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Engineers Design Tornado Proof Home
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Emily Badger writes at the Atlantic that it's not too hard to build a tornado proof home but it's pretty difficult to design one that's liveable. "If you made a perfect earthquake structure, it would be a bunker with 24-inch walls and one small steel door for you to get in," says architect Michael Willis. That structure would be based on the empirical measurements of structural engineers. "You could design it to be perfectly resistant. But it would not be a place you'd want to live." The task behind the "Designing Recovery" competition (PDF): was to design a liveable tornado proof home in a part of the country where the geology makes it impossible to build tornado cellars or basements. Q4 Architects designed a safe space within a home instead of a shelter underneath it, a kind of house inside of a house. The result is an idea that could be replicated anywhere in tornado alley: a highly indestructible 600 square-foot core of concrete masonry, hurricane shutters and tornado doors where a family could survive a tornado and live beyond it, with several more flexible (and affordable) rooms wrapped around it. "It's going to do it's best to fight the tornado," says Elizabeth George." "Part of your house might get torn away, but the most important parts of the house are safe. After the disaster, everything is not lost. You're able to keep the most valuable things, which are the people, the functions of the house, and maybe your valuables." The genius of this idea is that while it would be significantly more expensive to build out the same tornado precautions for the entire home, the CORE house is meant to be constructed for under $50,000."
You're able to keep the most valuable things, which are the people, the functions of the house, and maybe your valuables
Just putting that out there.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
"The Surprising Reason" houses don't have underground facilities? Maybe surprising to the provincial readers of The Atlantic, but obvious plain logic to everyone else. You'd think educated people would be aware of basic facts like clay soils and what they mean, but evidently that's no longer true. Saying things like "why didn't they just go to the basement, stupid Oklahomans" is like saying "idiotic famine victims, why didn't they just buy some food from the store?" Surprise, my ass.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Living in tornado alley I must protest that one does not make a tornado "proof" home, one makes a tornado resistant home. The idea that you can make a home tornado "proof" is greatly misleading and like saying you can make an armored vehicle bomb "proof". You can only make things resistant to a given degree - this in important technicality on a tech site.
Tornadoes are these machinations of nature that are perfectly capable of lifting the foundations of a freeway out of a ground and flinging semi trucks through the air. When the news covers an area that was hit the word used to describe the people that lived is always "survived". Bad headline, bad headline.
The walls may help shield from debris in the event of a EF-1 to 3 (which granted is the vast majority of tornadoes). But there isn't much on this earth (above ground, anyway) that's going to survive a direct hit from an EF-5 tornado.
My dad saw the track left by one that hit in Alabama years ago. The thing sucked up everything, including grass, in a 1/2 mile wide path. The only thing left behind was orange clay. There wasn't a single intact structure left, not even foundations.
Closest thing humanity has to a EF-5 -proof structure is probably the pyramids in Giza, and I'm not sure about that either.
Anyone who bought a house on a floodplain in tornado country is a goddamned idiot.
Then anyone who lives in a known major earthquake zone is an idiot, so most of California (actually the whole West Coast) should be abandoned. Alternatively, they could have building codes that minimize loss of life in the event of an earthquake, but that's just swimming against the tide, isn't it?
While we're at it, "who" is becoming acceptable where "whom" should be used. Referring to a person's gender is nonsensical - people have a sex, and words have a gender. Shall I go on? Yet none of those things leads to any real confusion or ambiguity (if they did, you wouldn't be able to correct them).
While I agree that owning land is an absurdity, "Just move somewhere better!" is one of the least logical cries of the over-privileged.
A lot of third world countries tend to build their homes in concrete or adobe brick. I think that's pretty impressive. Sure, it doesn't look as elegant as a spanish suburban home but who really cares about modernization when you have practicality? Plus, give me a home without windows and I'll be really happy. I really hate windows, and it's much better to not have them than to have them at least IMO. Maybe I just have a thing for dungeons, I don't know but what I do know is that if I want to see outside I go outside. So give me a practical house that is cozy and I'll be a happy camper. Oh, don't live in a camper in tornado valley, everyone knows what happens to campers during tornado season.
