As there are a lot of 100+ year old houses here, I wouldn't think that you
need to make every house into a bunker. But there are ways to make a house
MUCH stronger with things like clips that secure the roofs to the walls and
the walls to the foundation. The places that were build like cardboard
boxes were shredded. The higher quality construction just had moderate
damage.
Besides, just like automobiles, you build them to protect the occupants,
not to withstand everything.
Another factor to consider is that making a building withstand high winds
is pretty easy. Making it withstand the flying debris is another story. Not
any different in Hurricane areas. A building on it's on will fare ok, but
if one falls apart it will wipe out a whole string of buildings downwind.
Honestly, most people in Iowa have never even seen a tornado. Many of us
seek them out and rarely are successful in spotting them. They do tend to
seek out trailer parks, though. Wierd. The land mass of "tornado alley" is
relatively low density. We really don't have much population and it is
mostly corn fields. Except where the towns and cities are. Unlike most
places in this country, there is a hard line between town and country.
Houses on one side of the street, nothing but corn fields for the miles to
the next town on the other side of the street.
Not much else around here to get excited about. This is the only way we get
our 15 minutes of fame. If it wasn't for the fact our hospital was hit, you
would have never known about this tornado. A couple hundred families
displaced and an office building destroyed. That happens on a daily basis
somewhere in the world on a much grander scale.
AG
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Ken Norton
ken@xxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.zone-10.com
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