A forensic engineer who volunteered to work on the damage survey in the aftermath of the tornadoes that struck the Dallas-Ft. Worth area described the construction of homes and other buildings as "horrific"; in many cases, walls weren't properly attached, nor roofs, so they just collapsed, as he put it, "like a house of cards". Surveying a heavily damaged elementary school:
Someone “tried to nail a steel bottom plate to the concrete,” he said. “There was no connection [between] walls, there was no connection at the roof, and it was simply nailed to the concrete foundation. That’s not going to cut it in my book, and it won’t cut it in any [building] code I know.
The walls, he noted, were "in essence free-standing", so it's no wonder the building collapsed in winds that hit only 80 mph - which we see with fair regularity here on the mountain. Of course, our place is bolted into the foundation, and everything's interconnected. So it withstands strong winds really well, but that's not why it's built this way. Earthquake, baby, earthquake. Darn near everything is bolted down.
