The Sawyerville tornado perfectly illustrates the point I made in my #ams2022 talk last week. The fatality and 3 serious injuries occurred in a 2001 manufactured home, not a mobile home. Does it matter? Yes! and I have highlighted this in our research.
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David Roueche
@auburn_windengr
Assistant Professor in CE at Auburn University, applying engineering principles to understand and reduce impacts of weather-related natural hazards.
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Unfortunately, as we saw in the 2022 Arabi, LA tornado (windstorm.eng.auburn.edu/20220322_Arabi), significant damage can still occur to modern, hurricane-resistant buildings due to poor construction practices that introduce critical weak links in the load path.
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Modern building codes require homes in the 130+ mph regions to have an explicit wind design. In the 140+ mph regions, openings must be protected against wind-borne debris (although that can just be temporary panels in many jurisdictions). It ought to make a difference.
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With the threat of strong tornadoes looming along the Gulf coast, will damage by limited by stronger building codes? The hatched region overlaps roughly with the 120+ mph contours. Risk is a function of hazard, exposure, and vulnerability. Vulnerability should be lower.
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We are LIVE tonight with Episode 888 at 8p ET/7p CT! A special show discussing the Jan 12, 2023 Alabama Outbreak. Joining us will be & from WSFA in Montgomery. And from - John De Block, Kevin Laws and Jason Davis! youtube.com/c/WeatherBrains
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Tornado damage today in Autauga County near Kingston and White City. At least six people were killed in this area. Photos from Michael Wiseman
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The long-track tornado that affected areas near Deatsville, AL this afternoon was likely intense (EF3+), with a persistent, deep TDS upwards of 22,000 feet and a prominent couplet peaking around 90 kt Vrot. Analogous events largely fall in the high-end EF3 to low-end EF4 range.
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It was great to have Ameyu Tolera and Johnny Estephan from on the panel with us as well, talking about ongoing research on manufactured homes using the Wall of Wind.
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Over in the Perspectives on Improving Manufactured Housing Safety and Resilience to Extreme Windstorms session, @auburn_windengr Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering @AuburnU discusses the resiliency problem with mobile and manufactured homes. @disastersafety
#NDRC22
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At approximately 6:50 pm, the Oklahoma Mesonet site at Idabel was struck by what is believed to be a tornado. The site recorded a maximum wind gust of 108 mph with the expected precipitous pressure drop. #okwx #okmesonet
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Take this hurricane seriously, and please listen to your local officials on evacuations and other preparations!
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Lastly, you're going to see lots of reported wind speeds. A reported wind speed without any context (height, gust averaging time, terrain) is only slightly more useful than a wind speed without units. :) The WMO has a good discussion of this issue. library.wmo.int/doc_num.php?ex
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Bottom line is that performance is likely going to be highly variable, with plenty of severe damage from storm surge to buildings with insufficient elevation, and wind damage to older building stock. Majority of damage will be to roof cover of buildings of all construction eras.
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(3) Storm surge, with a slow-moving storm like Ian is expected to be, will likely be a larger threat than the wind and our design levels for surge/flood are less stringent than for other hazards (see par.nsf.gov/biblio/10195723).
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(2) The building envelope (e.g., roof cover) is by far the most likely to be damaged, and we still see poor wind performance of the common materials used even in newer buildings. Without secondary water barriers (e.g. sealed roof deck), economic losses are high from such damage.
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However, (1) many buildings were not constructed to these modern building codes (although Charley (2004) may have caused some to be repaired/strengthened to more modern standards), as shown here at the parcel level by decade of construction.
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Florida's building codes are one of the best in the US, and design wind speeds in the area of impact are 140-150 mph. Peak wind loads are then expected to be roughly 1- (130/140)^2 = 15% below design for a typical building.
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With #HurricaneIan looking like it will have major impacts on Florida over the next couple days, a couple points of context. NHC track estimates peak sustained winds near landfall to be ~120 mph, which approximates to ~130 mph 3-sec gust over land.
