"People are 10 times more likely to die in a mobile home than if the same tornado hit a regular home," says book co-author Kevin Simmons, an economist at Austin College in Sherman, Texas.
Simmons says mobile homes constitute only 7% of the USA's housing stock, but his research found that 43% of all tornado deaths are to people in mobile homes, which can be no match for a tornado's violent winds, clocked as high as 300 mph.
Story here. Link via Marginal Revolution. From a post I wrote back in 2005:
According to Census 2000, mobile homes made up only 7% of all occupied housing units in the US and the proportion of people who live in mobile homes was also around 7%. Since most tornadoes occur in tornado alley, I looked for statistics on mobile homes in the states in tornado alley. While a bit larger, the numbers do not differ that much from the nation. For example, roughly 10% of Oklahoma's housing units are mobile homes and roughly 8% of Texas' housing units are mobile homes. Kansas' proportion is less than 7%.
But in 2000, 68.3% of all deaths attributed to tornadoes occurred in mobile homes.
However you want to slice it, mobile homes offer very little protection from the swirling winds of tornadoes. Advanced warning and sturdy storm shelters are the key to survival in the very unlikely event a tornado hits where you live. If you know a storm spotter/chaser or NWS forecaster, give him/her thanks. They do an important job when it comes to advanced warning.
Update: Craig Newmark over at Newmark's Door notes this bit of humor from R. Preston McAfee's book Competitive Solutions: The Strategist's Toolkit:
It is often observed that tornadoes usually damage mobile homes. This observation has given rise to the predator theory of tornadoes--mobile homes increase the food supply of tornadoes, which brings tornadoes.
. . . every standard-deviation increase in mobile-home sales--about 3,317 mobile homes--tends to increase tornadoes by 0.37 standard deviations, which turns out to be 94 tornadoes. This works out to be one tornado for every 35 extra mobile-home sales.
Craig notes that McAfee is providing an example of the problem of omitted variables bias.
Lastly, there's always this from the immortal Mater from the movie Cars.