In the wake of a devastating tornado that displaced more than 100 residents in southern Ontario earlier this month, engineering experts are calling for Canada’s building codes to be updated to include more protections against the natural disasters.

Greg Kopp, a lead researcher for Northern Tornadoes Project and the ImpactWX chair in severe storms engineering, surveyed the damage in Barrie, Ont. after an EF-2 tornado tore through a residential neighbourhood there on July 15.

“There’s many roofs off of houses, some walls collapsed. At least one house, the first storey collapsed and the second floor came down on top of it. So it was pretty significant,” he told CTVNews.ca during a telephone interview from London, Ont. on Friday.

The civil and environmental engineering professor at Western University said the destruction seen in Barrie, which left at least 70 homes uninhabitable, is partly because builders across Canada don’t focus on protecting against tornadoes, specifically.

“They don’t think about tornadoes,” Kopp said.

Girma Bitsuamlak, a civil and environmental engineering professor and director of wind engineering facilities at the WindEEE Research Institute at Western University, said this needs to change because he has noticed more tornadoes occurring in more densely populated areas of the country.

However, he said there haven’t been as many deaths from tornadoes in Canada compared to in the United States, for instance, because of the inclusion of basements in many homes.

Keep reading on CTV News

Check out more news below: