The New York Times has an article on building stronger houses in Florida and other hurricane susceptible areas. It goes into a tiny bit of detail about the construction techniques. The following is the lead paragraph:(Registrtion is required to access the NY Times).
“On the Gulf Coast of Texas, Jim Hayes is building houses on concrete stilts that he says will shrug off winds of more than 130 miles an hour and will easily survive the worst hurricane flooding. Near Orlando, Fla., modest but striking cottages are being built with safe rooms and ballistic nylon storm shutters. In the Florida Panhandle, Jason Comer is putting up a village of gleaming white mansions with eight-inch concrete walls and heavy, ridged concrete roofs.”
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CaseyR
It was not my original intention but in building my double timberframe I've built a fortress.. Walls 16 inches thick as bullet proof as is possible..(a lucky shot would need to travel thru 12 to 18 inches of hardwood while most shots would bounce off the stone exterior. Roof rafters would require over 15,000 pounds to remove and walls that will carry nearly 20 tons per foot. Superfcial damage would occur in a tornado due to flying debris damage but no structural damage..
Windows tend to be a weak point.
GHR,
I'd expect to lose windows, heck they are comparitively cheap. Their loss won't cause any structural damage, they are framed inside and out by hardwood timbers.. Big 6x6's or 4x8 timbers.. black walnut on the outside and white oak on the inside..
We stayed in a beach resort in Cancun that was designed for hurricanes. Reinforced concrete structures, with the roofs, doors, and windows intended to be pretty much expendable. So are the furniture and other contents. They got hit real hard last year. But they just shovel out the sand, hose it down, and put it back together again. All part of the business plan.
Elsewhere there are things done with aerodynamic design to not give the wind a good grab on the building.
-- J.S.
I read the article. it realy nothing about anything. I wish I could find a good source on hurricane resistance housing.
What kind of info are you looking for? There are separate considerations...wind resistance and resisting storm surge. Wind includes direct force of wind plus anything blown by the wind, including rain and debris. Storm surge includes the force of the moving water plus the peak water level. Not meant as an exhaustive list. Each requires their own strategy.What I design, for example, should handle all but high water levels. If we build lower than the peak level, we'll be as flooded as anyone. Windows and doors are always an issue. In general, better resistance in fenestrations costs more dollars.
CloudA house like yours would do the trick and would be more cost effective. Also, would help with global warming as it would be cheaper to cool and heat.The only problem I would have is things driven by storm surge and infrastructure. It would be hard to have all that would be needed when the infrastructure had been destroyed. No electricity, gas, potable water, gasoline, food, etc. So even if the house would withstand the forces of nature your would be without the necessities of life.Just my 2 cents.....
Absolutely an issue. It's something the owners need to think about before they place themselves in suspect areas. Depends on people's perceptions of risk. One of our houses in Pensacola Beach survived intact while the neighboring houses were disappeared. They couldn't return for weeks, but they had a structure and all their possessions (including the pants they probably messed as the water rose past 12'). Another got crossed by three hurricane eyes in two years (Stuart, FL). They have a generator that will carry them 3 weeks in relative luxury. No damage to the house, but plenty to the outbuildings and surrounding area.The question all must ask themselves is what constitutes survival. My standard is kinda specific--I want anyone in that home during a weather event (hurricane, tornado, etc) to live through it unscathed, and with key possessions salvageable. A larger question for owners is, how would they feel about Katrina-like damage, if, hypothetically, they were the only structure standing intact for miles, with no services for months, and looters, and polluted land, etc? I can't easily answer that.
Being a life long resident of the Katrina damaged area I really think the emphasis on after effects is overblown. If you and your family survive, your house survives, things are pretty much back to normal in a few days to a few weeks. Sure there are isolated areas like Pensacola beach where they dont have power for months but things were back to normal within a week a mile or so from there. People get too hung up on New Orleans and the problems they have. All along the Mississippi and Alabama Coast there was massive amounts of damage, yet a few days later things are pretty much back to normal a half mile to a mile off the coast. People see the looting and craziness in New Orleans and think that goes on everywhere. I went about ten days without power after Katrina, about a week the year befor after Ivan that hit near Pensacola. You just drag out the generator and get back to work. Very few houses not directly on the beach get severe damage. Im not saying you shouldnt build stronger houses and take precautions, go ahead, do whats necessary to protect your family and ease your mind, but dont get too hung up on being the only one around for miles with no city services and looters prowling the darkness. Its not that way. Unless you lived in a town that was like a cess pool before the storm as well.
