Posted on 09/16/2008 5:04:18 PM PDT by Rebelbase
Interesting info. It would make sense if it’s not a “real” house, but some sort of special demonstration project. For example, the windows may not be made of glass, but of some thick and shatterproof plastic.
One of the reasons I’d been very suspicious of this photo is that I hadn’t read anything about its origins. It’s clearly pretty new, and I figured the builder would have been jumping in front of the media cameras to claim credit, if the photo actually showed what it appears to show. Do you have a link to the info about it being a special hurricane-proof design? You’d think in that area, ALL houses would be built to some kind of hurricane-resistance standards, but this one is obviously on a whole different level than any of its neighbors.
I guess the question is whether its construction cost is feasible for regular homes. If it costs 3-4 times as much to build as a regular house, it’s not likely to get replicated much, though the concepts might well be applied to the construction of government and commercial buildings intended to be used as hurricane shelters or to protect unusually valuable or irreplaceable contents.
Could be Lucite. One of my landlord friends likes it for houses where kids throw stones and break his windows.
http://www.interstateplastics.com/materials/detail.aspx?ID=AcrylicClearExtruded-SC0118 Some key attributes of Acrylic Sheet: Acrylic sheet is 17 times stronger than glass Excellent clarity Durable Lightweight Weather-able Easily sawed, routed, drilled, formed, line bent, cemented and painted Size Offering: Sheet - Thickness' are available from 1/16" to 1" Sheet Size - Most thickness' are available from 12" x 12" to 48" x 120"- And even larger, please inquire.
Modular Home Meets IBHS Resistance to Natural Hazards Requirements
http://aec.ihs.com/news/2006/ibhs-natural-hazard.htm?wbc_purpose=Ba
Just skimmed their site,,,
Seems to be steel-framed like commerical stuff,,,
And :
“Design Guide 22 discusses façade system fundamentals and building performance issues that influence attachment design and provides example details of various façade systems, including masonry cavity wall systems with concrete-block or steel-stud backup, precast-concrete wall panels, aluminum curtain walls with glass and/or metal panels, glass-fiber-reinforced concrete panels and other lightweight panels and exterior insulation-and-finish-system panels.”
I believe that police were having people write their Soc. Security numbers in permanent marker on their arms so that their bodies could be identified after the storm. I’d think that would make some folks think twice before staying put.
Thanks thanks.
Fascinating. Dreadful devastation.
Pumping sand in and raising the island's elevation by 14' and adding a 17' seawall would work too but I don't think modern society is up to the task. We just don't have that type of culture, funding and laws any more.
Well, if I were the government, and I owned the world's biggest insurance company, I'd say, h3ll, yeah, don't build on the d@mn island.
Incredible. Thanks thanks.
think it is important when referencing Kelo that we put the blame where it belongs. That was not the USSC in entirety. It was specifically Stevens, Ginsberg, Souter, Kennedy and Breyer who made that stupid eminent domain decision.
O’Conner, Rehnquist, Thomas and Scalia voted in opposition to them. We have to get rid of those horrible others - especially Ginsberg and Stevens and Souter.
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You are absolutely correct. And if Obomination is our next President, all is lost.
Here is an article that ought to scare you:
http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202424466959&rss=newswire
“If individuals decide to defend their houses, will the police be forced to use ‘dynamic entries’ to get the occupants out, or worse?”
Sounds like they would have to use the same methods as we would have to use if we decide to export the 12,000,000 illgal aliens. If it happens, then we will get some idea of what a similar effort on illegals would be like.
“They made someone tear a house down because it was too small.”
In marginal areas, small houses should be the norm. No insurance coverage for anything larger than a certain size. If people want to build McMansions in danger zones, let then take their own responsibility for the loss. I bought 12 acres in a mountain community in West Virginia. That community was sold to us by a developer using bylaws developed for a property they sold off near a large town. Our community is nothing like that area. We have to build a home of 1,000 sq. ft. or larger. All I need is 250 sq. ft. as a retired person. One area has an extremely steep road and really should be oriented to hunting cabins. The wear and tear on our gravel roads by trucks and other building equipment has to be paid by all of us, and we shouldn’t be forced to pay for road damage by one or two people’s McMansions. We need a 3/4 vote to change the bylaws. Hope we can get it done.
