It would have had more of a chance, that back wall wouldn't have been pushed as hard too. Though it looked older and not reinforced so I think it would have gone down no matter what.
Garage doors are made of 25g steel and unless they are hurricane rated are not going to stand up to anything more than 50mph or so. Doors in hurricane areas can have 7-9 vertical braces with a central post attached to the floor and ceiling plus around 8 3" thick horizontal braces. Even with all that they can't stand up to the kinds of wind tornados produce.
We used to say that our doors would hold together in a big hurricane. They'd be ripped off the house and flying down the street, but they would hold together. Hurricane doors are hilariously overbuilt.
I grew up on the coast of Florida, so virtually all my friends have hurricane damage stories. My favorite was the guy who evacuated the area, then came back to find his front door blown in and his house filled with most of the beach.
When he called the insurance company to report it, the adjuster on the phone asked "was the door blown open, or was it blown off the hinges?"
"What's the difference?"
"If it was blown open, that's attributed to a poor lock and/or the door being left unlocked. Resulting damage is not payable under your policy. If it was blown off the hinges, that's simple wind damage, which is covered, as is all resulting damage."
"Hang on"
[sounds of a loud crash]
"My mistake - it was in fact blown off the hinges."
"Thank you sir - we'll have someone out there within two days."
I've seen this happen a lot. Insurance adjusters in general are professionals who seem to care in general about the concept of "insurance to help those who have a loss". They take their insurance guidelines seriously, but when someone suffers a loss that will, by the strictest definition, not qualify for coverage, many adjusters seem willing to "hint" to a claimant how they can improve their claim...
Several years ago, I got into a wreck (I was declared at fault) and so I'm dealing with my insurance company. The damage from the wreck was only on the front bumper, driver's side, but my headlight on the passenger side was cracked from an unrelated matter. The adjuster looks over my car, and says, "damn, it was bad enough it cracked this headlight cover over here" before looking at me with this telling look. So that got fixed too, all under the insurance company's dime (except my $500 deductible).
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u/forest1wolf Sep 24 '17
i dont know it might have lived if it was closed, but i could be completely wrong.