Not a surprise that a piece about dgging a storm-proof hole is written by someone called Emily Badger.
"Cock Up Your Beaver" does not mean what you think. This sig is intended to clog filters and annoy do-gooders
Grammar nazism stops wars.
English grammar or German grammar?
I met a guy who built homes by pouring concrete into Styrofoam forms with rebar. After that it was brick veneer or siding outside and the usual stuff on the inside. He said they also tied the roof using the same materials they do in hurricane prone areas. He said homes like this had been hit dead on by tornadoes and other than broken windows and superficial damage were essentially unharmed. This building technique also make a very energy efficient home.
Greed is the root of all evil.
I should thing that a heavily reinforced, hardened concrete structure could have mush thinner walls.
Nah, walls made of mush wouldn't work.
You are the idiot. If you think brick or even cement block stands up to a tornado much better than plywood, you know nothing about tornadoes. Your ignorance is tolerable, but not when compounded with arrogance.
...and the engineers said almost the same thing but their design was a strucutr that looked like a pyramid
Well, the pharaoh's still there sleeping, isn't he?
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
Richard Buckminster "Bucky" Fuller had built several that are tornado and hurricane proof. He made several concrete dome homes that have taken the worst that nature can dish out and only need minor repairs.
Heck they are sharknado proof.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
It's an interesting challenge, and forces architectural 'entrpreneurs' to think through some of the relevant issues.
However....I'd guess that the best that will come from this is a few decent ideas that *may* make things a little bit better. I hope so anyway.
For example: it's a market fact that people are willing to spend very little $ on pure safety features. Witness the great swathes of country where a basement or even simply storm cellar would radically increase the chances of tornado survival....and yet people still don't use them. A storm cellar is a TRIVIAL cost; with a backhoe and some 4x4's or larger timbers, one could be built in a couple of hours. With a couple of strong backs and shovels, a couple of weekends (digging sucks).
Of course, the idea being out there that there is a "tornado proof home" has a couple of drawbacks; most certainly these homes are carefully specc'd and designed....meaning an unscrupulous developer could build homes that 'look a lot like them', sell them as 'tornado-resistant' but in fact using substandard parts that make them even more lethal. Further, there's always the 'false sense of security' problem: instead of sensibly taking cover when timely warning is received, an owner of such a house is likely to rationalize "Ah, my house is tornado proof, I'll just stand out here taking youtube video until the last second!"
Finally, the fact is that almost nothing above ground is tornado proof. At best, you're buying yourself some percentages against small and medium tornado activity...which for a given house, in reality, is a vanishingly unlikely occurrence even in tornado ally.
-Styopa
Use rocks, they have far more structural integrity than Mush.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Does anyone know if this type of soil is why houses don't have basements in San Diego? I don't live there, but even locals don't seem to know why.
I watched a video some time back about a hurricane proofed house. It looked pretty much like a standard house. But when that thing shuttered up it was sealed TIGHT. And I do know that Stanley of all companies designed a nail that would not just tear out of wood, thereby lessening the chance roof components could be lifted.
You can build a structure to combat hurricanes and tornadoes - but it isn't going to be THAT cheap. Given that fact I have no intention of living anywhere beyond the northeast U.S. None! Sure, we get a little geologic action from time to time, and hurricanes get here about once every 30 or so years though the cycle seems to have been shortened lately.
My cave does just fine already. Free AC and heat year round too. Mold is kinda a problem. And bears.
FEMA has instructions on how to build a safe-room into your home..
http://www.fema.gov/safe-rooms
It's been up for years, and the instructions are clear enough for a do-it-yourselfer to do, or to hand off to a contractor to build.
How big you make the room(s) is up to you. If you're in a tornado area, it wouldn't be a bad idea to make effectively a studio apartment. That could be a bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen pantry. That way, if your house was completely blown away, you'd still have somewhere to live.
