On Friday, February 2 storms drew across central Florida in the early, pre-dawn hours. At least three tornadoes carrying winds of hurricane force Category 2 through 5 swept along a 70-mile stretch to the coast. For many, it was astonishing because Florida is so associated with hurricanes.

“People don’t think of us as a place that has tornadoes. We have quite frequent tornadoes,” says Kristin Beall, Homes By Her. “The homes that I’m building withstand [those wind speeds].”

Beall is referring to Summer Glenn, a 60-home community featuring 10 floor plans she is building north of Orlando. Each home is built to the Institute for Business and Home Safety’s Fortified . . . for safer living® program. “They all come standard with everything that is required for the Fortified . . . for safer living program, plus a safe room that has a door that meets FEMA standards and reinforced poured, solid concrete. It’s incorporated into the home as the master bedroom walk-in closet,” Beall explains. “The homes all come with ballistic nylon shutters, upgraded roof systems, impact-resistant shingles, secondary water barriers.

“At every phase of the house, we’re really taking a step up and making these homes safe, making something that will withstand the test of time, and give families a place where they really feel secure—a place that they call home no matter what Mother Nature brings their way.”

Beall recently completed Summer Glenn’s model and already there is a waiting list. The homes range from 1,370 to 2,000 square feet and include three to four bedrooms, two to three baths and two-car garages. Outside, the look is Craftsman for style and personality. Safe homes, Beall points out, don’t have to look like concrete bunkers. “They can be charming. They can be attractive. They can be aesthetically pleasing. They can look like any other home, it’s just how they are built. They’re built stronger,” she says.

A STEP BEYOND THE CODES
Stronger, yes; but the foundation behind Beall’s Storm Safe Homes is to build on affordability, too. The idea is to put families in the safest homes possible, and with that comes a challenge: getting all the safety features into a home, while keeping the price affordable.

“I spent about six months doing research and trying to find the best way to build a home that is affordable and safe and secure,” Beall says.

Putting these two concepts together—safety and affordability—is rooted deep within Beall. A third-generation homebuilder, Beall is the only child and the only grandchild of builders who founded their family business on affordable housing, an idea that was a staple of the business for many years. Her grandfather, Charlie Johnson, was known as the “Father of Affordable Housing” in Central Florida.

The need to incorporate safety and security came later. Raised in central Florida it wasn’t until 2004 that Beall witnessed Mother Nature’s fury. That year, she experienced three hurricanes in her part of the state—two of which were quite bad. High sustained winds, weeks without power, curfews—Beall and her family were holed up in the basement of their home for three days with no power or running water.

“It’s only in these times that you realize how vulnerable you are. And we felt lucky,” she recalls. “We had access to generators, we had access to storm shutters

. . . because of the business that we are in. Having gone through that, I knew that there had to be a better way.
“Florida has some of the best building codes. They are very stringent, and homes are being built stronger and stronger every year. That’s a good thing. However, we still had damage. There were still a lot of people who were displaced, and so that was when I talked to my family and said this is something that I feel really passionately about and we need to do. It’s very hard for working families, young families, to afford homes that have the features that can really protect them in a storm.

“We really went a step beyond what building codes require to build homes that are a lot stronger, homes that people can truly feel safe in.”

It’s like buying a car. “You want to put your family in the safest car possible. It’s why they do crash tests, it’s why we have air bags, seatbelts,” Beall says. “All it takes is one accident. You’re not going to wait until your family is involved in an accident to buy them a safe car.”

SAFETY IN MIND
The market seems to be responding well to Beall’s Storm Safe Homes concept. She plans to begin work on another all-IBHS Fortified community soon. And as the concept gains recognition it brings a few surprises, too.

“I expected people locally to be concerned, especially because they lived through [hurricanes],” Beall says, “but I was so surprised I got a lot of calls from people out of state. A lot of people move to Florida and the one thing they are afraid of is hurricanes. This gives them safety and security knowing that these homes are really built with that in mind. It was surprising how important it was to people coming in from out of state.”

The need for strong, secure homes may well be universal. “Whether you’re in Florida and you have hurricanes, or you’re in the Carolinas and you have hurricanes, or you’re in Kansas and you have tornadoes, we all face something when it comes to storms and weather.”