He's not wrong. But 'tornado alley' is the entire Midwest - that's a lot of concrete to pour.

This was a cat5 tornado. Rare, but deadly. The schools are brick and concrete block. In this case it didn't help.

Most of the soil underlying Oklahomais called Caliche. Very difficult to build basements there, and even then, a basement is often a flooded death trap during a severe Tornado.

I have lived in Oklahoma. People construct storm cellers, and safe rooms out of concrete block for a reason.

All in all, they are much better prepared than your average Californians are for an earthquake, a tidal wave, or a mudslide.

It's what you're used to. Visiting the US or the UK is really weird for me. The walls are plasterboard, the floors sag. Major joists are held together with nails, not even decent bolts. Working in the attic, you have to be careful not to fall through the ceiling. The houses feel very temporary to me, like something thrown up until you get around to the real building.

Here (Switzerland) in my house, both exterior and interior walls are solid brick. All floors are concrete and steel, including the attic floor. That's pretty standard here for anything except farm buildings. A tornado would break the windows and take the tiles off the roof, that's it. Since all houses are built this way, it's not even particularly expensive.

Considering that this town in Oklahoma has been flattened twice in recent history, it might be financially cheaper to build something solid. Money aside, there would be fewer deaths, too.

I'm sure those schools and that hospital were built from steel reinforced concrete. Some things can't be prepared for. The first time Moore was wiped out by a tornado was in 1893.

Amy, we live in an earthquake zone....

Amy, these shacks will give our lives.

I know what you're saying and agree— YaNeverKnowYaNeverKnow.

[Systems Sequence::Commence Oft-Repeated Anecdote #25]

Me: "So what happened?"

Her: "My car was in the shop on Tuesday...."

We never know how things will work out. But an earthquake is going to happen.

There is no method of above-ground construction that will survive a direct hit from an EF4 or EF5 tornado. You can build a house out of titanium plate with Kevlar armor, but when trees and cars are being flung around at 250 MPH, it just isn't going to matter.

Where in Switzerland are you that they use brick? Most of the houses I see are stucco with red tile roofs. In fact, I don't think I've -ever- seen a brick house in Switzerland. Stone, sure. Fachwork, yes. Wood chalet, obviously. But brick?

Seems like I'm due for a trip to Ballenburg to catch up on my regional architecture?

Hey, have you noticed where you are that all modern houses have white tile floors? As a housewife I say WTF? WHY would I want my FLOORS to be white?!

upgrading the buildings with storm compliant reinforcement and storm clips would have provided 85%, so I heard, dunno if that's code or not, but retrofitting an old house is not as easy... but you 'dun have to make everything out of concrete.

But an EF5? Your best bet is the bunker for that, it isn't leaving much left, that's above ground. Most bunker designs now are fully watertite like a boat, so the soil isn't an issue...

coming up with $10k? an issue.

We should make them all live on the coast where it's always safe. ...oh, wait.

"A tornado would break the windows and take the tiles off the roof, that's it."

I hear what you are saying about the differences in construction, but no above ground structure can withstand an F5 tornado...

"Here (Switzerland) in my house, both exterior and interior walls are solid brick. All floors are concrete and steel, including the attic floor. That's pretty standard here for anything except farm buildings. A tornado would break the windows and take the tiles off the roof, that's it. Since all houses are built this way, it's not even particularly expensive.

Considering that this town in Oklahoma has been flattened twice in recent history, it might be financially cheaper to build something solid. Money aside, there would be fewer deaths, too."

I'm sorry, there is just too much glibness here for me to ignore. I tried, but I just can't let crap like this go.

The construction methods in Switzerland are quite appropriate for areas that are geologically stable. If Switzerland was an earthquake zone, your well built brick house would shake to pieces, and come crashing down on your head, and yes, I have lived in Germany and are quite familiar with their construction methods in Europe.

Europe doesn't really get tornados, but if a freak Cat5 twister came through Switzerland, any house in its direct path would disintegrate and anyone unlucky enough to be home would be buried under a quite literal ton of bricks.

Twice in a hundred and twenty years is not a frequency that would demand an expenditure of billions of dollars to make houses tornado proof. First of all, as others have pointed out, there is no such thing, and secondly, Oklahoma also is at risk for earthquakes. No one construction method is good for both, so you just have to access risk, and factor in cost.

