IMO, Tornado Alley needs to change the shape(oval) of buildings and roofs(dome) with

[CK_John]

built in channels to equalize the air pressure as a tornado passes overhead or on the ground.

Computer models and wind tunnel testing required.

But..we have got to change our thinking on building shape and location. Sub divisions have to get away from 9 rows of 16 lots waiting like dominoes to fall.

[BootinUp]

1. What are you...a Commi?

We ain't buildin no commi lookin stuff here in the USA, Go back to Russia!

http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/russian%20architecture

[JoePhilly]

3. lol

[JoePhilly]

2. No way ... domes look all Muslimy ...

[CBGLuthier]

6. This church is about a mile and a half from my house

http://www.oklahomamodern.us/2010/02/okcs-unique-first-christian-church.html

[winter is coming]

9. Ah, the Church of the Maidenform. n/t

[JoePhilly]

11. Maybe they worship Madonna

[BootinUp]

12. Ok, this thread is now

completely off track.

[JoePhilly]

13. Good idea, put all the houses in OK on TRACKS!

Then just move them when the tornado comes!!!

[BootinUp]

21. Maybe there is a 23'rd century solution

[longship]

41. DUzy worthy! nt

[winter is coming]

45. Thank you for your

support. Nothing feels better at the end of a long life than taking off your church.

[Thinkingabout]

4. Are you serious? There is not any stick built buildings which is going to withstand force of this

magnitude. The schools was built to be stronger, they fell. This storm stripped the bark off of trees.

[Gman]

7. It pulled grass out of the ground

[zerosumgame0005]

22. this is about hurricanes but the concept seems sound

http://www.sciencedaily.com/videos/2007/0406-hurricane_resistant_house.htm

http://www.science-projects.com/HurricaneHouse/HurriHouse.htm

[winter is coming]

47. An EF5 tornado has 3 second gusts between 200 and 322 mph.

A cat 5 hurricane has sustained wind speeds of at least 157mph.

[CBGLuthier]

5. and California should build houses that float on the air

Sorry but I think that what you propose will not work. Not when 200 mph swirling winds containing debris come along.

One of the biggest problems with such an idea is the simple fact that at any given time only about .01 percent (if that much) of tornado alley is in danger. I have lived in OKC for 42 years and never been even close to being hit.

The best that any of us can do is to have good underground shelters, not basements, shelters and just hope to hell you never need it.

Dominoes are not really a good analogy. Dominoes knock each other over. These houses were each knocked down by wind and debris, not by the house next door.

[Gman]

8. But the post is good "outside the box" thinking

[Bay Boy]

10. It's certainly something people could consider, but...

...I'm sure it would add significant extra cost to any project. It would seem to make more sense to add reinforced storm shelters instead.

[CK_John]

15. Going down is not an option in many areas. High water table, rock or clay prevent many from having

basements according to area accounts..

[Bay Boy]

17. I hear that alot

"Going down is not an option"

But back on subject. You don't need a full blown basement just a 5'x5' area to sit out the storm. If that is still not an option a heavily reinforced safe room would sure make sense.

Either has to be many magnitudes less expensive than whole new construction methods.

[Jenoch]

50. I saw a report on TV

that showed just such a shelter. Apparently, there were homes in Moore with underground shelters. The one I saw was 6' deep, about 5' across and maybe 8' long. It was built into the floor of the garage and had a sliding steel door overhead. There might be people still in those kinds of shelters with the door covered by debris.

Curiously, I had an uncle with a pit in the floor of his garage. It had planks as a cover and was not built as a storm shelter but to work on the undersides of cars.

[KittyWampus]

35. You can build earth UP over a frame. They are called Earth Shelter houses.

[Blecht]

14. The pressure factor is a myth

Here is one of the first hits I got from Google: http://stormaware.mo.gov/tornado-myths/

[CK_John]

16. Maybe put in a pole that acts as a pivot so that the building can spin at 80+ mph winds.

[Bay Boy]

18. That sounds exciting!

Should be able to charge a high ticket fee for that wild ride!

[CK_John]

19. Change is a bitch, but look at the currrent results..

[Paladin]

20. You're coming way too close to blaming the victims.

How about backing off the 20/20 hindsight thing just a bit?

[Bay Boy]

23. Wait a minute...

...was that some kind of serious suggestion? How does that work?

[CK_John]

24. Some sort of geared turntable, like skyscrapers that have counter weight and rollers to offset quake

[Dash87]

25. Or have a switch that makes it spin in the opposite direction at 200 mph.

It's genius!

[Bay Boy]

36. Or put wheels under them and...

...haul them off to areas safe from tornadoes.

Oh wait, they have those already, they're called mobile homes.

[OriginalGeek]

46. because mobile homes neeeeeeeeeever take it on the chin

in tornado times.

[winter is coming]

48. "The wind began to twitch, the house to pitch". n/t

[cbdo2007]

26. The houses in a subdivision don't fall like dominoes.

Put a bunch of dominoes on the floor in whatever pattern you'd like. Then, roll a basketball at the dominoes. That's more what it is like.

[hedgehog]

27. You are correct that engineers can design some sort of protection from

the worst tornado. What needs to be done is a cost analysis - it may be cheaper just to build in people shelters and let the buildings go, i.e make certain no one dies, but balance the cost of replacing the homes that are hit vs. the cost of tornado proofing every home.

