Is our annual death and destruction necessary?

"More storms are in the forecast for this coming week. Having a normal house, living in a tornado region, is like playing Russian Roulet. With windstorms getting stronger all the time, hiding in a 'safe room' or in your bathtub will not cut it." 

We see this most every year at this time. Houses destroyed. Sometimes, entire towns decimated. People injured. Some people killed. Why? Tornados. Our country seems to have more tornadoes than any other. It is a nature of the beast. We have tornados because of how our country was formed. We get violent storms mostly in the springtime. Warm moist air fighting cooler, dryer air. Sometimes we a few storms - sometimes many.

What breaks my heart (besides the loss of life), is watching people coming back to what was once their house. With a "thousand-yard stare", they sift through the wreckage, looking for anything which may be salvageable. Many times, you hear the same thing - "We worked our whole life for this house, and what was in it. What was lost can never be replaced." 

Here is the thing I don't understand. We continue to build our houses the same way. Pretty houses, many in tornado alley. None of them stand a snowball's chance of making it though a violent windstorm or a tornado. That is when I started to think about the type of structures which are being considered for Mars. When we inhabit Mars. The housing on Mars will look nothing like what we have here on Earth. Why? Housing on Mars will be built for survival - not looks.

In our tornado alley area of the country, many houses are built on slabs. No basement. If a EF4 or EF5 twister comes at one of those houses, there is no place in the house which will be survivable. Twisters that strong, actual "scour" the ground. I think back on the twister which hit Moore, Oklahoma years back. Plots which contained a nice house, were reduced just to a plot once again. There was nothing left - not even trees. If humans were in a house like that when a strong EF twister came, their chances of survival were about zero. 

The housing on Mars has the appearance of earthen domes. Partially underground, and thick walls above the surface. They are designed to survive anything that Mars can throw at them. However back on terra firma - not so much. We just make sure people have insurance so they can rebuild. But all the life's memories, or the fatalities - are gone forever.

More storms are in the forecast for this coming week. Having a normal house, living in a tornado region, is like playing Russian Roulet. With windstorms getting stronger all the time, hiding in a "safe room" or in your bathtub will not cut it. 

We need to get much smarter in our house construction. We have the technology to make stronger, more survivable houses. Failure to do so, will cause this weekend's scenario to repeat. Just like wash, spin, repeat - it will continue. And so will the misery.