Storms in Alabama

[dave_k]

I have been watching the news about the devastating storms that crosse the South yesterday and I just wanted to express my hope that everyone from our community and their loved ones are safe, warm and dry. I can't imagine the terror and grief those in Tuscaloosa Alabama and other affected regions faced during these storms.

[always-learning]

How true....


We're getting those same storms as I type this. Nasty stuff, and it's not even 10% of what they experienced there.

Black clouds / heavy massive rain drops / and winds that are blowing my lawn furniture around my yard ...


Hope the best for them as well.

[m beezo]

makes our storm in St Louis look like nothing. I am wondering about the death tolls. I am not all that familiar with those areas but do know that some parts of the country do not have basements. Which is where many in St Louis rode out the storms. Could that be part of the reason the death toll is so high?
That and the fact that the tornado seemed much bigger than the ones we got here.

[Allan Edwards]

There are tornado "safe rooms" you can buy that bolt down to concrete, that are supposedly tornado proof.

http://www.tornadosaferoom.com/2person.html

[gburnet]

There are tornado "safe rooms" you can buy that bolt down to concrete, that are supposedly tornado proof.

http://www.tornadosaferoom.com/2person.html

Interesting. Most living structures around here have basements where one would seek refuge from a severe storm. I assume a safe room becomes necessary for buildings that are slab on grade?

[aerieandy]

makes our storm in St Louis look like nothing. I am wondering about the death tolls. I am not all that familiar with those areas but do know that some parts of the country do not have basements. Which is where many in St Louis rode out the storms. Could that be part of the reason the death toll is so high?
That and the fact that the tornado seemed much bigger than the ones we got here.

From what I understand it was more a case of several Tornadoes of the strongest category setting down in densely populated areas, and then traveling for miles wreaking havoc. I read that some were 3/4 mile across at the base, can you imagine that rolling through town?
CNN has a sat photo of Tuskaloosa and you can see a brown stripe right through the whole town.

Andy

[wfoconstruction]

I live near Wichita Falls TX and they had one of the worst on record back in 1979- http://www.timesrecordnews.com/photo...section_header
On most of our new homes that are built have a "safe room" incorporated into them. Usually its cinder block walls with a steel door. But like a salesman told a friend of mine, these safe rooms may stop a 2x4 shot at 250 mph and so on, but whats going to happen when it picks up that car or tractor? Better be underground.Some people do have cellars outside their home but I only know of one house that I have ever been in that had an actual basement (unfinished) under it, and they have constant water problems. I dont really know why we dont build houses with basements around here, but I do know it is rare. Allan, do yall do something similiar in Houston?

[dave_k]

[QUOTE=wfocontruction;601525Some people do have cellars outside their home but I only know of one house that I have ever been in that had an actual basement (unfinished) under it, and they have constant water problems. I dont really know why we dont build houses with basements around here, but I do know it is rare. Allan, do yall do something similiar in Houston?[/QUOTE]
The water problem is easy to deal with. I'm surprises you don't sell more houses with full basements in hot climates. When it gets hot here the basement is the coolest place in the house. I have a wine cellar in one section of the basement with no AC that never gets above 68 degrees. A lot of the Portugese and Italian families have summer kitchens in the basement for that reason

[wfoconstruction]

Dave,
I agree with you completely. I bet some of the reason they aren't built is because it's out of the norm,and the other our soil, red clay. I'm not an engineer and am just 26 years old and just now learning the ropes, thats why I love this forum. The destruction and devastation a tornado does is unreal though and we have been lucky to not have any major ones in a long time. We are just dealing with wild fires right now.

[davenorthup]

WFO - I think the only way to fix your user name is to contact JLC or just cancel that account and start a new one...

[Bob Kovacs]

Basements are fairly common in newer developments in the south, because many folks moving from other parts of the country expect a home to have a basement. Our development is a mix of slab homes and basement homes, often with basements on one side of the street and slab on the other due to the way the grading was done.

If you dig into the death toll from last week's storms, you'll find that"manufactured homes" get mentioned often, which is a nicer way to say "trailers"- they are very plentiful in the south, and are easily ripped to pieces in a tornado. That's not to say that many conventionally built structures weren't destroyed as well, but they tend to hold up better, and you'll rarely see mention of someone dying while riding the storms out in the basement.

[Peter M]

Since this is a contractor forum, perhaps we could get on topic.
This destruction is a sign of construction incompetence. Where are all the Simpson Strong Ties? How come architects can't design tornado proof buildings? These things are only 200 mph. They built airplanes in World War II out of wood and I'm sure they went faster than that and didn't fall apart.
We can look at failure points such as weak connection between walls and roofs and the foundations. Notice that the foundations always seem to survuve.
There are many other suggestions but I want others to join in.
~Peter

[davenorthup]

Peter - RE tornadoes. I think the biggest point of failure for a home is withstanding all the missiles (debris) being launched at it. You throw many modern structures in some wind and they do fine. You throw some debris in that wind and it is all over for that structure, they get filled with holes, kinda like those wood planes and bullets.. :)

200 MPH is one thing, in our windiest area here we only build to 120 MPH winds...

I am sure we can do a better job however...

[Bill Robinson]

Since this is a contractor forum, perhaps we could get on topic.
This destruction is a sign of construction incompetence. Where are all the Simpson Strong Ties? How come architects can't design tornado proof buildings? These things are only 200 mph. They built airplanes in World War II out of wood and I'm sure they went faster than that and didn't fall apart.
We can look at failure points such as weak connection between walls and roofs and the foundations. Notice that the foundations always seem to survuve.
There are many other suggestions but I want others to join in.
~Peter

Peter, if it were only that simple.
While many of the failures can be traced to incompetence, there are more things to consider.

We can build homes that are tornado proof, really? We can also build homes that use zero energy.
And for your part, that can withstand earthquakes and fires. However they would be out of the reach of most home buyers.

In fact, we do not actually build homes that can stand up to these forces of nature and sometimes man, we do attempt to build homes that will not fail so quickly the occupants do not have time to escape.

I am curious, do you really think we can put enough A-35s in a house to keep it from coming apart in a 7.0+ earthquake or F5 tornado winds?

Or are you just being Dick-like?

Dick Seibert I mean:)

[m beezo]

looking at the damages we had here and in Alabama I am saw a huge mix of both new and old homes built. Same with commercial. Some of them probably had none of the new codes applied to them, others I am sure had some of the codes applied.

One of the subdivisions here that was pretty well gone had most of the homes less than 10 years old. They had to have some codes applied to them. Here is my thought on some of thoes houses. Large homes with lots of surface areas for the wind to slam against. You ever carry a full sheet of plywood on a windy day and almost get it blown our of your hand when you catch the wind just right but when you turn where the wind blows over the sheet it is not a problem. That is part of the problem I see here in St Louis.

Other thing is there is something to say about nature that I do not know if we understand. Like how can one house have 3 of the walls and roof gone yet the picutres and nick nacks are still sitting there. Or how a 2x4 can get driven thur a tree or telephone pole? Then there is the crazy stuff of how one house being gone and the one next to it has little damage or that it skips around the neighborhood in a random pattern yet the next neighborhood it is wiped out completely.

If adding some steel to the frame would do it how would you explain some of the steel builidings and commercial builings with lots of steel in them get gone also.