Experts challenge Home Depot building design, codes after Joplin tornado

By MIKE McGRAW, The Kansas City Star

As the monster tornado bore down on them, Rusty Howard and his two small children sought refuge in a Home Depot store.

But instead the young father, the children and four other people died when the roof came off and the walls came down, crushing them beneath a 100,000-pound concrete panel.

Within seconds the entire structure collapsed in a heap of concrete slabs, metal trusses and roofing. At least 28 other people survived, huddled in an un-reinforced training room in the back of the building.

Rescue workers found Howard with an arm wrapped around each child.

There aren’t many safe havens in such ferocious, 200-mph winds. Most building codes in “tornado alley” require that commercial structures withstand only 90-mph winds, slower than many major league pitchers’ fastballs.

But while all big-box stores are vulnerable to high winds, the Joplin Home Depot — even though it met local building codes — was especially at risk, according to engineers who study the destruction that tornadoes leave behind.

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