If you can afford a $50k room for something statistically rare, you can make a nice home theater (aka "man cave"). A theater room is better without windows, and soundproof from the rest of the house. With independent emergency power, you could camp out in it, and watch movies through the apocalypse, and come out sometime after its done.
We've been discussing making our safe room here. Unfortunately, most of Florida is not only a tornado risk, but a flood zone. You get both risks during hurricanes. So you may be in the totally safe shelter room from the house falling down around you, but if your exits are blocked, you may end up drowning in the same room.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Then anyone who lives in a known major earthquake zone is an idiot ...
This does begin to explain a lot of things, though.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Unfortunately, most of Florida is not only a tornado risk, but a flood zone. You get both risks during hurricanes. So you may be in the totally safe shelter room from the house falling down around you, but if your exits are blocked, you may end up drowning in the same room.
You just need one of these. Comes in a nice, waterproof container even. Stick an Ikea coffee table or similar over it and your worries are gone.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
My grandma bought a house 20 years ago in Topeka, KS, and had the entire thing reconstructed. She still couldn't get a basement, so she had steel-reinforced concrete put around her closet. Bam. Tornado-proof-house-in-a-house. This is a non-story.
You want the freedom to live anywhere in America? Go for it, and pay full price for it. No disaster relief, no insurance subsidies. FEMA should annonce phased withdrawal of tornado support in known tornado regions, wildfire suppression in scrub country, flood insurance in known flood prone areas, or hurricane relief in known hurricane prone coastal areas. Emergency relief is only for areas where the disaster is very infrequent. It is not a routine operation.
Probably the right solution for tornado country is to stop the stupid urban sprawl, create towns with a nucleus of concrete condos, two or three stories tall, tightly built in a circle with a pool and courtyard in the middle. Windows with aluminium shutters that can be closed, cars parked at ground level below these condos. You need concrete structures to survive tornadoes and do the compromise necessary to do it. Or pay full price for freedom. I am sick and tired of supporting your unnatural life style choice to live in plastic and plywood boxes in tornado country.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Why? your legs broke? pack your crap on your back and Walk to montana.
Which will make you more likely to die in an accident. As a spread out rural state, Montana has one of the worst per capita rates of vehicle fatalities. Deaths from traffic accidents dwarf deaths from natural disasters.
Ball or aerosol?
Guess what? You can already build a concrete dome for around that much money. It will protect the whole house. OMGWTFBBQ this is a solved problem.
;)
Holy fail to read even TFS, Batman!
"You could design it to be perfectly resistant. But it would not be a place you'd want to live". Most people would not want to live in a giant concrete dome (though I personally would, and I suspect you'll find a fairly unrepresentatively large sample of Slashdotters who would say the same). Simple as that.
That said...
I have an even better solution, though. Fucking move. Anyone who bought a house on a floodplain in tornado country is a goddamned idiot.
This, a thousand times this! Every time I hear about the federal government bailing out people stupid enough to live a place likely to get wiped out once a decade or so, I can't help but think exactly what you've expressed. The US has vast tracts of uninhabited, relatively safe land, yet we have people trying to live in the worst possible choices. Flood zones, tornado alley, scrub-brush tinderboxes, earthquake central.
I have nothing against having FEMA around for the freak "storm of the century" events. But if your day-to-day life at least part of the year involves always listening for that warning klaxon in the distance - You should not live where you do, should not expect the rest of us to bail you out - Period.
paying tens of thousands of extra dollars for something that probably won't happen is a waste. better to play the odds and have low cost houses, sometimes a minute amount of people will die *shrug*
Holy stupid comments batman.... That is true in every state.
the difference is that the majority of earthquakes are basically nothing and cause very little property damage. every tornado that goes through your house will destroy your entire damned house
what's the difference between cement and concrete?
and sure it stands up to strong winds much better than plywood.. unless of course you're building using plywood thickness bricks which is a bit silly. for one it has more weight to keep the whole thing from flying away.
anyways, shantytowns get fucked while brick neighborhoods don't. regularly around the globe.
hows timber? actually 10" thickness composite/plywood would probably work fine too. at least better than trailer homes.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
While I agree that owning land is an absurdity, "Just move somewhere better!" is one of the least logical cries of the over-privileged.
