Several Monolithic Dome safe rooms recently made it into the news. A nearly completed safe room in Mississippi was used for the first time as a large storm approached the community. Tuscaloosa, Alabama, opened its new community center and tornado shelter dome. A first responder safe room grant awarded to Covenant Christian School in Texas. And a Tennesse high school applies for FEMA grant for a combined gymnasium and safe room.
The Tupelo City Council approved two Monolithic Dome safe rooms — one for Lee Acres, Mississippi and the other for Theron Nichols Park, Mississippi. Each will be large enough to hold over 1,000 residents during a major storm. FEMA grants will pay 90 percent of the cost.
A tornado outbreak, Sunday evening, wreaked havoc throughout the south. Residents in Starkville, Mississippi, took refuge in a Monolithic Dome safe room.
In an article in the News-Star.com, of Shawnee, Oklahoma, it is discussed how Oklahoma public schools are being pressured to install safe rooms. Dale Public Schools and others are touted as already having done so with their Monolithic Domes.
A new Monolithic Dome safe room is under construction in Birmingham, Alabama. It’s part of a broader initiative to provide community storm shelters following the devastating Tuscaloosa-Birmingham EF4 tornado in 2011. It is the fourth dome built in the Pratt City area, which was hardest hit by the monster tornado.
In Lumberton, Texas a monolithic dome safe room was constructed for the school district and community. However, the community doesn’t call it a safe room. They call it the Lumberton Performing Arts Center. It houses a full stage for plays and all types of performances. The seating retracts to open the floor for Senior prom or a business Expo.
NewsOn6.com has a great story about the a Monolithic Dome inflation in Catoosa, Oklahoma earlier this month. The 136-foot diameter facility will be a cafeteria for the school and a safe shelter during tornadoes for the students and community. There’s an excellent time-lapse of the inflation in the story.
As tornadoes tore through parts of their state on Easter weekend 2020, many Louisville, Mississippi, residents made their way to their community safe room — again.
Tupelo Public Schools and the City of Tupelo, Mississippi plan to construct three Monolithic Dome multipurpose buildings and safe rooms. As WTVA reports, the district wants the buildings for more than just a safe place during a storm but also as a new gym, classrooms, and more.
To construct a conventional building strong enough to withstand mother nature you normally build it like a bunker. It serves only one function and remains empty most of the time. With the new community center in Mercedes, Texas, they get twice the building for the price. Most of the year it’s a gym, learning center, and meeting space. During a Texas-sized storm, it’s a place of refuge for the town.
Greg Miller submitted this great HD aerial video of the Catoosa Public Schools safe room under construction. You can see that work continues on the exterior while Monolithic construction crews work inside. The Monolithic Dome concrete shell is expected to be finished before Christmas.
The architect addressed an audience of school administrators. He proclaimed that no one can affordably build large safe rooms. The best a school could do are small rooms for refuge in an emergency. He was followed by David South who said, yes, you can build a large safe room — disguised as a gym.
FEMA approved a grant for the Monolithic Dome safe shelter at Dodge City Community College. The dome will be their new student activities center and also the campus tornado safe room. Plans include a full basketball / volleyball court, locker rooms, classrooms, fitness center, student lounge, and more.
Earlier this summer, Hartshorne Public Schools opened its new Monolithic Dome gymnasium. Adrian O’Hanlon III of the McAlester News-Capital reports that the 150-foot diameter dome will seat over 1,100 people for sporting events. Moreover, the dome doubles as a FEMA rated safe room that can hold around 3,000 people during a tornado emergency.
School officials in Hartshorne, Oklahoma want $7.7 million for two safe-rooms — or as we like to think of them — a brand-new, start-of-the-art gymnasium and computer center. It’s quite a different perspective if you think of money serving two purposes. The planned high school gymnasium would be a 150-foot diameter Monolithic Dome with four locker rooms, concessions, offices, a competition basketball court, and seating for 1,200. Plus it’s a tornado shelter! The elementary school gets a brand new library and computer center in a 70-foot diameter dome. And it’s a tornado shelter, too!
Crews recently completed a Monolithic Dome shell in Louisville, Mississippi for a FEMA rated safe shelter. The shelter is part of a larger state initiative to protect communities from tornadoes like the deadly outbreak in April 2014 that claimed 10 lives in Louisville alone.
