You don’t have to have a tornado hit you to have some expensive damage to your home. The storm producing the tornado is usually intense enough to bring hail, strong winds and heavy rain such that damage is inflicted all over. That being said I did live through a actual direct hit to the building I worked at about 15 yrs ago. First and only twister I ever was actually in. The damage inflicted in that short time was beyond belief. The firm I worked for was a Structural Engineering consulting firm that specialized in seismic and high wind design. After the storm passed none of us could leave for hours because until they secured any and all gas leaks no one was allowed to start a car. So we went out and documented all the damage we could to place into our data base and try to learn what worked and what didn’t. Wind is a beast. All of the roofs of the buildings in the office park were ballast roofs, that means it was a continuous rubber membrane that had about a 2” deep cover of stone/rock. Well let me tell you what happens when 150+ mph wings hits that stuff. It looks like Mother Nature went out with the worlds largest shotgun ever thought of and unloaded a pile of shells.
