4 ms·
I just looked that up and that appears to have been an EF2 tornado. That intensity deals an order of magnitude less damage than the EF3, EF4, and EF5 tornadoes
by crooked-v 5y ago
I just looked that up and that appears to have been an EF2 tornado. That intensity deals an order of magnitude less damage than the EF3, EF4, and EF5 tornadoes that regularly appear in the US, which can literally tear entire houses off their foundations. A brick building in those conditions would be reduced to individual bricks.
- manmal 5y agoI read it was estimated to be F4. Brick houses are definitely less likely to be destroyed than timber.
- syoc 5y agoTimber can be many things. I have a hard time seeing a log house being swept away by almost any force of wind.
- TylerE 5y agoThen you don't appreciate the forces at play. An EF4 will rip deep rooted trees right out of the ground.
- syoc 5y agoI can see that there are manufacturers selling log houses certified for cat-5 (245 mph) hurricanes. I do of course understand that any construction will be blown away at some point, I just cant picture it. The way the logs lock each other at the intersections and how the structure still is sound with no roof should help quite a bit.
- TylerE 5y agoThe big danger in a cat 5 is more the debris. There's a saying: It's not THAT the wind is blowing,it's WHAT the wind is blowing.
- mythrwy 5y agoI worked on a cleanup crew after hurricane Andrew. Huge H-frame metal girders on highway structures were bent like pretzels. Entire lime groves were uprooted and piled like tumbleweeds. Houses were completely exploded. It was similar to what I imagine a bomb going off would look like. A log cabin would not have survived the worst areas of it I don't believe.
- bradleyjg 5y agoHurricanes and earthquakes are one thing, but what percentage of the US population lives in areas regularly subject to EF3-5 tornadoes?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- kayodelycaon 5y agoMuch of the Midwest, which is 21% of the US population. Hurricanes are far more destructive and many spawn tornadoes. About 44% of Americans live in a Hurricane zone. Add earthquakes and fires maybe 60~70% of Americans live in a place with reoccurring natural disasters.
- Kalium 5y agoYou might be surprised: https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/tornado-alley-states https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/tornado-all... EF4 or EF5 tornadoes are around 2% of those in the US (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tornadoes_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tornadoes_in_the_United_States), which means any state with more than 34 or so a year can expect to see at least one. That accounts for 14 states with a combined population of about 106 million people. That's approximately 32% of the total US population. 8%-ish of tornadoes rate EF3. At which point any state with seven or more a year should expect at least one in the EF3-5 range (yay, birthday paradox!). That's 32 states totaling 270 million people - 82% of the US.
- HWR_14 5y agoI find a flaw in your logic, but don't have a pithy name for it. Population densities and EF4/EF5 tornado probabilities are not uniformly distributed throughout a state, and probably are negatively correlated. Looking at this image (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Improved_Average_Annual_Tornado_Reports.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Improved_Average_Annual_T...) from the wikipedia article you linked shows this, with New Orleans, Atlanta and Miami being outside their state's main tornado zone and Houston and Chicago right at the border of high-tornados and medium-tornados.
- sudosysgen 5y agoEF2 is not a measure of force of wind. It's a measure of total damage. . The wind speed was in the F4 category.