Tornado house

Driving to a service project in Houston MS, we drove by this home that had been nearly destroyed by a tornado in April 2011.  The tornados move Northeast, this is the Southwest side of the house, which was directly exposed.  A tornado is a very violent low-pressure system - it literally sucked the insides out of the house.  It is damaged so severely that it's doubtful that it can ever be rebuilt, though it appears that the owner is giving it some thought.  Most homes in this condition were torn down shortly after the event.

Here's the inside of the house - it appears that this was a new home under construction at the time of the tornado, and that the lower level wasn't completely finished yet.  You can see that the force of the tornado sucked the sheetrock and insulation out.  Curiously, a mobile home that was about 75 yards away wasn't even touched.  Tornados jump and skip around, and do tremendous damage for a ways in their path, then skip to another path.  We have a weather radio in our apartment that blasts (literally) a warning when there is severe weather and the possibility of tornados or heavy winds and rain - scares us to death when it goes off at night when we are sleeping.

A lot of trees were downed or damaged with these series of tornados.  I found out that because of the circular motion of tornados and hurricanes, the trees that are strong enough to withstand the winds are internally damaged because of the twisting, and can't be used for structural lumber - this was the case with the Katrina hurricane as well.  Thus, the trees that can be salvaged are good only for firewood or pulp.