Significant Tornado Events

[AJS]

I know this has probably been posted somewhere in this thread, but when researching a bit more about the 2014 Vilonia tornado, I came across this image that absolutely infuriated me even more as to why was this tornado given an EF4…

Notice how this house not only has its exterior walls anchored down, but if you look at this image, you can see how the interior walls were also bolted down! I genuinely thought Vilonia couldn’t get any more infuriating, but here we are. That is insanely strong anchoring and it’s such a shame that the one tornado in Arkansas history that caused such extreme/classic EF5 damage was robbed of its rating. Robinson was a straight up clown and i’m so glad he left LZK.

 

[HAwkmoon]

View attachment 44869
I know this has probably been posted somewhere in this thread, but when researching a bit more about the 2014 Vilonia tornado, I came across this image that absolutely infuriated me even more as to why was this tornado given an EF4…

Notice how this house not only has its exterior walls anchored down, but if you look at this image, you can see how the interior walls were also bolted down! I genuinely thought Vilonia couldn’t get any more infuriating, but here we are. That is insanely strong anchoring and it’s such a shame that the one tornado in Arkansas history that caused such extreme/classic EF5 damage was robbed of its rating. Robinson was a straight up clown and i’m so glad he left LZK.

As much as I agree Vilonia deserved EF5. That home did not meet the far too stringent criteria set by the Moore 2013 survey. It was bolted yes but wall studs were straight nailed, and a couple bolts were missing nuts and washers. Also some bolts were spaced to close to the edge of the foundation and failed that way. These seemingly minor things are enough to prevent EF5. If it happened before 2013 it would have without question got EF5.

 

[AJS]

As much as I agree Vilonia deserved EF5. That home did not meet the far too stringent criteria set by the Moore 2013 survey. It was bolted yes but wall studs were straight nailed, and a couple bolts were missing nuts and washers. Also some bolts were spaced to close to the edge of the foundation and failed that way. These seemingly minor things are enough to prevent EF5. If it happened before 2013 it would have without question got EF5.

Based on LZK’s recent survey of the March 14, 2025 Diaz, AR tornado, I have absolutely no doubt that they would probably rate this particular DI EF5 if they were to survey Vilonia today.

 

[Lake Martin EF4]

and a couple bolts were missing nuts and washers.

Buckeye05 said it best and I can't top it:

I mentioned in another thread though that I really question the validity of this, as I find it highly unlikely that construction workers framing a house would randomly skip the installation of washers on some bolts, yet install them on others at the same residence. Over the years, I've come to suspect that many of these "missing washers" cases are actually a result of some the bolts being stripped as the sill plates are ripped off.

I think this can be concluded as a construction error only in cases when every bolt is missing washers

Not sure about the others but I can reasonably debunk the washers one.

 

[HAwkmoon]

Buckeye05 said it best and I can't top it:

Not sure about the others but I can reasonably debunk the washers one.

Some bolts indeed had no nuts or washers whereas others did. I highlighted some here along with straight nailed wall studs.




In this image we see bolts too close to the edge and straight nailed wall studs.


Pre 2013 this would be overlooked and given EF5, since the criteria wasnt as strict. But post moore and during the moore 2013 survey they got much more stringent (hence why several homes in moore actually got downgraded from EF5 to EF4). I dont agree with it, but well not much we can do until the revision comes out in a few years.