Let's be clear, I don't even own a home. But neither does someone whose home is redistributed across seven counties by the weather.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
We've been discussing making our safe room here. Unfortunately, most of Florida is not only a tornado risk, but a flood zone. You get both risks during hurricanes. So you may be in the totally safe shelter room from the house falling down around you, but if your exits are blocked, you may end up drowning in the same room.
Build your concrete tornado-proof room on a foundation which is the structural eqivalent of a barge constrained by pilings. If it floods, your entire safe-room will be able to float without drifting away from where it is anchored. Of course this raises the cost by quite a bit (didn't say it would be cheap), but should be easily doable within the bounds of current civil engineering and contemporary construction processes.
Presumably intended to handle hurricanes and flooding instead of tornadoes, the kettle house in Galveston TX is an inverted metal dome, (although I don't know why it has a door at ground level).
"While I agree that owning land is an absurdity"
Uh, what are you smoking?
"over-privileged"
Oh, you're just brainwashed by the Marxist college professor that teaches you. Carry on.
If you can read this, it means that I bothered to log in.
They probably have some Minuteman Missile Silos being decommissioned , they would be tornado proof.
Because a tomato flood IS messy: http://www.latomatinatours.com/
Those plastic sheets don't effectively protect your home.
Cement is a binder, concrete is an aggregate made from cement, sand, and stones (and often other materials). "Cement block" is really concrete.
Concrete blocks are obviously going to stand up to tornados better than plywood, certainly in terms of debris resistance. If you're building a tornado shelter you'd run rebar through the voids and fill with cement mortar so you have a solid structure.
The only grammatical 'rule' is to use 'whom' when it is governed by a preposition
And you're complaining about pedants?
The only grammatical 'rule' is to use 'whom' when it is governed by a preposition: to whom, from whom, for whom, etc.
Where you would use THEM (or HIM, HER) you use WHOM
Give it to them (him) (her).
Give it to whom?
(bold emphasis added)
How does that differ from the GP, other than being vague and harder to understand?
Cities were built in these areas because rivers and oceans are vital routes of transportation, the fishing is good, the minerals are there to be mined, or the soil is fertile. Of course that doesn't matter now. We have highways and we can just send a few people out to the fertile soil areas to tend the robot workers. It'll take some doing, but we can move everybody to minimal hazard areas and use our cheap energy to do things that need to be done in the hazard areas... just in time for the energy to become really expensive or unattainable. Don't worry though, it'll be all good. Somebody will be mocking the people who pay $100/gal for gasoline. He'll say, "fucking move".
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Bricks, concrete blocks? (since you object to the vernacular dual use of the word cement). "Stands up to strong winds"? I don't think you appreciate the intensity of a good tornado. Force due to wind is proportional to the square of the wind speed. Trucks get thrown through the air. The difference between wood and masonry construction is the difference between a pile of splinters and a pile of rubble. The only thing that will stand up is reinforced concrete, and then only if poured in a single piece or very strongly joined. The reinforced concrete panels typically used to construct big box stores won't cut it.
It is $50K for the entire house, not for the improvements to build a tornado-proof core.
It's true, there's a MARXIST CONSPIRACY in mathematics faculties across the planet. Wall Street is full of LENINIST QUANTS.
Might suprise you but I like to belive that my concrete house frame house with 35 cm walls and massive 2 meter deep fundations are a bit more resilient than a truck on ruber weels, but thats only me...
In tornado a house like mine would lose the roof tiles, not the roof becouse that is made out of a prestressed concrete and adobe slab with 25 cm, that is embeded in the frame structure. would have some walls pierced by debries worse some of the double windows would be troned from the walls, and i would have to move to a more iterior part of the house .... but in the end i would get to keep most of my house most of my belongins and my life.
