made it thru frances now looks like ivan perhaps "watching waiting" we'll see

Good luck, m9key. Keep that BOB handy.

Im not a meterologist so i don't know how true this is but looks like Florida is in for a rought patch - http://www.aberdeennews.com/mld/aberdeennews/news/nation/9603303.htm

Ehhhh, not fun.

<img src="/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" />



That's my favorite part of the story. It's so simple. Thanks for sharing Nic.


Robert

Yeah, prepare. But I want to prepare for much longer term than most.

We don't even have basements down here. And I live in a wood frame home. That's stupid. Houses should be built to withstand category 4 winds for hours. This could be (and should be) a non event. Florida needs to evolve to handle hurricanes like northern states handle snow storms. If my house was guaranteed to survive, all I'd do is make sure I had enough supplies to last a week or so, then go inside and lock the door. My anxiety comes from not knowing if the house will still be here next week.

I wonder how much it'd cost to build a house out of concrete? Is it at all comparable to wood frame / cinder block? I'm getting out of this wood stick house and into something else. Probably cinder block. But I'd wouldn't mind having a house built if I thought it would make a real difference in survivability.

Edit:
While I'm ranting... <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

If we really are going to be seeing more hurricanes, let's stop running power lines above ground, mounting stop lights on cables strung across the street, outlaw advertising signs that put huge sail area 10s of feet above ground, cut back / down all trees anywhere near a structure, forbid tar shingles, require real hurricane shutters, make building the right kind of house easy and the wrong kind (wood frame) darn near impossible.

This is an engineering problem. Hurricanes can be survived. A direct hit doesn't have to mean total infrastructure collapse. Will it be expensive? Oh, yeah. But the cost to fix the damage is already well into the billions. Borrowing from software engineering, why is there never time to do it right but there's always time to do it over?

*sigh*

Ok. I feel better now. <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Here ya go
GROO

I remember a statistic from hurricane Andrew, that LOG homes survived intact.
I would second the dome idea, and a company named Deltec markets hurricane proof homes.
Those are round, on a raised pillar type foundation. One is located near my parents coastal NC home, and it has survived many hurricane strikes.
Every time there is an ice storm in central NC, the subject of burying power lines is raised, but Progress Energy
considers it cheaper to repair than replace, even despite the incredible inconvenience to their customers.
Good luck with Ivan!

Try also http://www.monolithicdome.com

I guess moving isn't an option?

Look at ICF systems - insulated concrete forms = monolithic walls. They have been around long enough. In Florida, make sure that your builder uses treated insulation - termites, carpenter ants, etc don't eat plastic foam, but they tunnel thru it at warp 9.

Keeping the lid on can be done many ways. Do at least what the truss manufacturer or someone like Simpson Strong-Ties says - the building code requirements are MINIMUMs, remember? Or for a ton of money you could go with a flat pre-cast concrete roof deck that is properly anchored to the walls. In any case, sooner or later you're going to suffer some damage to the water resistent part of your roof, be it tiles, tin, or epdm, so be prepared for that. Loosing a few tiles - or even all of them - is not the same as having your roof blown off and then your house wracking into a twisted pile of debris because the builder and inspector don't know how to spell "shear wall". (OK - most inspectors know what they are...)

Any well-built home that fully complies with Florida building codes will weather the storms - sadly, even today important details are omitted or poorly done in new construction. And IMHO, the tile roof requirements were poorly thought through and absolutely not uniformly built/inspected correctly. Anyway, a frame house offers no protection against missile damage.

I don't know about hurricanes but I can categorically state that hollow concrete masonry units will NOT stop tornadic missiles very well. Besides, in residential construction you'd have to hover over the masons all day to make CERTAIN that they properly installed, lapped, and grouted vertical reinforcement, horizonatal bond beams and/or joint reinforcement, etc. Sorry, but that's the general case sad truth. Hard enough to do that on commercial construction with an on-site QA guy.

Many of the better-built factory-built homes are FAR superior to stick-built homes in terms of structural integrity - but a lot of that depends on your local state requirements (if any) for factory built homes. The ones that meet our state requirements are STOUT.

Cheaper safety is a concrete-walled safe room inside your conventionally built house - you can even have that retrofitted or DiY to your existing house. Think solid masonry walls with at least #4 rebar in no more than a 2' grid vert x hor. If you use cmu walls, grout every cell full for resistence to missle penetration. Cheaper to form up and pour concrete with the same 2 x 2 grid of #4 or #5 re-bar. Don't forget about the lid of the safe room being able to take large impact loads and carry significant dead loads (like a collapsed house) Won't keep an improperly built house standing, but you'll be safe.

I'll leave the discussion about declaring hurricane damaged areas federal disaster areas for a less kind forum... you're talking about building genuinely hurricane-resistent in the future, which is the way to go, IMHO.

A often-stated thought: How did the Spaniards build there? Aren't there still OLD buildings that have seen generations of hurricanes? I don't know the factual answers to those questions, but it might be useful to look at that.

Food for thought, anyway.

Regards,

Tom

Poured reinforced concrete homes are all the rage in Sweden.

Buy slab property, put your so called moblie home on a frame with wheels and tow it away when needed.

Buy a motor home.

Get your best stuff in the truck, have good insurance and drive away.

Move

How many times does this need to happen before people wise up?

People who voluntarily stay and ride out these storms are doing the gene pool a favor.

Flip