Ive noticed that during a Hurricane, or bad TS (Tropical Storm), my shingles go flinging, my roof leaks, and the windows might break, pending what the wind picked up. But out in the back yard is a perfectly unhurt play house my kids have.
Why not build houses out of that kind of plastic. Run wires between the plastic, It doesnt melt in the sun, and wires can be insulated. Insulation could be put between the walls, and you could carpet it and do whatever after that. But the main structure, and roof, would be made out of that durable plastic stuff. Hey if it floods, the house may even float!! If the wind gets bad, they have hurricane straps to keep the house down. With alittle engineering, it could even be better aerodynamic as well.
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The toy house is helped by the fact that it is so small that there is little surface for the wind to push against. It is also constructed in only one piece(or maybe a few). A full size house would be hard to build that way.
Still, it would be possible to make a plastic house or some combination of materials that would survive a hurricane. The only problem is, it would cost way more to make. But it may well be worthy it.
I personally think that cities in hurricane regions should have ordinances requiring the houses, especially on or near the beach, to be built to a special hurricane standard. This not only would improve the survival of those houses, but would also increase the survival of houses farther from the beach, that are protected by the ones on the beach. If the houses on the beach collapse, all the houses behind them are likely to go down like dominoes. The debris from the beach houses act like battering rams on their neighbors.
Anybody that can afford beach front property in Florida shoud be able to afford to have a well built house. The houses farther inland could have a less demanding standard, but they should still be more hurricane resistant than they are currently.
it may seem that the plastic play house is unaffected by the weather, but that is mostly because they are not kept very long, for most people about 6 to 10 years, if passed on to other families, left lying around, whatever, maybe 25 years, past that, the uv damage to the plastic destroys it, and though there are more uv-resistant plastics, plastic will weaken, dry out and crack, and if you make the house out of large plastic pieces, it is very difficult to replace any one part, or repair it.
Little Tikes outdoor toys are generally made of polyethylene, both low and high density. Compared to wood, metal and even other plastics, they have low strength, they're brittle when cold and they are damaged by UV. Like previous commenters said, it's just that they are seldom kept more than ten years and the surfaces are a magnitude less size-wise, so the stresses are 20-times less.
But, you have stuck upon an absolutely great idea that we should use plastic on the outside surfaces of our house. It's called vinyl siding. Vinyl weathers better than HDPE.
I'm not a fan of plastic. I think it is a great idea but comes with a lot of issues too, too many in fact. Its life is way too long. It is often toxic or attracts toxins. Is difficult to recycle. Etc. You see where I'm going.
In general the knowledge is there to produce "better" homes [and other stuff too] but rarely is it applied today. I believe b/c people don't want to change, are too lazy to go the extra mile, or b/c of costs. With the later they rather risk it than do the right thing from the beginning. And if something breaks they put a "band-aid" on it until it falls apart, instead of actually fixing it, finding the issue, right away. Kind of like our medical issues, treat the symptom not the cause.