Sorry, was kind of half asleep when I wrote the previous response. Came back to admit that the response itself had been ripped from a friend. See... I was talking to a comic book geek friend of mine and I asked almost the same question you did. The response was pretty much what you see above.
Thing is, I was thinking in terms of raw power.
(If you'll pardon a tangent... There's this wonderful SNL skit about the death of Superman. The scene takes place at his funeral, and features cameoes by all the heroes you'd expect, plus a few others. There are some really fun moments. Aquaman, awkwardly coming in kind of late: "Here. I, uh, brought a shrimp platter." Lois: "I don't get it. Where is Clark Kent? This is Superman's funeral. What could he possibly be doing that's more important than being here?" And, of course, what made me think of the thing in the first place... Flash: "He was such a great guy. He could do anything. All I can do is run fast. He could run as fast as me, but he never said a word... <sob>")
You were asking about what he could do at the scene of a disaster.
Someone's hanging off a cliff. What can Flash do? He can dash down to the bottom, then run straight up the cliff, catch the person, and let inertia carry them over.
A house is in danger. Flash can get inside, search the premisis, and ferry everyone out before anything happens.
Something large is falling, about to crush a tanker full of gas. Flash can zip underneath, then move at super-speed to generate a controlled tornado (he can do that by circling his arms or by running in circles, depending on what he needs), which will effectively "catch" the falling object. He can then move the tornado (with the object inside) to a safer location, then counter-spin to dissipate the winds.
Flash can also vibrate his hand, seeking the resonance frequency of a given object, causing it to shatter. He can (like Clark in Man of Steel Bars) vibrate his body into intangibility.
BTW, did you see this week's ep of Justice League? (I just saw it last night.) "Devided We Fall." I won't spoil it, but it does include Wally pulling a few tricks and doing some fairly heavy hitting.
Oh, and he does have super strength of a sort. As speed increases, so does mass. It's a trick of relativity. Flash, by going at near-light-speed, gains not only super inertia but super density. Suddenly, there's a heck of a lot more mass backing up his punches.
So... He's a lot more powerful and versitile than he first appears. It's also, IMO, not at all a silly question or something silly to wonder about. Even if it was... I like silly.
Paul