When the Avalon Independent School District in Texas needed a new multipurpose building, Superintendent David Del Bosque had safety at top of his mind. Since the nearby Italy school district had just completed a Monolithic Dome multipurpose center of its own, the decision was easy. “I personally was concerned about safety for students: the stability of the building in case of a storm,” Del Bosque said, adding that when he saw Italy’s dome, he knew that it was “the safest structure anywhere.”
In 1986 John Ayers of Presidio County, Texas became concerned about nuclear fallout from a dropped bomb. He wanted to be safe and asked me to build an underground house for him, which we did in the late summer of that year.
New Monolithic Dome safe room in Pawnee, Oklahoma is large enough for the whole town. Local TV station, KFOR, profiled the dome during a school tornado drill. As the students quietly walk to the dome, Superintendent Ned Williams explains the advantages and why they built the safe dome.
Although a deadly tornado can strike anywhere, about half of all fatalities occur in manufactured homes, according to the National Severe Storms Laboratory. But residents of Summit Ridge Estates, a manufactured home development in Pataskala, Ohio don’t worry too much about storms these days. That’s because they have a Monolithic Dome storm shelter on their property that provides a safe haven when severe weather strikes.
Crockett ISD used more than $3 million in grant money from FEMA to build the Andrew J. Hopkins Activity Center. This Monolithic Dome is more than just a gym it’s also a safe shelter in case of a disaster.
Earlier this month, a new Monolithic Dome gymnasium and safe room opened at Central City High School. It’s the first Monolithic Dome gym in the state of Nebraska. Steve White of Nebraska.tv was there to cover the open house.
The $7.7 million bond passed for two safe rooms for Hartshorne Public Schools. The larger, 150-foot diameter Monolithic Dome will serve as a full gymnasium at the high school. The smaller, 70-foot diameter Monolithic Dome will be a new library and computer center at the elementary school.
Lubbock, Texas area residents set to vote this Saturday on a variety of school bonds. One is for Crosbyton, Texas where a proposed Monolithic Dome for an early elementary school and community safe room is planned. UPDATE: The bond passed.
Since early childhood I have felt total awe to the magnificence and splendor of God’s wild elements.
When we think of people who do not have access to clean drinking water and sanitation, the image of refugees in Africa or other parts of the developing world usually come to mind. But the poor and homeless in the United States often face the very same problems, according to a U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Human Right to Water and Sanitation. After a U.S. visit earlier this year, the U.N. investigator Catarina de Albuquerque found that the challenges faced by U.S. homeless are in violation of international human rights standards.
Irie is Jamaican for alright. And Irie is the name owner Jerri Hudson chose for her new, 1000-square-foot Monolithic Dome home that sits on a 40-acre, wooded site in Missouri. Since moving in this past November, Jerri has found her new home both comfortable and secure — exactly what she wanted.
The deadly tornadoes that hit the southern United States were a vivid reminder of the tragic consequences that ensue when people do not have a safe shelter during severe weather. They also served to make Fowler school officials even more grateful that they had the foresight to build a Monolithic Dome multipurpose building to house their new gymnasium, band/vocal room and computer lab. The building, which is the first of its kind in Kansas, was funded in part by a $345,000 grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
All manner of products, goods or items can be safely maintained in a Monolithic Dome bulk storage: grains, fruits, vegetables, meats, coal, fertilizer, pesticides, etc.
The city of Woodsboro is receiving a $1.5 million grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to fund construction of a Monolithic Dome school gymnasium/community center that will double as a county disaster shelter. Woodsboro is located near the Texas Gulf Coast and has sustained damage from Hurricane Ike and other severe storms.
USD225 in Fowler will find out in November whether it can build a futuristic, energy-efficient dome building to serve as a new multi-purpose facility. Voters will decide on November 4th whether to approve a $1.94 million bond issue that would fund construction of a Monolithic Dome structure that would house a computer/technology lab, a new band/vocal room, a new gymnasium, two locker rooms, and a commons/concession area.
The Santa Fe Trail High School in Carbondale, Kansas opens their new Monolithic Dome fine arts center in a week. The facility houses a 500 seat theater, band room and choir room. The Osage County Herald-Chronicle reports that the second dome, a gymnasium, is expected to open September 21.
After reviewing the FEMA requirements for a structure capable of providing a safe shelter for people in areas where hurricanes and tornados represent a real danger, the Monolithic Dome, because of its very nature, heads the list for economy and strength to resist extreme loads.
