Hey everyone, I have a question about house construction and tornadoes. In India, houses are often built with concrete foundations, pillars, and brick walls. I’m curious if these types of houses would survive a tornado in the US? I understand tornadoes can be very destructive, but I’m wondering if these sturdy materials would offer more protection.
Additionally, I’ve noticed that houses in tornado-prone areas in the US often look less robust, more like cardboard boxes, and suffer severe damage during tornadoes. I’m wondering why these sturdier construction methods, like those used in India, aren’t more common in tornado-prone regions in the US.
28 comments
Short answer, no:
Long answer, hell no.
It doesn’t matter what your foundation or building materials are. If your house is hit by a tornado, unless it’s literally a concrete windowless bunker, it’s going to fuck it up.
I appreciate the implication that the only reason tornados destroy people’s houses is that we’re too stupid to build houses like glorious India. It takes a special combination of ego and ignorance to see a house get destroyed by a tornado and think “well clearly that house used poor building materials.”
Here’s what I want you to do. [watch this video](https://youtu.be/5ohIVzIZLuQ?si=YTDwys2aladzW-Gy), come back, and explain to exactly how “building houses like we do in India” would make any difference if that thing hit your house.
depends on the tornado for sure, but in general, no. Brick/concrete houses would be somewhat more resistant to weaker tornadoes than wood-framed ones, but they would still be pretty heavily damaged by stronger tornadoes.
I think you’re drastically underestimating how violent tornadoes can get.
[No](https://stormadvisor.com/can-a-tornado-destroy-a-concrete-house/)
Best to just have a cellar or a tornado proof shelter and let the house take the L
You’d have to build a pretty strong house to repel a car.
I think you are asking this in good faith, so I’ll just say that the wind isn’t the whole issue in itself, timber frame construction or otherwise. The issue is debris carried by the wind. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Tuscaloosa%E2%80%93Birmingham_tornado is a bad memory. The dangerous stuff was various trees, cars and other objects impacting buildings(or people or vehicles) at 310 km/h. And said buildings becoming dangerous high speed debris themselves.
It’s not how fast the wind is blowing. It’s what the wind is blowing. If it throws a car at your house……
No and now all those bricks and cinder blocks are caught up in the tornado winds and are helping the tornado smash every damn thing else
Tornadoes destroy houses with a combination of pressure differential and debris. Stronger tornadoes can throw cars and there ain’t no wall that you’re going to build that’s going to stop that
Sort of.
You can build a tornado resistant bunker above ground. It requires 4 foot or thicker reinforced concrete walls AND ceilings. No right angles. No windows. And a steel reinforced door. Standard cement or cinderblock houses, stone houses, or brick houses are not robust enough to survive a tornado and will simply take a few seconds longer to be destroyed.
People always come here and tell us American engineers are dumb. Maybe you didn’t mean it like that but it’s essentially what you are saying.
A full-on hardened bunker could probably survive a strong tornado. A home made with brick walls sure as fuck won’t, at least nothing EF3 or higher unless you count walls and nothing else standing after as “surviving”. The problem is that the wind will smash in the windows and doors, and the resulting suction effect will rip off the ceiling, suck out everything not bolted down, and possibly destroy any interior upper floors. I’ve seen a picture I can’t find right now of a house built with concrete walls. All that was left were the walls with everything inside them ripped out through the top and the second floor collapsed inside.
[Here’s a video](https://youtu.be/s0c27Twu__o?si=TqlNyahDwcHn7mKJ) a guy filmed being hit directly by an EF4 tornado. Unless I live is a fully reinforced concrete home, walls *and* roof, with entryways sealed shut with steel doors bolted into place, it’s not surviving a direct hit.
No, and when a building built entirely of concrete collapses on you, you are *crushed to death.* If a pile of lumber collapses on you (you’d be hiding in the basement), you might even crawl out of there on your own.
If you are talking about “forts” like heavily reinforced building like some military installations and bunkers, yes.
If by forts you mean it’s standard bricked houses or the relative thin concreted residential buildings… They’d better cope with a tornado for sure, but wouldn’t necessarily come out unscaved depending on the strenght of the tornado, and they would be more expensive to repair. Things like roof structures are not concrete even on those buildings.
Furthermore what hits it also matters. A brick wall might have been able to deal with the windspeed alone, but not that wood frame, debris even a car (even though I dont think a brick wall would be enough on its own if the winds are strong enough to blow cars around) slamming in to it at high speed. And then you have a tons of bricks now slamming in to other crap.
If you build something to survive a bomb getting dropped on it then it will probably survive a tornado. Short of that, it’s probably getting wrecked.
I think it’s probably better to have a wood frame house collapse on you then to have a concrete house collapse on you.
A small tornado maybe. A strong tornado can pick up a train and throw it through your concrete and brick house.
You would be better off having a larger underground bunker. The attitude with a lot of homes in Tornado alley is that they just let them take the loss while the residents flee to bunkers to stay safe. Homes are cheap, humans lives are not.
