the human impact target keeps getting bigger as more people occupy more area.
people will have to learn to adapt to living on an overpopulated abused planet.
previously people didn’t take warnings seriously and would watch tv or keep an eye out. then after the large loss of life in Joplin the weather service changed the weather warnings for hazards to detailed human impacts; for tornadoes it is ‘you are going to die’.
recently when strong tornadoes killed people who weren’t in real tornado shelters it motivated some to get shelters, it motivated other people to attempt to drive away. the roads were bumper to bumper with business and panic traffic when some were in the path.
we live on the earth, some locations are hazardous. people have made the planet more hazardous and put themselves more in the way of hazards. population decreases due to this will become more frequent.
If I lived in Oklahoma (god forbid) I would not be a slave to traditional architecture with its wind-catching eaves and breezeways and the like. I’m really surprised a more brutalist concrete style hasn’t been adopted yet and wonder if all this recent damage won’t inspire some to take that approach. It can be made to look quite stunning actually, less a bunker and more of an architecturally inspired contemporary design. The first house here would be an example. Besides protection and durability, you’d think the more the style is adopted, the more efficient and economical they’d become.
There have always been tornados in Oklahoma. The only thing that may change is that with a hotter planet there will be more energy pumped in to weather systems and the frequency and ferocity of twisters may increase. I don’t think one would ever regret their decision to go this way.
Photo 9 in the concrete mega-mansions part of the slideshow reminds me of some of the jumping that you have to do in Guild Wars 2 - they are a set of floating rectangular steps you need to jump on to climb a building.
That being said, if you own a single family dwelling to live in or rent out, you should install a storm shelter in the back yard, or under the house accessed by a lift door in the floor. It does not need to be bomb shelter elaborate, just enough space to seat a family, have battery powered light and weather radio, and a case of water and MRE type food, or at least something to snack upon, and a camp toilet that uses the gel bags [or the homemade version that is a small trash bag with a disposable diaper in the bottom set in a 5 gallon poly bucket with a toilet lid.] Enough to survive for a day while they dig the wreckage off top.
If you worry about the ground water, there have been shelters built in larger poly tanks buried in the ground.
Yes, at the very minimum if you’re in a high probability area you need a safe room or underground shelter. But there are also two very tangible benefits to a concrete, low wind resistance structure that I can see. One, you’ve still got a house after the storm and two, you’re not putting tons and tons of deadly debris into the twister as it passes over or nearby.
ETA, I didn’t look at all the rest of those structures beyond the first so yeah, surely some wouldn’t fit the bill. But I’d have no problem stylistically with living in that one or its like, especially with the benefits mentioned.
Just wanted to throw in a few factoids on the OKC tornado. Per this article’s reporting, it was the widest tornado ever measured.
2.6 miles wide - damn! And it went from approximately one mile wide to the 2.6 miles width in about 30 seconds. I cannot even really imagine the power it takes to generate something like that. That is just unreal, and I am no stranger at all to seeing funnels forming then dissipating.
Even with radar being so readily available and detailed of wind direction, etc, Mother Nature keeps proving it WILL kick our ass without a moment’s hesitation.
A tornado 2.6 miles wide with wind speeds measured at up to 296 mph - damn! Worth repeating. That’s the size I’d expect to read about on some other planet in an article by some renowned astronomer or whatever - not here on Earth
And just this morning at around 0500, I woke all the family up when a tornadic thunderstorm (per radar icon) was bearing down on us, maybe 5-10 minutes away - but quickly went to plain ol’ heavy rain (thankfully!). No delays in being ready now…none! I kinda wish I lived in a cave when this shit keeps happening again and again (with more predicted over next few days, too - ugh!).
I like the idea of building more tornado-friendly structures. My husband and I (both born and raised in Western Canada) sort of looked at each other after hearing about the Moore tornado, and said, “They don’t all have tornado shelters?” We live in a place where just going outside for too long will kill you for half of the year - we build accordingly. I don’t see any reason why people in Tornado Alley shouldn’t do the same.
Building underground shelters or specially-reinforced safe rooms probably makes more economic sense than trying to build entire homes and commercial buildings to withstand EF 4 and EF 5 tornadoes. Those violent tornadoes are fairly rare (a half-dozen or so a year, out of about 1200 total tornadoes), but are responsible for a disproportionate number of tornado deaths (about 50%). (The other 50% are people in cars and mobile homes, which can be destroyed by even a very weak tornado.). Most buildings won’t see a violent tornado during the entire course of their build life, and it’s cheaper overall to just beef up the roof against hail and put in a safe room. in the unlikely event the building IS hit by a violent tornado, save the people, let the structure go.
Winter happens every year over a huge area. Tornadoes are extremely rare, and the kind of tornadoes that you need to be underground or in purpose-built shelter to survive are extremely rare among those extremely rare events.
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But there are also two very tangible benefits to a concrete, low wind resistance structure that I can see. One, you’ve still got a house after the storm and two, you’re not putting tons and tons of deadly debris into the twister as it passes over or nearby.
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Here’s the hospital after the EF5 tornado. Actually it appears the concrete fared pretty well. I can’t say I’d include a bunch of wind holding balconies into a “low wind resistance structure” though, nor would a six story building really qualify as such. That thing was a sail.
I can see how some people would rather put their money into shelters but I still think were I to build where such destructive winds are common that I’d get away from traditional suburban design and both toughen and smart-up all around, more science behind the design. There can be something appealing about practicality too.
This reminded me that a manager or rep from the hospital was interviewed at NPR and did mention that the parts of the hospital that failed were sections that indeed had little concrete on them, also the windows were not up to the task, so the reconstructed hospital has even more than bullet proof windows (They are now ready to withstand even a direct hit from a tree branch) and the buildings have more solid concrete sections.
I’ve been thinking about this, and I think your logic is flawed, but I haven’t been able to put my finger on why.
I still think lieu is onto something - build better for what you have. An attitude of crossing your fingers because they’re fairly rare still sounds like a cop-out to me.
There is a point at which building stronger becomes cost-prohibitive. That’s why early non-Native settlers on the Great Plains built underground storm shelters that doubled as root cellars rather than trying to either build above-ground structure strong enough to withstand tornadoes or extensive underground homes. It was cost-effective to build a hole to duck into if the odds wound up against you, but not to build a mini-fortress above ground.
That still holds true today, although building above-ground tough structures is more feasible. Building a safe-room in a home as a hedge against a rare catastrophic event is more cost-effective than building entire houses that double as bunkers.