In June 2006 I drove the gulf coast road from Tampa to New Orleans taking photos. I looked for a straw bale home in the International Straw Bale Registry that had been built in the hurricane zone to see how this type of construction fares. Found one built behind Pensacola, Florida. That area was hard hit by Ivan. A number of houses nearby still had “blue roofs” and other damage or new roofs. The straw bale house had no damage even though trees larger than a foot in diameter had blown down 100 yards away.
Straw bale would not work where flooding is a risk, but is great where the primary danger is wind or earthquake. Much cheeper to build too.
The road in parts of Florida and Mississippi ran very near the water with single home properties built between it and the Gulf. Most had been destroyed. There were many for sale signs. Some houses were being rebuilt on pilings from 12 to 17 feet high. I saw a large (80+ acres) tract for sale on the land side of the road and a single lot for sale on the Gulf side. I had a fantasy of buying both lots, building a multi home community on stilts on the land side, and using the water lot for a low cost community center with bathhouse, picnic area and small boat shed. This kind of thinking could make it possible for large numbers of people to enjoy the water without engaging in such a high risk and expense.
Regarding the “miracle house”, it appears to be built on a more elevated piece of land than the surroundings. At another site it was recommended that bolts, in addition to nails, be used to prevent uplift. Doesn’t cost that much extra.
“Pumping sand in and raising the island’s elevation by 14 feet”
In conjunction with my previous comment, if one area was built up and multiunit connected homes built on it, then the surrounding area could be used for nature and recreation. This would be a much more feasible and economical way to build in those areas. The idea of separate homes and property is a much more expensive option in vulnerable areas.
A girl at work used to live in Galveston. She’s friends with a Galveston police officer. He told her that alot of bodies were in one specific area of Galveston that they were trying to keep people away from.
Because it hurts other people’s self-esteem.
I think the best way to deal with this problem is looking for a long-term, strategic solution. Importantly, on such a large scale, that it is set up so that nature, not man, does most of the hard work.
The coast has its outer islands, strips of land parallel to the mainland, oftentimes little more than glorified sandbars. But they were naturally created, and this is the first point.
The second is about man-made harbors in general. In modern times, their biggest problem is that they collect silt so efficiently that they have to be almost continually dredged, or they turn into shallows. (Strangely enough, the ancient Greeks had the same problem, and ended up engineering at least one “self-cleaning” harbor. A very ingenious thing to do.)
But add these two things together, and what do you get? Gigantic sea walls, miles offshore, blocking storm surges maybe 15 feet high. In effect, levees at sea, taking so much of the punch out of the surge that by the time it hits the mainland it is just a fraction of its original size.
Typically, this would be done by putting rock walls in the way, but that would be prohibitively expensive. Instead, using a process that could take the better part of 100 years, you begin by creating an artificial reef.
Today this is done by sinking a large ship to provide surfaces for sea creatures to latch on to. But an even more effective way is to just lay a grid of thick underwater cable. It was discovered that by running a weak current through it, for some reason it attracts sea creatures to attach themselves and start reef building in much less time than it normally takes.
Once the reef is built, the intention is not to just keep it as a living reef, but to create a temporary “harbor” of walls around it, with the idea of creating a catch basin for silt. This would add several feet of silt on top of the reef. Then on top of the silt, begin the reef building process again.
By alternating this process, eventually a semi-solid, layered island is created that has a final top layer of reef covering it and keeping it together. It has just a few feet of water on top of it, on which you can stack rock, and build the final layer of the sea wall.
If a chain of such reef and rock islands were created, they would be staggered so that there were plenty of sea lanes between them, but no direct path to the coast for the surge.
I have a bias . . .
I think anything but one of the 2-3 basic concrete dome types of housing in hurricane or tornado country is . . .
cluelessness or poverty.
But the straw bales thing has a kind of farmer’s romance about it.
As does adobe.
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