A tornado hitting a particular point is a pretty rare occurrence. You will see 100 year old homes in that part of the country. Its not that they withstood a Tornado because they were built better, its just that in the last 100 years they were never hit directly by one. If a Tornado is going to hit your home, its a once in a lifetime event, you bunker down, make sure everyone is safe, and then you are pre-disastered! The odds of a second one coming through during your lifetime are pretty slim.
Do you *really* think we would still be making our houses out of “cardboard “ if using “stronger” materials would prevent a tornado from destroying a house?
To answer your question no, it’s not gonna survive a tornado. But it will crush people to death. You know, kinda like those big strong concrete buildings do in earthquakes.
The only structures I know of that are sufficiently tornado proof are those that are heavily reinforced bunkers with a few meter reinforced concrete walls and underground structures. So things like old nuclear middle silos and mines will have people who won’t even realize a tornado happened when they tucked neatly away underground. Tornadoes also pick up and hurl debris so it’s not just wind you also have to deal with vehicles, building materials, random objects all being hurled at immense speed in addition to the raw force of the tornado.
The kind of house that would survive a direct hit by an EF5 tornado would be much too expensive for the average family, and it wouldn’t be a very comfortable place to live. It would have to be an absolute fortress.
Some details I don’t see anyone mentioning here: A tornado actually destroys in a very tiny area; it’s just the width of the funnel that streaks across the land in a jagged line. I’ve read reports of people whose house got destroyed by a tornado, but just a few lots over their neighbor just lost a few shingles from their roof.
As people have pointed out, surviving the direct path of a tornado isn’t possible, not unless you’ve got something so crazy built that it could stand a direct hit from a nuclear bomb.
But would a fort like you describe be more resistant to a tornado? Sure, and it might have one go by really close without incurring any significant damage. But it wouldn’t withstand a direct hit, and altogether wouldn’t be economically viable. You’d be better off making a cheaper wooden home and then rebuilding.
As for those houses that look like cardboard boxes, either you’re talking about trailers (aka manufactured homes) which are only used by lower income people, so a sturdier construction is out of the question anyway, or you’re looking at some dramatic footage of houses being torn apart, in which case, they just LOOK like cardboard because the winds in a tornado are really THAT STRONG.
Not really, no.
The best thing for a tornado is to simply be underground. Anything above and in its direct path will be damaged if not destroyed. Basically what those materials will net you is a much more expensive repair job. More of the structure MIGHT be standing at the end, but it won’t likely be fit for habitation without tearing down and rebuilding.
You should also really know that while we have a stretch that has way MORE tornados than most of the world, that doesn’t mean they’re a regular occurrence in any given spot.
I’ve lived at the bottom end of tornado alley foe more than 30 years and never been directly hit by one. Many go their entire lives without experiencing such.
No. Basically no normal building technique anywhere in the world would survive tornadoes.
Just a note because OP seems confused: we also have houses with concrete foundations and brick walls here in America. They still aren’t tornado proof though.
Nothing survives a strong enough tornado. A direct hit from the tornado itself will destroy many buildings regardless of construction method. Some types will survive. Some buildings, even those framed in timber, will get lucky and avoid complete destruction.
But the real issue? The real issue is the debris. Anything loose gets picked up and taken into the tornado. Things in the <120kg range are picked up like they are feathers. The tornado will rip roofs from homes, lift sheds, grab materials and equipment from construction sites, etc. and that then becomes a high-speed projectile that will eventually fall out and hit something. Whole trucks can be picked up and moved 20m like it’s nothing. So the real question becomes: can a concrete wall survive a direct hit from a solid 100kg chunk of metal being thrown at it at 40mph/65kmph? Probably not. And then any debris from the house it hits gets scooped up by the tornado and thrown at a building a quarter mile down the road.
Tornadoes are among the most destructive things on the planet. They do not care what you built or how you built it.
If you think concrete and bricks will stop flying objects that weigh upwards of 15000kg, then you have a lot more confidence than me.
And yes [tornados can make objects weighing that much fly around](https://youtu.be/WABqwKjQM_c?feature=shared).
Fundamentally, your home would need to be able to withstand tornadoes that can literally fling debris like cars through the air at high velocities
Brick and Concrete homes will survive a tornado but, only really a few seconds longer at best. Mother Nature’s might simply rules above Humanity and it doesn’t matter how strong the structure is, a strong enough Tornado will tear it down. Intense wind and pressure will easily break through glass windows and the sudden winds being inside the home will completely mess with the roof, either ripping it off or causing it to cave in. That’s not even factoring walls and their likelihood to fall and I’d rather have one of those “weak cardboard” walls fall on top of me over a brick wall that will crush/suffocate me. Plus, even if the structure was able to survive the initial winds, that means absolutely nothing if said winds are also carrying a full grown tree it ripped from the Earth like it was a bothersome weed or the pick-up truck from the house down the road it’s throwing around like it’s some kid’s Hot Wheels.
We don’t use these “sturdier” materials because people have lived in these Tornado prone areas for generations now and enough science and study has been written in blood in order to ensure the best possible chance of survival for the occupants. I’d rather we continue focusing on ensuring the survival of living people over the survival of replaceable buildings.
Forts are only good for stopping beavers