Michael Holigan: May 27th, 1997, Jarrell, Texas. An F5 tornado, nature's rarest and most powerful twister tears through the town. Twenty-seven people were killed and the little town was devastated. Houses were scraped clean off their foundations with nothing left behind. Dr. Ernst Kingsley runs the Wind Research Center in the Civil Engineering Department of Texas Tech University. He and his associates are looking for new ways to protect people and their property from storms like the Jarrell tornado. They have built an air cannon that can hurl objects into structures at up to 120 miles per hour - the speed reached by debris in the strongest of tornadoes.

Ernst Kingsley: Our focus has been two-fold. One is to protect people uh, during severe wind events and the other is to reduce property damage.

MH: So pretty much your typical wood frame house doesn't hold up too well, or something.

EK: That's correct. Uh, most any conventional construction would behave in about the same way. The missile simply perforates.

MH: Well it doesn't look like the brick wall held up much better than our wood wall, did it? Definitely different from the other walls where it went straight through. I could see where a family and their valuables would be protected in a home like this.

EK: Yes.

MH: It's just basically eight-inch concrete block and you dropped rebar down in it and poured concrete in it.

EK: That's correct.

MH: The wind research scientist at Texas Tech have developed detailed plans for constructing these safe rooms. Both for retrofitting rooms in existing houses and for adding these features to new homes. They've come up with three different models for a safe room, depending on your budget. Scientist are working hard to find new ways to keep you and your family safe from flying debris and the dangers of nature's most violent storms.