HARRISONVILLE, Mo. — Tornadoes this week have people across the metro thinking about shelter from the storms – prompting many families to call a Harrisonville company for help.

Staying Home Corporation developed a one-of-a-kind creation called a “Hide-Away” storm shelter. It’s a steel box that is sturdy enough to withstand the winds of an EF-5 tornado.

“The shelter walls themselves are made out of a quarter-inch steel,” said company president Mike Vogt. “The door can never collapse or nothing can even penetrate the door or more importantly, damage the locks or the hinges.”

The box, which can also fold up for storage, screws into concrete slabs in your home’s foundation using heavy duty bolts. It then locks your family inside with three different latches.

“Each of these have a hold down capacity of between 4,000-5,000 pounds,” Vogt said of the bolts that prevent the box from lifting off the ground.

“The first prototype we had,” Vogt said, “we took down and they handed it back to us in some pieces, which was not something you love as a designer, but what it did is it really imparted into us a reality of what we were up against in terms of forces.”

Its strength was tested at the National Wind Institute at Texas Tech, where 2x4s were repeatedly shot towards the shelter using tornado-like force.

“They do this using a 20-foot air cannon that they shoot 12 and 15-foot 2x4s out with a laser sight so they can hit exactly where they want,” Vogt said.

The result is a one-of-a-kind safe room that’s been top of mind for people across the metro in the wake of Monday’s tornadoes in places like Oak Grove.

“It is a little bit of an emotional buy,” Vogt said of the boxes, “and unfortunately, people kind of wait and put it off until some weather occurs and for whatever reason, this year feels different or it`s a different sense and our phones are pretty much ringing off the hooks.”

The boxes are also bulletproof and can serve as a safe room against home intruders, or for children during a school shooting.

“We recently put a shelter in for the Kansas School of the Blind,” Vogt said. “And it was for 164 students and staff, and the shelter weighed roughly 28,000 pounds and it is there now, they`re using it. They just had their drill this week.”

Creating a safe space – whenever lives are on the line.

One of the new features Staying Home Corporation is offering is impact-resistant windows that can be installed in the tornado shelters to help people who are claustrophobic cope with the small space, or to let you know when first responders are coming.

For more information, click here.