Why are houses made of wood rather than concrete in the tornado zones in the USA?

Question

Honestly, every year we hear about houses getting destroyed by tornados (and people getting buried under). They seem to be mostly wooden houses. So, why not build concrete houses, atleast in the high risk disaster prone areas?

In: 1750

Answer 1

A wood house built to hurricane standards (extra roof strapping, high wind rated shingles, extra glue and screws everywhere) is totally adequate in tornado zones, and concrete actually doesn’t fare much better. Tornado building codes are far behind hurricane building codes, though, because tornados are rarer and more concentrated or focused. They don’t cause a “wide path of destruction” like a hurricane