It’s 9:15 in the morning. The wind is roaring at 110 miles per hour (177 kph); the sound is deafening. Dust swirls through the air. We are watching a single-wide manufactured home rock back and forth, as it is pounded by turbulent wind.

Then, in an instant, the screws shear off and the entire unit tumbles backward, rolling two full revolutions before it stops.

In any other situation, this would be terrifying. But here, we are conducting a first-of-its-kind experiment at Florida International University’s Wall of Wind, a test facility that can reproduce wind speeds the equivalent of a Category 5 hurricane.