Performance of Enhanced Residential Building Code Requirements during the March 25, 2015, Moore Tornado

Abstract

An EF2 (Enhanced Fujita Scale Rating 2) tornado that hit the City of Moore, Oklahoma, on March 25, 2015, provided a rare opportunity for engineers to observe the performance of structures built to the new Moore building code high-wind provisions when subjected to a design-level event. Observations of damage to several residential structures and one commercial building were made in the immediate aftermath of the tornado. These observations were used to compare the performance of the engineered commercial building and residential structures in the same area. The conclusions made from the observations described in this paper are anecdotal and based on a limited amount of data, but indicate that residential structures constructed using the building code improvements made in Moore, Oklahoma, in 2014 perform as expected when subjected to the winds associated with an EF2 tornado. The robust structural system led to only minor damage, which could be quickly repaired.