Nancy Guthrie’s Disappearance Prompts Surge in Arizona Residents Wanting To Add ‘Safe Rooms’ to Their Homes

Nancy Guthrie's shock disappearance has led to a wave of Arizona homeowners submitting inquiries for "safe rooms," according to a local security expert, who says that his business has been flooded with requests in the wake of the 84-year-old's alleged abduction from her Tucson-area house.

Nancy, who is the mother of "Today" host Savannah Guthrie, was reported missing from her property on Feb. 1, with security footage taken from her doorbell camera later revealing that a masked and armed intruder was seen approaching her front door in the early hours of that morning.

The local sheriff's department and FBI agents have been carrying out a desperate search for the missing mother of three since then—but have yet to identify any suspects.

In the meantime, Kevin Hand, the CEO of Sportsman Steel Safes, which specializes in the installation of safe and panic rooms, says that he has witnessed an influx of potential customers eager to outfit their homes with additional security measures.

"There has been a huge spike in calls and business since the Guthrie case," he told the Daily Mail, noting that, prior to Nancy's disappearance, many homeowners in Arizona had been happy with much more low-cost safety methods, such as locks and doorbell cameras.

"It's got people thinking, 'What would we do if someone broke in tonight?' People don't want this to happen to them or their families, and they're realizing maybe it can."

Among the requests that Hand has received in recent weeks, he noted that many concern the reinforced doors offered by his company, which notes on its website that "no vault door [has been] defeated in 45 years."

"We've been in business 42 years and have never had a vault door drilled open, pried open, or lost to fire," the website states, adding that the business has supplied all manner of government agencies, including the FBI, the CIA, Homeland Security, and the Secret Service.

The doors offered by Hand can weigh up to 1,000 pounds and are reinforced with multiple layers of steel as well as concrete cores. Despite this, the security expert says his company can design the doors so they look like every other feature in the property.

One of the more popular items, he added, are reinforced closet doors, which can effectively turn a walk-in wardrobe into a safe room. Not only are these spaces often ready-made for a few people to fit inside them, but they are also usually located on the second floor of a home, which adds another layer of safety for those trying to hide from an intruder.

Hand added that, in some cases, having a reinforced door will actually deter would-be criminals from trying to gain access to a property—because they know it will take too long for them to break through, thereby denying them a speedy getaway.

Sportsman Steel Safes also advertises an array of safe rooms that can be installed in homes—doubling as storm shelters and vaults.

Having previously seen the majority of interest for residential security measures come from California and Texas, where the company has offices, Hand said the past few weeks have seen a huge surge in requests from Arizona, noting that they already have consultations lined up for weeks to come.

Nancy's home, which is located in the Catalina Foothills, is not thought to have been outfitted with any kind of heavy security system, although she did have a Nest doorbell camera mounted in the entryway, the same camera that caught an intruder approaching the home.

However, her neighbor, Tom Pew, previously revealed during an appearance on Fox News, that the majority of residents in the area never saw a need for any additional security measures, noting that—prior to Nancy's disappearance—their neighborhood had never felt anything other than safe.

"It's a friendly neighborhood, it's a very comfortable place to live," he said. "People walk every day in the streets around the neighborhood. They know one another, greet one another, walk their dogs. By and large, there's just no crime.

"[Any] crime that does occur is a petty kind of crime, where someone might leave their car unlocked, and kids walk by and take something."

Pew also shed some light on the lack of security camera footage, noting that many people in the neighborhood feel safe enough that they don't see a need for installing security systems at their homes.

"It doesn't shock me [that there is a lack of security camera footage], it's not really a high security area," he said. "People don't really look at things like that."

He also highlighted media reports about there being no street lights in the neighborhood, stating that they haven't been installed "because the sky is one of the most perfect skies to be seen in a neighborhood in the country."

"People like dark skies and aren't really afraid of the dark," he said, adding: "I would say the reason you couldn't see other houses from the Ring cameras that are on other houses ... you think of this as a desert, but there are a lot of trees and shrubs and things like that. The houses are not that close together. There's a lot of space here between the houses."