve sold some in the continent of Africa where people are hey I just want something like this that I can run in and be safe,” said Hunter.
The units come in a variety of sizes, everywhere from just a few people, up to this unit, on the premises which is large enough to house every one of his sixty-some-odd employees.
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