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Have video of a tornado or other winds that shows debris & want to help advance scientific methods for estimating wind speeds? We need your help as we try to build a library of high-quality videos of wind-borne debris!
Tweet us or fill out the form here:
aub.ie/WindstormDebri
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Have video of a tornado or other winds that shows debris & want to help advance scientific methods for estimating wind speeds? We need your help as we try to build a library of high-quality videos of wind-borne debris!
Tweet us or fill out the form here:
aub.ie/WindstormDebri
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Damage pictures from the tornado warned storm that moved through Taylor County, GA.
: Trey Whitley
: Trey Whitley
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NEW FOOTAGE:
Recently released security cam footage from Jacksboro Elementary in Texas shows how powerful this tornado was completely knocking down one of the gym walls.
#TXwx #Jacksboro #Tornado
video courtesy: Jacksboro ISD
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Jacksboro Elementary took a direct hit from an EF3 (140-150 MPH) as the day ended. Staff moved 500 kids to the interior of the school. Parents raced inside from the pickup line. Some of their cars flipped. No fatalities thanks in part to the advance warning from !
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Caveat that property records only show data for one of the two MH on the property, and it's unclear which one the data is referring to. propaccess.trueautomation.com/clientdb/Prope
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Yes, the video illustrates a key difference. Mobile/manufactured homes mostly fail bottom up, site-built homes mostly fail top-down - a safer failure sequence. After some sleuthing, MH in this video was possibly constructed in 1987, so a manufactured home. goo.gl/maps/GUixECHyj
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This video shows how a mobile home is not a safe space during a tornado. The mobile home is completely destroyed while the single family home later in the video experiences damage, but is not destroyed. One scenario is survivable, and the other is not. #lawx #mswx twitter.com/brianemfinger/…
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Time lapse of the shelf cloud/thunderstorm rolling into Auburn this morning. Video from Jamie Bennett
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All ready for #EDay ! Come learn all about Civil and Environmental Engineering here!
maps.app.goo.gl/D7DyffEWK4upCF
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HICKORY BRIDGE COLLAPSE: This video shows the moment two wooden arches collapsed on the Rudy Wright pedestrian bridge in Hickory. WHAT WE KNOW: bit.ly/33Mf7Is
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This was a timely demonstration for my Structural Analysis class as we discussed structural deformations.
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Mad this. Watch the roof move (designed to do this in these conditions)
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Alabama has had 4 years in a row (3/3/2019-2/3/2022) w/ tornado fatalities. They’re from 8 twisters w/ 38 total deaths. 32 in manufactured homes; a mere 6 were permanent. Only 14.2% of single-family residences in the state are manufactured, but it’s 84% of deaths in last 4 yrs.
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That's a first! I'm not sure what the odds are, but I'm going to guess low.
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I've linked my full AMS talk below if you're interested in learning more on this topic. There is no silver bullet to this problem. But little things like using the correct terminology can go a long way towards solutions. eng.auburn.edu/users/dbr0011/
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How to tell the difference? A mobile home is built pre-1976, a manufactured home is built post-1976, so how old it looks will help. A manufactured home also has to have a small metal plate attached to it with its unique HUD number, but that can be hard to find in the wreckage.
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Don't play that game with them. I've tracked every MH fatality the past couple years and most if not all (a few uncertain) have occurred in manufactured homes, not mobile homes. Potential buyers get mixed messaging about the safey because of the bait and switch terminology.
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When we call it a mobile home, it allows the MH industry to play a game with us. We call all the destroyed homes with fatalities mobile homes. They get to market manufactured homes as just as safe as permanent homes, because all of the fatalities are occuring in "mobile homes".
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Death, taxes, manufactured homes leading to tornado fatalities. Same as it ever was.
Reminder: This is a very fixable problem.
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This is where one person was killed and three others were critically injured in Hale County at Sawyerville today… a double wide mobile home was picked up and thrown across the street. Photos from Bill Castle/ABC 33/40
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