Isn a manufactured or modular home more likely to be destroyed or damaged by natural disasters than a site-built home?
Foremost Insurance, an insurance company specializing in manufactured and modular housing safety issues, found that manufactured and modular homes are safer than site-built homes in many ways. In the past, Colorado had restrictive zoning laws that forced manufactured and modular homes to be sited in the least desirable areas of a municipality. This meant homes were placed in flood plains. A University of Michigan report revealed that manufactured and modular homes have a lower rate of fires than site-built homes. When fires do occur, research shows no fire safety differences between the two types of homes. In a full-scale experiment conducted May 16 and 17, 2001 by researchers at the Wind Science and Engineering Research Center at Texas Tech University, the propeller wash from a C-130 aircraft was used to produce high-speed winds, and a manufactured home was used as a test specimen to collect data on structural response. The propeller wash from a C-130 aircraft can generate winds up to
