In a message dated Sat, 08 Apr 2006 09:31:49 -0400, snipped-for-privacy@telecom-digest.org writes in a note added to a message from DLR :
That used to be the theory, but various tornadoes since then have provided examples where this did not appear to be true.
The first example was a tornado that hit the tallest buildings in downtown Waco, Texas, and caused severe destruction. This was in the 1950s.
Several years ago a tornado went right through downtown Fort Worth, Texas, and battered the downtown buildings. One skyscraper -- I think it was the Bank One tower was so badly damaged it was never reoccupied and posed a hazard. Just within the last month or two it was torn down, perhaps imploded, after years of trying to decide what to do about it.
Examples are fairly rare, probably because the path of a tornado is so narrow that the odds of it hitting a downtown area of a city would be pretty small, the same as it is for any other specific place. Downtown areas are a pretty small percentage of the total area of the earth.
Wes Leatherock snipped-for-privacy@aol.com