NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Just over a week after the deadly tornadoes, some residents are asking what can be learned from the lives lost to prevent future ones.

Video: Scientist Says Mobile Homes Unsafe During Storms

Channel 4’s Dennis Ferrier took a closer look at the 31 deaths in Tennessee, and many of the cases offer some similarities.

A trauma surgeon said tornado deaths remind him of another kind of death: blunt battlefield trauma.

“In the vortex are all of these pieces of metal and scrap and wood and so on and so forth, and in the vortex are people and animals. Those things collide in patterns that resemble patterns we see in injuries on the battlefield,” said Dr. John Morris.

Morris is the director of trauma medicine at Vanderbilt. He said most people die from blunt trauma or penetrating trauma.

A number of people who died had a location in common: 20 of the 24 people who died hiding in their homes were in mobile homes.

An average mobile home will lose its roof at 89 mph, at 105 mph, the walls are gone, at 118 mph, the home starts rolling and at 127 mph the home is destroyed.

The 12 tornados that hit middle Tennessee were rated between 120 and 150 miles per hour.

National Weather Service Meteorologist Henry Steigerwaldt has been out in the field inspecting damage, conducting interviews and said that the mobile homes didn't have a chance in the kind of storm that struck last week.

“Even if your mobile home is a nice one, you know, what if some big objects flying through the air smashes a wall? The minute the wall is broken and apart, that wind’s got something to grip,” he said.

Steigerwaldt said people he interviewed seemed to have at least five minutes notice before the tornado hit.

He said that after a warning is issued, residents of mobile homes should plan and have a place to go in case of a tornado because they are not safe.