Portable Safe Rooms Can Protect Oil Field Workers

Midwestern oil fields, which strive to meet our basic energy needs, reside in a perilous state. Running nearly the entire length of Tornado Alley, drilling operations and surplus oil storage tanks remain a prime target for tornadoes. Located in wide open areas, vulnerable equipment and volatile energy stockpiles create a venerable powder keg of destruction. But perhaps the greatest threat from twisters in the industry comes from the vulnerability of oil field workers. Because they work in such remote locations, oil field workers don’t have access to community shelters. The transient and seasonal nature of oil field work means they also routinely remain in harm’s way. When a twister comes barreling down on a rig or drill site, workers will need more than just a hardhat to survive the storm. Portable Safe Rooms can provide ideal protection from tornadoes, as they provide temporary protection for hardworking roughnecks.

The True Price of Black Gold?

In 2014, a tornado injured nine people and destroyed 15 trailers at a workers’ camp at a North Dakota oil field. As you might have already known, trailers are the absolutely worst place you can find yourself during a tornado. Lack of a fixed foundation and lightweight building materials can turn vulnerable trailers into an empty soup cap that can be tossed about carelessly in the wind. Families, who don’t want to endure long separation periods, often hunker down together in these trailers with the working patriarchs. The propensity for death and injury at oil fields risk increase exponentially when you factor in smaller and more at-risk populations. Following the 2014 North Dakota tornado, one worker described the true hopeless feeling he encountered while facing the storm without a tornado shelter.

We didn’t want to stay in our trailer, because, you know, I don’t think a trailer’s a very safe place to stay during a storm, you know how trailers are with tornadoes. So we got in our pick-up truck with the thought of getting out of there but then we realized the tornado was coming down the only place we could escape to. It (the tornado) wasn’t going anywhere, which scared us even more because we didn’t know if it was going to start moving towards us or what it was going to do. That was pure fear and I just, it was, my adrenaline was really kicked up and I was scared to death, you know? I have a wife and I have kids and I didn’t want to die. But I realized it was very possible.”
Souce: cbc.ca/news

Portable Safe Rooms Can Protect Workers, Families

Tornado Shelter on Roll-Back for Delivery

Our mobile storm shelters are designed for rapid deployment with various anchoring options, depending on your onsite conditions. The tornado shelter structure has been tested and certified by the Texas Tech National Wind Institute and rated for F5 Tornado / 250 MPH ground-speed impact. Our rapidly deployable tornado shelters can easily transferred and relocated to any job-site with little to no interference with daily operations. Our commercial sized tornado shelters and safe rooms can accommodate anywhere from a small group of contractors to hundreds of people with just a moment’s notice. Constructed from solid 1/4″ plate steel, these customizable safe rooms and shelters meet all federal specifications and are certified by Texas Tech National Wind Institute in strict accordance to FEMA 320 (2014), FEMA 361 (2015), and ICC-500 (2014) standards for wind-rated impact of 250 mph ground speed tornado events.