Terry Gray, State Hazard Mitigation Officer and Mitigation Branch Chief for the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management (ADEM) sent an email to more than a dozen State and/or education administrators in Arkansas and to David B. South, president of Monolithic. In it, Mr. Gray explained that during the past six years his department oversaw more than $50,000,000 in grant programs that funded more than 80 community safe rooms, mostly in schools. The email ended with an invitation to an in-depth discussion of disaster survivability, that included a presentation by David B. South — the only invited guest speaker.
I’m from the Northwest: Yakima, Washington, where I have a lot of experience with controlled Atmosphere storage – in both construction and operation of the controlled atmosphere rooms.
Read the story of the invention of the revolutionary Monolithic Dome Airplane Hangar Door in David B. South’s latest President’s Sphere. Monolithic Dome Airplane Hangars are super energy efficient, tornado safe, firesafe and earthquake safe. They are also about as bulletproof as you can make a building. Included in his story, is a sketch of a Monolithic Dome Hangar for the F-35 Airplane.
This week, Monolithic Dome Schools in Locust Grove, Oklahoma were featured on KSL TV and on KSL.com in a report entitled, Utah architect uses dome design to create safe school buildings, by Candice Madsen and Debbie Dujanovic.
America’s schools, both privately and publicly owned, are finding innovative ways to finance construction, seeking structures that will keep students safe from most natural and manmade disasters, and desiring facilities that use a minimum of energy. Read their stories.
Stunning is the only word for it. It is a massive, red-rock coated Monolithic Dome nestled among the red landscape of Sedona, Arizona. The house contains 10 bedrooms, 7 bathrooms, a fitness room, a theater, a beautiful kitchen, and so much more.
Dome homes are both safe and spacious.
Channel 23, a Fox Affiliate for the Missouri, Illinois and Kentucky, reported on a video interview of Professor Michael Cobb, Physics Professor of Southeast Missouri University. In the video, Professor Cobb explains just why the Monolithic Dome is the safe housing answer for tornado prone areas.
Monolithic Dome home for sale in Riverton, IL (northeast of Springfield). It has three bedrooms, two baths, and almost four acres of beautiful land. Be safe and comfortable in this idyllic rural setting. For more information visit Endow Real Estate’s full listing. Asking price is $159,000.
School Business Affairs, the only education magazine published specifically for school business management professionals, dedicated its June 2009 issue to the topic of risk management. It is fitting that one of the feature articles focuses on keeping students safe in Monolithic Dome schools.
A Feasibility Study is a preliminary study for a project that compares the Monolithic Dome Process to other building systems. This preliminary analysis defines the design and intent of the project and provides an estimated budget and schedule, based on the best available information. Monolithic produces a Feasibility Study to assist a client before full design, management and/or construction services are engaged.
Today’s schools have two relatively new, major problems: 1) How to keep students safe; 2) How to design and maintain a campus that provides what the community needs and does it affordably.
The Monolithic Dome is as fire safe as you can build. The outside cover fabric can be damaged by fire. It can be covered using coatings, but if we are building in a high fire area, we recommend that the exterior of the dome get a 2” coat of concrete as well. Where we have done that, fire has passed right over the dome with virtually no damage.
School officials in Fowler will find out in November whether they can move ahead with a Monolithic Dome building to serve as a new multi-purpose facility. Voters will decide on November 4th whether to approve a $1.94 million bond issue that would fund construction of a Monolithic Dome structure that would house a computer/technology lab, a new band/vocal room, a new gymnasium, two locker rooms, and a commons/concession area.
Not as space-efficient as a dome, but it has some fun applications, i.e. a home with a center courtyard or garden. A good alternative to the full torus is a half-torus. With a half-torus, you don’t have to go through the living room to get to the courtyard. The dome facing a pond or some other feature, with access through a fence or a courtyard, has a lot of merit.
The Hatley and Hamilton Schools in the Monroe County School District, in Hatley, Mississippi are awaiting FEMA funding approval to build two new domes on their campuses. The new domes will feature a basketball gym, restrooms, a coach’s office, an electrical room and storage closets, and will also serve as a shelter for students, faculty as well as the community in the event of severe weather.
Water vapor molecules (or water in its gas form) try to evenly spread themselves. If one side of a room is full of water vapor molecules, the molecules will move to the other side until the room is evenly populated. In a room, this phenomenon is easily understood. It’s a little more complicated in the real world.