My aunt and uncle and grandparents live in Gulfport, and I was down there a month after Katrina hit. My aunt and uncle's house was one of the beautiful large homes located directly on the coast highway. It had steel frame constructtion and concrete floors on the first level, along with many other modifications intended to withstand hurricanes. It was completely and utterly destroyed - the steel frame was ripped apart and twisted like a giant pretzel. The concrete foundation remained, along with miles of debris. Having seen the damage firsthand and the way some things were moved and thrust into the ground, I think it's very likely that Katrina was dropping hurricanes, although the insurance companies are not eager to admit the possibilty (makes it wind damage, not water). My uncle swam out through the door of a house several blocks back and several feet higher when the water reached 8 feet high in the attic with his cat in a box under his arm. They had moved some of their belongings there, and he wanted to protect them from potential looters after the storm. He spent several hours clinging to a tree and eventually made it to the railroad tracks which were acting as a dike holding back the floodwaters which were only about six inches from the top of the tracks. If the water had topped the railroad tracks, the damage would have been much, much more extenisve and many more people would have died.My family in Gulfport made it through the storm, and had full insurance coverage (only a handful of people on the Gulf Coast do). But they were very, very lucky. My grandmother died a month later, and I wonder how much lack of access to medical facilities, medications, and doctors in the wake of the storm may have speeded her along.I agree that Mississippi was able to recover faster than parts of Louisiana due to strong leadership and the fact that the 30 foot storm surge came in and then went again, unlike the standing flood waters in New Orleans. No, there were not gangs of looters charging around - this is the South, after all, and many homeowners are well armed and willing and ready to defend their property. The coast was indeed secured fairly quickly, not that there's much left to protect when the Gulf of Mexico comes in through your front door. However, my grandmother was very frail and the roads were entirely blocked, no electricity, no drinkable water, no way for ambulances to get through. This lasted for at least a week, and a month later not all of the doctors had returned and the water was still questionable. For any person, especially one who is elderly or someone who has a chronic condition not to have access to electricity, hospitals, necessary medications etc. if very serious. I think that to represent the direct hit of a Category 5 hurricane such as Katrina as something that did not have a tremendous impact on the health, wellbeing and overall safety of a great many people some time after the storm is inaccurate and misleading. I completely support people making their own decisions regarding where they want to live, what kind of house they wish to build, etc. But we should all remember that there is no such thing as a completely storm proof house, and that building in coastal areas is a real risk.
>no such thing as a completely storm proof houseAnd no one should classify their work as "proof". I've seen that few times, and am immediately suspicious of everything else they have to say. Nature can always whip up something to thwart our best laid plans. "Resistant" is a more accurate phrasing, assuming there are elements of the house that make it specifically storm resistant.
Well said.
(and, sorry bout your Grandma's passing)DUM SPIRO SPERO: "While I breathe I hope"
On Bob Vila they did a hurricane resistant home.http://www.bobvila.com/BVTV/Bob_Vila/Episode-0114.htmlAnd they worked with an organization called Flash.http://www.flash.org/activity.cfm?currentPeril=1Look at the videos for the details of what is different.
I saw that but not much detail. I really like a book on the engineering side of it dealing with wind loads and roof design.
We are doing some work providing hurricane inspections.
http://www.tbo.com/life/judyhill/MGB09CP0ZNE.html
The concept of building the structure so that it remains if the windows or doors are compromised is the "partially enclosed" concept in design here. A lot of builders just don't tell the homeowners that when they buy and the folks think their home is hurricane-proof.
Personally, I think its hard to build a 100% hurricane resistant home. I mean, Andrew in 1992 had wind gusts to 175 mph! Thats incredible.
I guess it can be done but at alot of extra expense in both money and aesthetics. If you know you're going to stay in the home for 10-15 years or more it would be worth it but if your transient, probably not.
Just my .02 cents of course.
Mike
You can certainly build to survive F5 tornadoes. The big problem there is uplift - big slabs of concrete in roads are picked up.You can certainly build to survive flooding from storm surges.But ...The cost is often greater than the risk.
but everybody kinda missing the point.Not everybody live where there will be storm surge and then those not much can be done. what if everybody built a storm resisance house away from storm surge.It use to be , find someplace safe, now the local authority saying evacated the whole town. three million cars going up a two lane highway with no gas stations. what every happen to the "Personal responsibility" during wwii where everybody had a fall out shelter.If every house had a shelter, why would we need FEMA