Better Building Practices Stand Alone in "Tornado Alley"
 Civil Engineer David Prevatt is convinced that two homes in the Featherstone Community in Moore, Okla., that survived a direct hit from an EF5 tornado are still standing because they were built stronger than most in Oklahoma and the rest of "tornado alley" — the region stretching from Texas to Iowa that accounts for roughly a fourth of all U.S. tornadoes. "Oklahoma should follow the example of Florida after Hurricane Andrew in 1992 and adopt a tougher building code to reduce damage in the future," said Prevatt, Assistant Professor of Civil and Coastal Engineering at the University of Florida.
Moore, Oklahoma is a unique laboratory to study construction and tornado damage because it has been hit by four tornadoes in the last 15 years. Prevatt, who has studied damage from hurricanes and the devastating tornadoes in 2011 in Joplin, Missouri and Tuscaloosa, Alabama, said, "This notion that we cannot engineer buildings economically to withstand tornado loads is a fallacy. Why should we be surprised if a house collapses if the load is four times more powerful than it was designed to withstand?"
"Building a house to limit tornado damage involves making strong connections from the foundation to the walls to the roof," said Prevatt. The two houses Prevatt saw standing in Moore amid the devastation were built with what are called "hurricane ties" or metal straps to bind the roof to the walls, which are stronger than nails. These are required by the Florida Building Code, but not in Oklahoma and most of tornado alley. |
