We got a direct hit on our house in Palm Beach County, Florida from Hurricane Frances. Hours and hours of high winds gusting well over 100 mph, See my photo gallery at:
I learned quite a bit about the mechanics of wind damage and what works to stand up to it. Even a good mechanical intuition is likely to be incorrect about these things. I thought I'd pass along some of the lessons I learned.
First, the pressure from hurricane force winds is only on the order of a few pounds per square foot. This I learned by perusing _Marks_ handbook during the long night of winds when I ran out of reading material. Heavy debris does not leap up into the air and fly around. Structural problems are due to the wind catching things in a sail-like or a can- opener-like manner, and collecting and concentrating the few lbs/sq-ft force onto critical fastenings.
Before the storm came I was all concerned to get shutters on the windows, and fussing with a shortage of fasteners drained by a panicked populace. But it turns out you don't need plywood fastened with 1/2- inch lag bolts over your windows. A 4x4 foot sheet, say, 16 sq ft, is only going to experience at most about 100 lbs of pull-off force. It is not like there is some horrific suction that wants to tear things off. My aluminum channel strut reinforcements were way overdone [metalworking content!].
I was worried about my 10' x 7' garage doors that were 1970s pre- hurricane-code construction. I bought pieces of 10' SuperStrut to reinforce and anchor them to the concrete floor, but didn't have time for that metalworking project before the winds hit. During the highest winds, these experienced at most a few hundred pounds of force, which certainly made them slowly bow in and out a few inches with the slowly rising/falling gusts, but not fail, rather like a crude windspeed indicator. I actually wedged myself in between the garage door and the back of my Jeep, and bonded with the breath of the beast as she huffed and puffed. It was like a giant hand was outside pushing and relaxing a few times each minute.
While we tried to clear our 0.85 acres of loose stuff before the storm, there were a few things left around. It was odd how light little things didn't get moved by the wind, while healthy, well-rooted 60-foot trees were knocked down. For example, I had a 3-foot assembly of 3/4" PVC pipe leaning against an outside wall, directly facing the worst winds, and it didn't even get tipped over. Small scraps of plywood stayed where they fell from cutting.
Second, the handy guy in the neighborhood with the tools and know-how is very popular in a calamity. Having the materials, skills, and chutzpah to improvise in a crisis is a shining moment.
Third, while many neighbors had all their roof shingles stripped, we lost none except the corners of a few on the peak row. I wasn't the owner when the last re-roof was done 12 years ago, but it appears to me that the heavier shingles made all the difference, especially considering the minimal increment in cost. I believe the peak shingles were broken by the way the slope of the roof must have caught the wind and highly concentrated the force with an airfoil effect.
Fourth, securing a household in the absence of time and retail hardware is like being on a boat in the middle of the ocean. No one is going to help you, there is no place to go for supplies, and the mechanical problems are extreme and puzzling in a way you never have dealt with. Everything depends on your own wits and what you have on hand.