Why Are Us Homes Not More Tornado Resistant ?

[The Eagle]

but the entire contents of the house have been sucked out of the windows/doors, trashed and spread all over the local landscape, , plus everything has been exposed to the very heavy rain that accompanies most tornadoes.

That's your assumption, not mine.

[Tuberider]

Americans have a different attitude to their houses, basically: they're not designed to last as long as ours in the first place, and if they are destroyed in a natural disaster, it's cheaper to clear the site and build from scratch in most cases than it is to repair a damaged structure.

My fiancee's family live about 10 miles from the San Andreas Fault in California, where almost all the houses are wood frame and cladding. Local building codes in most areas actually ban the construction of brick houses, the rationale being that in an earthquake, timber sections will fall over in one piece, usually after people have had a chance to get out of their way, whereas bricks flying around is something you seriously do not want. Ditto bush fires: if one goes through a brick house, it'll gut the interior and destroy the roof structure anyway, after which it's as cheap if not cheaper to build a new wooden house from scratch as it is to repair a brick or concrete structure.

So what they'll probably do in Oklahoma is simply to bulldoze the wreckage out of the way and rebuild from a brown field.

I know what you are getting at, but the American insistence of building homes out of balsa wood is absolutely insane. I live in an earthquake zone and I could not imagine building such a house and living with that risk every day that it could collapse on top of my family.

Things in america may be changing though. I was in NOLA shortly after Katrina, and the devestation was unbelievable. Huge areas devestated, especially in the SE of the city, with areas like St Claude/ lower 9th ward completely destroyed. I was there again last month and I noticed some big new developments downtown near the superdome being built with reinforced concrete skeletons like we do here in the med. the design of these blocks was also decidedly European. Perhaps they are waking up after so many hard lessons.

[JustAnotherProle]

I wonder the same thing, surely a country with the wealth and technology of the USA can create housing solutions to fit the environment,to me it would make far more sense to build your housing as a semi underground structure, something like this is the best example I could find:

This has to be better than the wooden frame above ground housing in a tornado zone? At least for places like schools and hospital perhaps, I don't know the cost of digging a hole and waterproofing etc, maybe it would be too expensive, but really doesn't it just make sense to build like this rather than the current methods?

[cashinmattress]

Things in america may be changing though.

Nope:

Oklahoma Tornado Caused By Jason Collins Being Gay Claims Westboro Baptist Church

Pathetic Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn Says Cuts Must Be Made Before He’ll Support Tornado Relief

Oklahoma Senators Jim Inhofe, Tom Coburn, Face Difficult Options On Disaster Relief

Late last year, Inhofe and Coburn both backed a plan to slash disaster relief to victims of Hurricane Sandy. In a December press release, Coburn complained that the Sandy Relief bill contained "wasteful spending," and identified a series of items he objected to, including "$12.9 billion for future disaster mitigation activities and studies."

People are dying at home and abroad while their idiot politicians bicker.

Nothing will change.

Poor black folk living in the ruins of the Katrina flooding in Louisiana never received proper help from the state or federal governments.

Nobody in America cares about poor people, or the mid-west except for the mid west.

Edited May 22, 2013 by cashinmattress

[Guest_FaFa!_*]

The answer is here

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/technology/2013/05/surprising-reason-oklahoma-lacks-adequate-tornado-shelters/5667/

The relative dearth of storm cellars in Oklahoma comes down, as things so often do, to environmental factors. The soil in the state is composed largely of clay -- and that's particularly true in central Oklahoma, where Moore is located. ("Soils in the Central Rolling Red Prairies," geologists at Oklahoma State put it (pdf), "are dark and loamy with clayey to loamy subsoils developed on Permian shales, mudstones, sandstones and/or alluvial deposits under tall grasses.")

The ground in central Oklahoma tends to be soft and moist -- right down to the bedrock that sits, generally, some 20 to 100 feet below the surface.

Here's the problem with that when it comes to building basements and underground shelters: Clay is particularly fickle as a foundation for construction. When loamy soils absorb rainwater, they expand. And when the weather's dry, they contract. This inevitable and yet largely unpredictable variability makes basement-building a particular challenge, since it makes it nearly impossible to establish firm foundations for underground construction.

And while above-ground homes can be built on these somewhat shaky foundations, adding the element of open space in the form of a basement is a nearly impossible feat of engineering. There is a chance your house, its basement surrounded by glorified mud, will eventually simply topple into itself.

To mitigate this, contractors have been experimenting with steel reinforcements for basements, bolstering underground walls with steel beams that are drilled directly into the bedrock below. The problem here, though, is that much of Oklahoma's bedrock is composed of limestone (pdf), which, just like the soil above it, absorbs water. And which, when it's sapped of moisture, becomes chalky.

So, you can try to enforce your basement with steel; ultimately, though, the steel will be anchored to rock that is "rock" only in the broadest sense of the word.

To the question of whether it's even possible to build a tornado-proof house, the Wind Institute offered the following reply: "You can, but your neighbors probably would not like it in their neighborhood and you would need some of Bill Gates's wealth to pay for it."

Edited May 22, 2013 by FaFa!

[Saving For a Space Ship]

Perhaps Gabion baskets would help

How to bury a shipping container - Gabion Basket

http://containerauction.com/read-news/how-to-bury-a-shipping-container-gabion-basket

If you're insistent on burying a shipping container, some people have done it successfully. One option is pouring concrete forms to support the weight from the side of the container, however if you're going that far you need to ask yourself if you really even need a container once you have the concrete forms in place. The most cost effective method that we've seen is to bury a shipping container is to use Gabion baskets. Gabion baskets are the steel cages that you often see on the highway filled with stone to support hills or as bridge abutments. Every location is unique, as are each container project. So the following section is a general guideline for successfully burying a shipping container.

[Tuberider]

I wonder the same thing, surely a country with the wealth and technology of the USA can create housing solutions to fit the environment,to me it would make far more sense to build your housing as a semi underground structure, something like this is the best example I could find:

This has to be better than the wooden frame above ground housing in a tornado zone? At least for places like schools and hospital perhaps, I don't know the cost of digging a hole and waterproofing etc, maybe it would be too expensive, but really doesn't it just make sense to build like this rather than the current methods?

jeez, that looks like mosquito heaven

[Tuberider]

People are dying at home and abroad while their idiot politicians bicker.

Nothing will change.

Poor black folk living in the ruins of the Katrina flooding in Louisiana never received proper help from the state or federal governments.

Nobody in America cares about poor people, or the mid-west except for the mid west.

I agree, but that's the way they want it. The system might not be broken, it was made that way. The econonmy of New Orleans is booming and has been since Katrina. It's what keeps the wheels of the capitalist system turning. Boom, bust, build, tear down, consume, detox.

Destruction leads to a very rough road but it also breeds creation...

[winkie]

You may not want to Tornado proof your home due to cost, but how much does it cost to bury a shipping container and put in steps going down to it ?

Also without increasing costs dramatically how about shaping homes or having them surrounded by embankments.

That is the answer me thinks, build or bury underground protection to shelter in during the storm....re-emerge to rebuild a new home until the next time.