My uncle (or step uncle, if I must) built a home on South Padre Island, a place which sees many storms, including hurricanes, etc, When he built it, instead if using about eight little skinny things that look like pillars, he used around thirty, eight foot tall things that more resembled pyramids than skinny sticks.
He then built in the under area, with "outdoor living spaces" for when the weather was nice, but the entire house was heavily built with a great deal of steel and every joint was reinforced with steel hangers and cross turnbuckles inside the walls. I am pretty sure if his house fell, it would just go "CLUNK!" and it would have been fine.
Kind of sad to think that someone put hopes and dreams into that compromised structure.