Natural violence..

[saxonaxe]

A very long time ago I was in Hurricane Carla. I was in the Caribbean and in my area the wind reached 130+mph, it was impossible to stand up and very difficult to breathe, almost suffocating in fact. I've just seen photos from Oklahoma and read that winds under that Twister were at 200mph, our American friends have my sympathies

[paulthefish2009]

i second that although it always puzzles me as to why they always build there houses out of wood rather than brick? Ok you would still get roof damage but the main structre would be a lot more robust.
Any way to anyone affected by it you have my deepest symphay.

[Kernowek Scouser]

I've wondered about the wooden house too, but apparently this particular tornado was of a magnitude that when it passed through a 'middle class' area of relatively newly built brick houses, it flattened them too.

Sympathies to those effected.

[Stamp]

Mother Nature can be very cruel, we are very lucky in the UK with weather. We all complain about our unpredictable weather but at least we rarely have to deal with conditions like this.

My deepest symphay goes out to them too.

[OakAshandThorn]

Never lived nor do I want to live in the Great Plains. Too risky because things like this can and will happen :(.
From what I know and have seen, the only structures that can withstand most tornadoes are made of steel reinforced concrete, preferably built into the ground.

[shepherd]

nature can not be tamed, its an unstopable force... all those affected in amercia are in my thoughts and prayers.

[FishyFolk]

My sympathies to the victims too. Here in Norway we get the odd summer twister that may tip over a garden chair, or uproot a tree or two. We get the odd hurricane that may rip the roof off a house or 5.
But right now there is floods in the south, as the snow melt came late this year. And a couple of years ago mud slides wiped out an entire neigbourhood. That will happen again, as most of Norweay is built on
quick clay. Actually we get those each year. And then you have the avalanches that takes many lives each year.

But all these are normnally small scale compared to what hits the Americas so often.