Growing up, the image many of us got from this story in Sunday school, was more a literal building, putting more time on the foundation, so that it can withstand tough elements of life. In reality the context of the parable is really Human Soul.
Information come into our soul through our five senses (part of our body), those information coming from the outside are processed and stored in our soul (intellectual info. are stored in the hippocampus and emotional info. are stored in the amygdala).
The information we sought through knowledge (formal or informal, and conscious or subconscious) are tapped later on for decision making. When storing information, we sometimes simply store without believing what we are storing, what tends to happen in such situation is lacking the will to follow through because we are not convinced.
However, the best way to build a solid strong foundation, is to read, hear, touch, feel, smell and then meditate on the information before we store, this way willing ourselves to do when those information are tapped for action, becomes easy.
What we are building in "Christendom" today are not strong foundations that do withstand the avalanche of wrong doctrines. Take for instance America, where 82% claim Christianity as their religion, but 66% of them don't believe Jesus is the only way and only 9% believe in the inerrancy of the Bible. With such analysis – it is easy to see how torrential rain (not even a tornado) is sweeping away at whatever foundation was built.
As we celebrate the Chief Cornerstone, His death and Resurrection, we need to make a promise to ourselves to go back to building in Spirit and in Truth, His Absolute Truth – we must promise ourselves to not only read but to meditate and be convinced before storing in our Mind (and if our mind needs renewal – then we do so).
Knowing and being convinced of God's eternal truth (His Word) is the solid foundation, and the barrage of false teachings, doctrines and theologies are the floods that comes to weaken our foundation, which should already be built on the Rock that can never fail.