WICHITA, Kan.-Meritrust CU plans to build a vault-style safe room in its newest branch in Manhattan, Kan,. to protect against tornadoes like the one that struck Moore, Okla.
"For us it was an opportunity to build something into the building where we could feel that the members and the employees were protected in a situation like this," said CEO James Nastars. "Some of our branches have basements, and many of them have vaults similar to Tinker (FCU, where members and staff took shelter from the storm while the rest of the building was destroyed). Obviously when we built the Manhattan branch we wanted to provide something similar. That branch won't have a basement or safe deposit vault like other branches, so that seemed like the best alternative."
While many buildings in Kansas are built with basements, some of the space that Meritrust purchased for the new branch includes an existing building and parking lot. "It wasn't conducive to putting a basement there since there was an existing parking lot structure there," said Nastars.
The safe room will be 109 square feet and will accommodate 22 people in an emergency. The cost of the structure is about $120 per square foot, said Nastars, and it is designed to withstand winds of 250 miles-per-hour. The room is also expected to be fully utilized during normal operating conditions as a teller work space. The $881-million CU currently has a similar room in its branch in Junction City, Kan.
More Safe Rooms Moving Forward
Meritrust's Wichita headquarters does not have a safe room; however the IT room is surrounded by reinforced concrete, allowing that room to double as a storm shelter. Nastars said that if the CU builds more branches in the future it will likely incorporate some sort of safe room if a basement or other type of vault is not feasible.
Nastars-who recently joined Meritrust after working at University FCU in Austin, Texas-is new to "Tornado Alley," but said that the primary safety issue when building branches is often protecting against robbery rather than natural disasters. Safe rooms like these allow protection at relatively minimal cost, he said, and can be designed so that, based on most branch traffic patterns, employees and can fit safely inside for the duration of a storm.
"Obviously these buildings themselves aren't designed to withstand something like an EF-4 or an EF-5 tornado," said Nastars. "It seems to me like the logical solution is to put these kinds of rooms in that are designed to withstand these kinds of events."
