Hacker News Reader

You are grossly underestimating the force of sustained 250kmh winds (cat 4 hurricane), let alone the 400kph winds present in an F4 tornado. Even if your 900 year old building's walls could withstand that it would likely have no roof and be unlivable for an extended period of time.

Modern residential buildings in Florida etc are built to withstand these kinds of forces with hurricane glass and beefed up structures.

I’m thinking more of buildings from the mid and early 20th century, which are almost entirely concrete except for the windows.

Flooding is often the bigger problem.

We had a test of this when a tornado hit Czechia some time ago.

I think only the smaller commie blocks remained structurally sound.

For those of us who are unfamiliar with the building materials and styles of the area, what was different about those blocks that made them more structurally sound?

The square-cubed law. They're all reinforced concrete, but for the same wall thickness a smaller building will be stronger.

They're built out of large slabs of concrete with steel beams in between and have flat roofs - that's about it.

Terrible to live in, but neither a car at speed nor a falling tree can punch a hole in them.

Also they weren't built as close to each other as modern buildings are, so debris from one mostly don't reach the other.