The building codes in Germany and Switzerland are esthetic ones. They want all the houses to look like the traditional half timbered stuccoed houses you see in the picture books. In the town I lived in they even dictated the color your roof could be, and all houses had to be white.
This is what drives the construction methods, and it is why they are, for the most part,the same.

Fewer deaths in a rare event are always desirable, but not at a cost of a billion dollars per, which would be paid by "who exactly" in a free market economy?

You could save more people by mandating that everyone drive tanks with seat belts, but again, the cost would doom that la la land scenario.

I lived in OKC for Jr High, had a good friend who then lived in Moore. I hope she no longer did. I've heard the tornado sirens and run for the bathroom with the best of them. Most tornados don't cause this much damage. It's impossible to plan for everything that *could* happen in an area. I live in an arid and not low-lying part of Texas, but it floods here on occasion. I don't think anyone would recommend putting our houses on stilts for those rarities, though. Sometimes crap just happens.

Brick houses were scoured to the foundation. Multiple concrete block buildings are gone as well. That he's saying wood frame houses are wrong for the area may be correct, but it wouldn't have mattered. The calculation is that this tornado ranged from 8 times to more than 600 times the power of the Hiroshima bomb.

Short of a poured, steel reinforced cube of cement 6 inches or thicker that was poured to the foundation was going to survive this. Basically you would have to make every house the equivalent of a bank vault on the outside walls and ceiling.

And considering that most people want windows, it would have to be done with some type of shatter-proof glass.

This is by no means cheap.

I can agree that every house be required to have a storm shelter either in or adjoining the house. Pouring a few extra yards of concrete in the center of the house when pouring the foundation would be only a few thousand added dollars. Building whole houses to bank vault specifications would cost too much for the "reward".

CNN article on why they don't have basements:
http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/22/us/oklahoma-tornado-basements/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

Well that answers that question...

Google "insulating concrete forms" for what could be done. If you've got the money, and are building new. I'm forced to live in the real world, where all risks cannot be legislated out of existence and financial resources are limited, and tradeoffs must be made. So do you.

I live where it is cold, and my house has a basement. It's heated by natural gas, which has proven to be totally reliable. The part that fails most often on my furnace is the igniter, and I have a spare. There have been electrical outages, so I have a small generator, not a whole-house automated, $10,000 one. It can run my furnace and sump pump. I made sure I was not in a flood zone. I don't have a tornado proof house, but tornados are rare. I don't have a fallout shelter either, but nuclear wars have been really rare. I have a reasonable amount of food and water available, just in case. I've done the best I can, reasonably and affordably, to ensure I survive likely hazzards.

Mandate shelters? What about apartment buildings or spots where there is no space to build them? Who pays for them? The landlord? What are you going to do when he raises the rent to cover the cost, and you can't afford to live there anymore?

There is no method of above-ground construction that will survive
a direct hit from an EF4 or EF5 tornado.

Incorrect.

     The technology for designing and building tornado-resistant
     houses has been around since 1963 -- almost half a century.
     It was first developed in America, not in continental North
     America, but instead in the American protectorate territory
     of the Marianas islands, primarily on the island of Guam.

...

     The concrete shells on Guam have performed without damage
     for fifty years.
...
     In 1997, typhoon Paka hit Guam bringing wind gust velocities
     to over 240 mph, equivalent to an EF5 tornado. Again, there
     was no record of structural damage to the concrete shell
     homes.

See about the details and methods and costs at
http://www.tornadoproofhouses.com

Ron, I am skeptical. A Typhoon is not a tornado. A typhoon is a hurricane, only in the Pacific.
Typhoon Paka's winds, at max were measured at about 145 mph, which is not any where close to the wind speed of a Cat 5 tornado.

Isab, you may be right, but building houses of sticks certainly
doesn't work in tornado territory. At least a well-planned and
built concrete structure has a chance of working.

Mandate shelters? What about apartment buildings or spots where there is no space to build them? Who pays for them? The landlord? What are you going to do when he raises the rent to cover the cost, and you can't afford to live there anymore?MarkD at May 23, 2013 5:34 AM

Most apartments and hotels now have concrete floors and at least the center wall usually being concrete. So then depending if you want the doors to be private entrance/exit, no going through the lobby required, you can build closets into the center wall that will also act as a shelter. If it is interior entrances then you build the hallways to be shelters.

This would be on new construction, and optionally retrofitted on complete renovations. If someone is building an apartment or hotel they are pretty much looking at north of $250K already. The extra cost shouldn't break them.