An unusual spate of tornado disasters got researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology thinking. They’ve come up with a list of recommended updates to construction codes so that buildings stand a better chance against twisters.
They’ve spent two years poring over details of the tornado that struck Joplin, Missouri in 2011. It wrecked 8,000 structures and killed 161 people. Eric Letvin is director of Disaster and Failure Studies at NIST, and Marc Levitan is the R&D leader for National Windstorm Impact Reduction Program.