The United States is the tornado capital of the world, averaging about 1,200 tornadoes annually. Tornadoes are dangerous and extremely destructive if your home happens to be in the path of one of them. Compared with other severe storms such as hurricanes, tornadoes impact a smaller area, but happen more often and they kill more people. If you live in a tornado prone area, there are measures you can take to reinforce your home to keep it and your family safe. Tornado resistant windows play a key role in making your home tornado resilient.
What is a Tornado?
Tornadoes are violently rotating columns of high winds — as high as 300 mph— that descend from a thundercloud towards the ground. They can form and dissolve in minutes, but could also last up to a half an hour. A tornado can move across land extremely quickly, its tip hugging the ground, leaving a wide swath of destruction in its wake, or it can simply touch down periodically causing random points of damage. The damage from a severe tornado can be extensive: flattened houses, tossed cars and uprooted trees. But even a weaker tornado can cause significant damage, especially to your home’s roof, siding, doors and windows.
Why are Tornadoes so Destructive?
The high winds are one of the main causes of damage during a tornado. Any part of your home that is vulnerable to high winds could be impacted. Even a moderate tornado with winds of 100 mph could tear the shingles off your home’s roof while a stronger tornado could lift and rip the whole roof right off. If you live in an area that is prone to tornadoes, reinforcing the roof and walls with fastening straps and clips and making sure your gable walls are braced to withstand high winds will go a long way to making sure your roof stays attached to your home.
As well, in the eye of a tornado, the atmospheric pressure can drop dramatically and quickly, increasing the loads on any well-sealed building. This again can contribute to the lift of the roof, possibly even allowing the wind-facing wall to be blown inwards and the others to be blown outwards.
Windborne debris can be just as destructive as the wind itself. In fact flying debris is the most common way people lose their lives during a tornado. Flying debris can break ordinary windows, and possibly harm a person standing nearby. A broken window also allows strong winds into the home which can exert more pressure on the roof and walls, much like blowing up a balloon. Adding these inside forces to the external wind can provide the final stress to cause the roof to lift off its rafters or some other building component to fail.
How to Protect Your Home From Tornado Damage
While building regulations in tornado or hurricane prone areas generally take into account the possibility of strong winds and flying debris— at most up to 100 mph — to truly protect your home from tornado damage, you would need to build a concrete fortress with no windows or doors. Some people do build a “safe room” or a “storm shelter” either within their home, or separate from their home. A safe room is a room or small building that is bolted down to a concrete slab, with either concrete or reinforced masonry walls (reinforced CMU).
For most people, building a safe room is not terribly practical, and even if you do build one, protecting your whole home from the danger posed by very strong winds and flying debris, might ensure you have someplace to live after the storm is over.
Why are Tornado Resistant Windows so Important?
From the brief description above of how damage occurs in a tornado, it is obvious that any weak part of the home is in danger of failing and could initiate a cascading domino effect of failure. Windows, doors and garage doors are prime components that fail during high winds. Doors and garage doors can be reinforced, but standard windows are harder to strengthen and are a definite risk. A tornado can form in minutes without giving you time to pull shutters or board up your windows. Given the extent of damage that can ensue from a broken window, installing windows that can withstand high winds and high velocity impacts is an important component in any tornado proofing strategy.
Tornado Resistant Glass Block Windows
Impact resistant windows are designed to resist impact, to shatter rather than break so there will not be any flying shards of glass to injure occupants, and yet will still allow occupants to see what’s going on outside.
The Seves Lightwise® Architectural Glass Block Tornado Resistant Windows are some of the best on the market. They are built using laminated VISTABRIK® solid glass block with a steel frame and grid system to ensure they aren’t blown inwards or outwards with the high winds and pressures of a tornado. In accordance with FEMA 361, Seves LightWise® Architectural Systems Tornado Resistant Windows are put through several levels of air pressure tests including 309 positive psf and negative 413 psf and they pass with ease. The 413 psf equates to a wind speed of over 400 mph. The glass block in these windows has the equivalent strength of steel. They are so strong, they are even approved for safe rooms.
Key Benefits of Tornado Resistant Glass Block Window
Tornado resistant windows are an important component in any strategy to protect your home in tornado prone areas and the Seves Lightwise® systems are tested to provide the highest protection possible. Notably, they:
- Provide protection against air pressure and flying debris in accordance with the highest standards for FEMA 361,
- Are factory assembled for quality control,
- Come in a variety of sizes
- Combine strength with beauty and light transmission.
Get Ready For The Next Tornado Season
While tornado season generally lasts from early spring to July, depending on what part of the country you live in, tornadoes can happen at any time of the year. Almost anywhere east of the Rockies holds at least some risk of developing tornadoes with some areas being more tornado prone. Now would be a good time to prepare for next year’s tornado season by installing tornado resistant windows to keep your property and family safe and secure.
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