I read it was estimated to be F4. Brick houses are definitely less likely to be destroyed than timber.

Timber can be many things. I have a hard time seeing a log house being swept away by almost any force of wind.

I worked on a cleanup crew after hurricane Andrew. Huge H-frame metal girders on highway structures were bent like pretzels. Entire lime groves were uprooted and piled like tumbleweeds. Houses were completely exploded. It was similar to what I imagine a bomb going off would look like.

A log cabin would not have survived the worst areas of it I don't believe.

Then you don't appreciate the forces at play. An EF4 will rip deep rooted trees right out of the ground.

I can see that there are manufacturers selling log houses certified for cat-5 (245 mph) hurricanes. I do of course understand that any construction will be blown away at some point, I just cant picture it. The way the logs lock each other at the intersections and how the structure still is sound with no roof should help quite a bit.

The big danger in a cat 5 is more the debris.

There's a saying: It's not THAT the wind is blowing,it's WHAT the wind is blowing.

EF2 is not a measure of force of wind. It's a measure of total damage. . The wind speed was in the F4 category.

Hurricanes and earthquakes are one thing, but what percentage of the US population lives in areas regularly subject to EF3-5 tornadoes?

You might be surprised: https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/tornado-all...

EF4 or EF5 tornadoes are around 2% of those in the US (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tornadoes_in_the_United_States), which means any state with more than 34 or so a year can expect to see at least one. That accounts for 14 states with a combined population of about 106 million people. That's approximately 32% of the total US population.

8%-ish of tornadoes rate EF3. At which point any state with seven or more a year should expect at least one in the EF3-5 range (yay, birthday paradox!). That's 32 states totaling 270 million people - 82% of the US.

I find a flaw in your logic, but don't have a pithy name for it. Population densities and EF4/EF5 tornado probabilities are not uniformly distributed throughout a state, and probably are negatively correlated.

Looking at this image (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Improved_Average_Annual_T...) from the wikipedia article you linked shows this, with New Orleans, Atlanta and Miami being outside their state's main tornado zone and Houston and Chicago right at the border of high-tornados and medium-tornados.

Oh, you're absolutely right. I simplified immensely by aggregating at the level of a convenient political division that has only vague bearing on actual geography as well as assuming the distributions are uniform across the range in question.

I think the overall point is sound, though. A huge chunk of the US population is in territory regularly subject to strong tornadoes.

Also, I would beg to differ that this map puts Chicago at the edge of a high-tornado zone. It's solidly in one, as is Kansas City.

I agree with KC. For Chicago, it looked to me like the tornado zone had a small buffer around the lake that Chicago nestled into.

But your larger point stands.

Much of the Midwest, which is 21% of the US population.

Hurricanes are far more destructive and many spawn tornadoes. About 44% of Americans live in a Hurricane zone.

Add earthquakes and fires maybe 60~70% of Americans live in a place with reoccurring natural disasters.