What also needs to be done is to fight the head in the sand attitude that because it costs money to make people safe, the event will never happen. I ran into this throughout my career in industry. Wishful thinking is no protection against an F4!

[CK_John]

31. Once computer models pick some possible plans, cost can be attached. Also

lets look at landscaping changes. Like 100 mi radius spokes of trees,(wagon wheels) from the Gulf to the Great Lakes.

Interlace these giant crop circles to channel winds so tornados don't form.

[Jenoch]

42. How are you coming up

with this stuff and what is your background in this area?

[CK_John]

49. No background, just a 73yr old retiree who has built a few things along the way.

[Jenoch]

51. Even though Moore

has been hit twice by tornadoes in 14 years, statistically, the exact same house or school being hit by an EF5 tornado are astronomical. That being said, if I lived there and had the means I would certainly have some sort of underground shelter. I also think the schools need to come up with a better plan for their kids. I do not think your ideas are likely to be used.

[BootinUp]

53. 3 times

1999, 2003, 2013

http://kfor.com/2013/05/20/interactive-map-1999-2003-2013-moore-tornadoes/

[Jenoch]

54. Apparently, we both needed to do more digging.

There was an F2 that hit Moore on October 04, 1998.

http://www.srh.noaa.gov/oun/?n=events-19981004

[Hestia]

32. How can it be cheaper to rebuild homes? Especially the mental anxiety alone

would make the costs worth it. It would be the unseen costs that would make tornado-proofing worth it. Look at Joplin - they still haven't rebuilt from several years ago.

[hedgehog]

33. Let's assume that money is spent to ensure that shelters for people and pets

are at hand so there is no loss of human life. Say tornadoes would wipe out 100 conventional homes in a city of 10,000 homes each year at a cost of $10 million dollars. If the added cost of protecting say all 10,000 homes that might be one of the 100 destroyed is $100,000 million, then it is cheaper to rebuild some homes than to protect every home. (I'm just pulling numbers out of the air to give a sense of the cost/ benefit analysis).

At the same time, added tornado protection ( not tornado proofing) is surprisingly cheap:

http://www.popularmechanics.com/home/improvement/interior/8-ways-to-protect-your-home-against-tornadoes-and-hurricanes#last-slide

Most tornadoes are not F4 events!

[pipi_k]

28. Building shape

won't matter a bit during an EF-5 tornado, which we seem to be getting more of as time goes on.

An EF-5 literally disintegrates everything in its path. The only truly safe place during one of these is underground.

Even an EF-4 will be pretty nasty.

[justiceischeap]

29. I've read that sandbag homes stand up to hurricanes and tornados

better than any other structure. Less debris to hurt people with, easier to heat and cool. Modular... meaning you can pretty much design any shape you want and cheap to build.

[Hestia]

30. These houses withstand hurricanes - why not tornadoes? It's not a silly post

http://architecture.about.com/cs/buildyourhouse/a/concretehomes.htm

http://www.sciencedaily.com/videos/2007/0406-hurricane_resistant_house.htm

[siligut]

37. Concrete homes get my approval

And concrete is relatively inexpensive. It can be made to look beautiful as well. Take a look at some of the concrete structures Frank Lloyd Wright designed https://www.google.com/search?q=frank+lloyd+wright+concrete+block+houses&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=v5ObUYuaAomiiQKmnIGQDQ&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAQ&biw=1017&bih=621

There is a poster here on DU that has had many years of experience creating weather proof buildings, I will look for his post.

[Jenoch]

44. Comparing windspeeds

of hurricanes to tornadoes does not work. Hurricane Sandy's windspeed at landfall was equivalent to an EF0 tornado. The tornado that hit OKC yesterday was an EF4 (166 - 200 mph) and after analysis might be an EF5. The 1999 OKC tornado was an EF5 with a recorded windspeed of 318 mph.

[Yo_Mama]

52. Won't work for an E4 or an E5

Direct hits from these very rare tornadoes are going to demolish above ground structures.

Resistant and reinforced construction such as in your links will protect against the much more common low-intensity tornadoes, but E4 and E5s are incredibly strong. Once you get into winds of 200 miles and hour and up with flying debris acting like a giant sander, nothing much that's sticking up will survive.

A lot of new houses in tornado-prone areas are built with the interior reinforced "safe rooms" or with inground storm shelters, if possible. Inground shelters are not possible where I live, due to very high water tables. So our house is built to be resistant and it does have the one interior room that will be highly resistant, but it's still all going to be gone if a big one hits directly.

Schools are usually built with interior resistance features, but don't fool yourself thinking that it will defeat an F5. It won't.

[KG]

34. i'm halfway serious when i say to myself it may come to depopulating the mid-west...

[Jenoch]

43. Where exactly is it you

wish to move 80 million people?

[EC]

38. I was thinking that last night too.

I also wondered why they couldn't cheaply build shelters out of those large concrete sewer pipes on top of the ground and then covered with a mound of soil and rock to resemble a hill. Wouldn't a tornado just go right over that and not knock into it?

[Marrah_G]

39. I wonder if that could work?

If so, what a great idea.

[EC]

40. I wonder too,

but that is what I dreamed up... figured that is what I would do if I were somewhere, where underground were not available...simply build your own cave and earth mound.