What destruction potential can a tornado do?

Answer 1

The highest speed tornadoes pack winds upwards of 250 miles per hour (400 km/h).

Wind that fast will tear down nearly any building standing in its way.

Tornadoes flip trains (which are very heavy), throw trucks, and rip large trees out of the ground.

However, tornadoes are limited by terrain. Very hilly terrain disrupts wind patterns that lead to tornado formation. So do the clusters of large buildings in the center of cities, though a very large tornado might come plowing through a large city center anyway if it has formed far away.

There's never been a recorded incident of a tornado ripping up buildings as in the movie Day After Tomorrow, however.

The so called, "suction" of a tornado does not lift objects lying flat upon the ground, but the high wind speeds can flip such an object, allowing pressure to get beneath the object and therefore lift it.

Tornadoes usually destroy smaller buildings by tearing the roofs off first (which are generally lightweight and made of flimsy materials), which then allows the massively varying wind speeds and directions within a tornado to separate the walls from each other and scatter everything within.

Smaller tornadoes (F1 and F2) with wind speeds of 100 to 150 miles per hour cannot usually knock over buildings, but they can flip cars and rip apart smaller structures such as barns.

People are vulnerable in any tornado, as winds of 75 miles per hour can easily fling a person against the ground or hard upright object, or pitch the roof of a doghouse at them. That is way indoors is always safest in a tornado. Try to lie on the floor of the basement closest to the direction tornado is coming from, or move to an inner room (such as a closet) and again lie on the floor.