Google searching for answers and research is much easier now. Google AI answers the questions, and there is no need to scroll through pages of websites to find a satisfactory answer. I suspect Google AI is responsible for reducing the average daily views to my site by 50% over the past 6 months, but it doesn’t matter because I don’t make any money doing this. It’s just a hobby for me, and I don’t feel bad for the owners of WordPress.
I’ve always been fascinated with adobe houses. They are built using primitive technology yet are comfortable and especially able to keep indoors cool in the American Southwest where they are most prevalent. American Indians built adobe houses, and some were built embedded on mountainsides where they were accessible by ladders which could be withdrawn, keeping the people in them safe from other hostile tribes. My fascination led me to read Woody Guthrie’s only published novel House of the Earth. Guthrie wrote “This Land is Your Land” and was a great folk song writer, though he was a stupid communist. His novel, written in 1947 but not published until recently, is a good example of really bad writing. The corny dialogue is tedious and pointless, and Guthrie sometimes uses a dozen similes to describe 1 thing, a style of gross overwriting that I found hard to endure. Moreover, in the novel, the characters never get to building their adobe dream house–the part I was most looking forward to reading. How unfulfilling.
I asked Google AI whether an adobe house could withstand a F5 tornado. Tornadoes are rated according to the Fujita Scale, and an F5 is the most devastating with winds that exceed 200 mph. Google AI emphatically said no. I then asked Google AI for an example of an adobe home destroyed by any scale of tornado, and it was unable to give any, though it still insisted a tornado would destroy an adobe home.
An F5 tornado will obliterate almost anything in its path.
Map showing area where adobe homes are common in the U.S. The eroded sedimentary rock found in this region is good for making adobe brick.
Many tribes of Southwestern Indians used adobe brick.
This is a really attractive adobe home.
Another nice adobe home. Authentic adobe homes usually have flat roofs, but this one has a modern roof.
Reinforced concrete with embedded steel can survive a direct hit from a tornado.
Dome-shaped homes can also survive tornados because of aerodynamics. The shape deflects high winds and distributes pressure evenly, and there is no weak point that attaches the roof to the walls. An adobe home shaped like a dome could also survive a tornado, so I propose Google AI is wrong about this.
Adobe homes are made from sun dried bricks as opposed to regular bricks which are dried using heat. Straw is mixed with the local soil and dried in piles. The walls of an adobe home can be made several feet thick and can keep inside temperatures constant, like a cave. The roofs are made with poles, lattices, and branches held together with adobe. The roofs are often flat. Adobe houses can be built in Georgia, where I live, but they need large overhangs to prevent precipitation from eroding the walls. Usually, an extra coat of cement plaster or stucco attached to iron mesh is used to give the adobe home a better look.
Tornadoes destroy homes by causing internal pressure on the home that makes it implode. The wind tears the roof off, and windblown debris also can cause severe damage to homes not directly in its path. Tornado proof safe rooms can be built using concrete reinforced with embedded steel. There is more than 1 case of a dome-shaped structure withstanding tornadoes due to the aerodynamic nature. The shape deflects the wind and distributes the internal pressure evenly. Google AI might be wrong. An adobe house built in a dome shape could possibly still stand after a hit from an F5 tornado.
References:
Groben, W.
“Adobe Architecture: Its Design and Construction”
U.S. Department of Agriculture 1941
Pan, K., D. Montpellier, M. Zadeh
“Engineering Observations of 3 May 1999 Oklahoma Tornado Damage”
Weather and Forecasting 17(3) 2002
GeorgiaBeforePeople 