I agree, but that’s not necessarily what we’re talking about here - I’m thinking more along the lines of building of what lieu is talking about, building more realistically for the location. Canadian houses aren’t built stronger; they’re built with insulation* and double-paned windows and double doors and furnaces.
*Interestingly enough, it’s not simply just insulation - you can’t just seal a house up - there is a whole house breathing system involved in properly insulating a house!
Good article. Many places I’ve been for remodel thru the years look like they had no inspection, even tho the permits are posted or on file. My favorite was what I called a Floating Roof. I could make the rafters move with my own arm strength. Scary.
Of course, not everywhere in OKC area is like that. Edmond and The Village have much more restrictive codes, from foundation on up. But, those are somewhat upscale townships.
It surprises me that Moore hadn’t beefed up their codes after the May 3rd, 1999 EF5. But then, I do remember that entire neighbourhoods in the Moore/Norman area got rebuilt very fast. I mean within months. Likewise for new subdivisions in the 2000s. :dubious:
The concrete may have held up, but the building didn’t. The tornado moved the entire structure 4 inches off its foundation. It had to be demolished as structurally unsound.
That’s actually a fairly big problem in much of the country. Unless there are a lot of inspectors, builders are working on the honor system when it comes to following local building codes. And we all know when it comes down to profit versus honor which usually wins out…
Also great for promoting urban sprawl! Not so practical for high rise structures which have their uses as well.
Minimal since the vast majority of buildings in Tornado Alley will NEVER be subjected to a tornado. Tornadoes are horrifically violent but of very limited area.
Oh, I agree - there are many housing codes that need revision and houses could be built better. We should be able to build homes that withstand EF0-EF2 routinely (albeit they’ll probably need some repairs).
Although I have built structures (and I’m a big fan of proper rafter tie-downs and other such features) I’m not an authority on costing things out. I still think there’s a trade-off point in their somewhere.
I’m not convinced that ALL of tornado alley needs to engineer for EF5 - checking the history the closest an EF5 ever got to my area is 300 miles south of here - and I’m not a big fan of imposing continent-wide rules. Building codes should reflect local conditions.
Note that was published in 2005, before a cluster of bad weather in the region. Off the top of my head, in RI we’ve been hit by two hurricanes, several blizzards, and there was even a cluster of tornadoes in MA. I don’t know how Storrs itself has been affected but there have been eight federal “major disaster declarations” since 2005.
For the most part however, for someplace inland like Storrs these disasters mostly entail power outages, temporary road blockages, and comparatively minor property damage from wind and flooding. If you’re willing to move cross-country to avoid natural disasters, you can mitigate everything you might face in Storrs with a generator, a well-stocked pantry, a full tank of heating fuel, and preventative house maintenance.
i recall that about 92% of all tornadoes are EF3 or less. making a building to protect people and not be destroyed by an EF3 will handle most of what people will face.
in tornado alley it would be smart to have below ground protection of a basement or shelter to protect life.
since areas outside of tornado alley still might get storms that might give a couple EF4 or EF5 tornadoes in a person’s lifetime i think it would be a good thing in a much larger area.
If winter was something that had a 1 in 5,000 chance of hitting your house this year, would you have double-paned windows and double doors and furnaces?
It’s going to be high, because any experienced residential builder will be able to build a standard wood-frame house. Good luck finding one who will be able to properly build that concrete dome house. Emphasis on the word “properly” for the reason Cat Whisperer mentioned in her earlier post (which I now quote):
“Interestingly it’s not simply just insulation - you can’t just seal a house up - there is a whole house breathing system involved in properly insulating a house!”
A builder who had no previous experience with cold weather might not know that, and the resulting improperly insulated home would quickly develop all kinds of problems, simply because the wrong techniques were used to insulate the structure. Asking the average residential home builder to build “exotic” structures (including basements, in areas where they are not commonly used) is inviting disaster. I certainly wouldn’t buy a concrete dome house, however superior to wood framing it might be in theory, made by any builder who didn’t have considerable experience in instructing them. Good luck finding that builder in most parts of he US!
Man. The picture of their truck…if they were in that thing…damn.
They were in that thing - but not for long (at least for two of them). From what I’ve heard, one of them was found dead buckled into the driver’s seat, one was found a quarter-mile away from the vehicle in one direction, and the other was found a quarter-mile away in the opposite direction. Which kind of shows you how long and how hard that tornado flung the car around, just like it was a toy.
Photos of tornado damage are always very sobering to me. It’s incredible how much destruction Mother Nature is capable of unleashing!
I guess that makes me feel a little better. I suppose if I had to choose I’d rather be tossed a quarter mile to my death rather than squished inside a tiny metal cube…although to be honest with all that debris inside the tornado, they were all probably dead almost immediately at the rate of wind speed that thing had going on.
But yeah…extremely sobering. And really sad.