please excuse my ignorance, but if these homes are all in what is called tornado alley, why are they not built with a basement or at least a storm cellar?
Is it something with the ground on which they are built? are the prefab homes that require being built on a slab for support?
Just curious
Having driven through Alabama recently, I can say that most rural "houses" are nothing more than pieces of plywood and sheet metal stuck together and propped up by cinder blocks. Usually the only structure worth mentioning is the local church, but even those will collapse at the slightest storm.
Excellent point. Most people can't afford homes that are built to withstand even an F-2 tornado. And in many states in the south, the clay soil types, coupled with the high water tables, make basements difficult to construct and maintain. Something else that happens is that even in areas where there are certain building codes (Earthquake zones, tornado prone areas, etc) a lot of contractors will cut corners to reduce costs. Then the contractor rolls the dice and hopes for the best. Sometimes decades later an event will cause people to realize the home wasn't built to code, and by then the contractor has been long dead, or the company long out of business.
I'll give you an example of how frequently this happens. Some of you may know that before I went to law school, my M.S. degree was in Forensic Entomology. I worked for a brief time as a Regional Entomologist for Terminix. Yes, the pest control company. Among some of my responsibilities were coordinating and performing whole house fumigations, training technicians and inspectors on insect identification and control, and ''solving" issues with problem accounts. Another thing that I did was I had to sign off on all of the government WDIR reports. A WDIR report is actually a ''Wood Destroying Insect Inspection Report". When a home is sold in the U.S., it is required to have this inspection. It ensures there is not at the time of sale an active infestation of wood destroying insects or fungus. Termites for example do more damage each year than fire, floods, tornadoes, and hurricanes combined in the U.S. So a WDIR basically clears the home for the new home owner. During this inspection, should a wood destroying infestation be identified, it will often hold up the sale until the home has been treated. Since 1980 all new homes were required to have the soil around the footers of the foundation pre-treated with termiticide. Now I did this work in the 80's, so the law was relatively new, but A LOT of contractors would be building a new subdivision for example, and would have the first house treated, then show or submit that paperwork for EVERY house in the subdivision, thereby saving themselves a ton of money in the process. It used to happen ALL the time. It probably still does, I'm sure. These types of things happen on a regular basis, so even if there are special building code requirements, a lot of unscrupulous contractors will cut corners to shave costs, and a lot of the things coded aren't put into place.
Although on a separate note from this thread, this is why if you ever have a home built, watch those bastards like a hawk. They will cut corners as often as possible, from using fake stone, lower grade concrete or sand, lessor quality insulation to even using lower quality nails. Not all of them do this, but most do. I mean why does it matter to the home owner what type of nail they use as long as it holds the house together? Right? Bottom line...Caveat Emptor.
Anyway, I got sidetracked. Unless you live in a bomb shelter or a missile silo, if your home is up against even an F3 and especially an F5 tornado...forget it.
Topic: Sick of tornadoes (Read 7814 times)
