Guide · listings checked November 7, 2026
What FEMA P-361, ICC 500, and NSSA verification mean
Installer sites stack these names in one sentence. They are not the same thing. This page is the key for the badges and the “company states” box on each listing.
FEMA does not hand out a product seal
The Federal Emergency Management Agency publishes safe-room guidance. That is different from a laboratory sticker you can look up by serial number. If a brochure says “FEMA certified” or “meets FEMA,” the useful question is which publication, which edition, and which parts of the installed shelter — door, anchors, slab — are actually in that design.
FEMA’s safe room publications page is the index. Our listing check on November 7, 2026 did not re-read every company’s cited edition against the newest document.
FEMA P-361
The title is Safe Rooms for Tornadoes and Hurricanes: Guidance for Community and Residential Safe Rooms. FEMA has updated it several times. A 2024 issuance (fifth edition) is written against ICC 500-2023. The previous edition’s criteria were tied to ICC 500-2020. The year in a company’s sentence matters, and this directory does not quietly upgrade an older citation to the newest book.
P-361 is guidance for planning, design, construction, and operation. It also includes funding criteria that can be stricter than ICC 500 when federal grant money is paying for the room. A private cash purchase is not the same paperwork as a FEMA-funded project.
FEMA P-361 PDF (November 2024 issuance)
FEMA P-320
P-320, Taking Shelter from the Storm, is the residential document. Homeowners and some rebate programs refer to it alongside P-361. Prescriptive plans in an older printing are not the same as the current one. Ask which edition the drawing came from. FEMA’s resources page above is the place to confirm the current file. This guide does not pin a P-320 edition year because that file moves.
ICC 500
The full name is the ICC/NSSA Standard for the Design and Construction of Storm Shelters. The International Code Council and the National Storm Shelter Association publish it. Editions in circulation include 2008, 2014, 2020, and 2023. Building codes can adopt it. It is a design and construction standard, not a club you join.
FEMA’s highlights of the 2023 edition describe a residential storm shelter as one that serves dwelling units and does not exceed 16 occupants. A community storm shelter is a storm shelter that is not residential. Use that only as a vocabulary check. The standard itself is the document of record, and it is a paid code book.
FEMA highlights of ICC 500-2023
NSSA producer membership
The National Storm Shelter Association keeps producer lists. For this directory, a green “NSSA Producer Member” badge means the business name was on at least one of the producer PDFs checked on November 7, 2026: pre-manufactured residential, pre-manufactured community, or site-built community. The listing quotes the parenthetical from that check, such as residential, community, or both.
The badge is not an inspection of a shelter in a customer’s house. It does not mean every model in the catalog was on the list. A line that says “Not on NSSA producer PDFs (checked 2026-11-07)” means those PDFs, that day. It is not a finding that the company fails a standard. Some NSSA installer and contractor tables are images and did not render in this research pass, so they were not used.
ATSA membership
The American Tornado Shelter Association is a trade group. A listing shows an ATSA badge only when the row recorded one. If the cell says “current members page,” the listing says that. If it only gives a member number and a “since” date, that is all we repeat. Two rows were on a 2019 roster and were not on the current page when we looked. They are labeled “ATSA — 2019 roster,” not as current members.
One source line says the member number ATSA635 was printed twice on the ATSA page. That note stays on the business that said it. Membership is not a government license and it is not ICC 500.
Texas Tech and other test claims
When a company says a unit was debris-impact tested at Texas Tech or the National Wind Institute, that sentence stays in “Company states,” with the claim source. A public list of tested products was not found in this pass and was not used to award a badge. See also rebates, which often point back to these same documents.
On this page
Does FEMA certify storm shelters?
FEMA publishes design guidance. It does not run a consumer product-certification seal. When an ad says “FEMA certified,” read it as the company’s claim about which publication it designed to, and ask for the edition.
What is the difference between FEMA P-320 and FEMA P-361?
P-361 is Safe Rooms for Tornadoes and Hurricanes, the guidance document for residential and community safe rooms. P-320, Taking Shelter from the Storm, is the residential companion people use when they are planning a home safe room. Editions change. Ask which one, and which year.
Does an NSSA badge on this site mean a shelter was inspected?
No. It means the business name appeared on the NSSA producer PDFs checked on November 7, 2026. It is not an inspection of a unit in your garage, and it does not cover every product that company sells.
What does “company states” mean?
The sentence came from the company or from the source line named on the listing. StormShelterScout did not repeat the test. Texas Tech or NWI debris-impact lines are in that box when the company said them. A public tested-product list was not found in this research pass and was not used.