Wind has nothing to push against.cheap.
like in science-fiction movies. I envision a hardened shell, coffin-like (but they could be spherical or any shape really), whose entry is flush with the ground. Each would be anchored or chained at a number of points to galvanized stakes (like fence stakes) driven deep into the ground. When a tornado approaches, you climb into your escape pod and latch it shut until the storm passes. This could be cheap and effective for all but the claustrophobic.
I certainly agree with you on that one! I will take a good earthquake any day over tornado or even a hurricane. I went through the 1989 earthquake in the Bay Area, the one that collapsed the Bay Bridge and a whole section of the Nimitz Freeway. In our house, we only suffered was some broken dishes. We now live in Oregon and are told that we are due for a 9.0+ earthquake similar to the one that ruined the nuclear plant in Japan. Fortunately we don't have any of those in our neighborhood. We don't live on the coast, so we don't have to worry about a tsunami.
A sufficiently advanced simulation is indistinguishable from reality.
Protect yourself by climbing into the pipe.
It would have to be buried or anchored and topped with earth/asphalt/gravel/concrete to streamline air flow over the pipe.
Normally a culvert pipe is laid horizontally and could hold a number of people. Or you could use short sections and set them in the ground vertically. When trouble comes you climb in with a built-in ladder. Although these would be more trouble to maintain because:
Just as in a pinch, an underpass or a culvert pipe is a safe haven in a tornado, so this could cheaply save a group of people. And it wouldn't be as difficult as escape pods for those with claustrophobia.
Actually, we intend to move inland, when we have the money... And ya, part of the move would involve constructing the safe room.
I'm not partial to earthquakes.. Hurricanes and floods, you know are coming. Earthquakes come with no notice.
I've lived all over the US, and have been through the major disasters. Blizzards with devastating snowfall. Northeasters pushing frozen ocean inland. Hurricanes and tornadoes. And ya, a few years out in earthquake prone areas.
I'll stick with hurricanes and tornadoes. We stay at home. When the storm gets too rough, or the waters too deep, we can drive inland. We already have the routes planned, to avoid any bridges or areas that are lower than where we live.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
That's not always possible. It definitely wouldn't pass planning and zoning in most residential neighborhoods.
Where we are, the house takes up the area allocated for the home. We can't build onto the easement (the space between the house and property line).
Any structure that could rise on the pilings would also be able to be ripped away by a tornado. The FEMA guidelines are pretty clear on the minimum required to keep your safe room in place. I believe it was 3 feet into the ground, with L shaped anchors, concreted in place. Anything less, and your safe room may end up a safe coffin somewhere other than where it started.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Holy stupid comments batman.... That is true in every state.
No it isn't. How can every state be "one of the worst"?
California has earthquakes and Montana doesn't. But if you look at your probability of dying in an accident in California and Montana, Montana is worse. The chance of dying in an earthquake in Montana is zero, but the vehicle accident rate is higher than California's and that makes a much bigger difference. So moving to Montana because it is "safer" is silly, because it isn't.
Well, if a whole bunch of people moved there, there would be more, larger cities, so you wouldn't need to drive as far, so this would make the state safer for the current residents.
Win-win!
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
People most at risk of tornadoes are the people living in trailer parks, not the ones living in homes. Sure, maybe the homes aren't tornado proof, quite a few of them get blown away every year and every year, people living in them get hurt or die when they get blown away with their homes when they are in them. But, they are a minority when it comes to people that die in their homes compared to when a tornado hits a trailer park. A trailer is about the worst place to be when a tornado hits and casualties are much bigger when it comes to people living there. It's not just the density of a trainer park, way more people per square foot, but also the even weaker construction of the "building". Building a brand new home for not a lot more money that is much better at sustaining a tornado is a good development, but it won't save that much more lives and futures. Come up with an affordable, tornado proof trailer and you have a true life saver and a real novelty.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
If part of your house can be blown away by a tornado, you do not live in a "tornado proof" house.
The US has vast tracts of uninhabited, relatively safe land, yet we have people trying to live in the worst possible choices.
There's a reason nobody lives in those places. It's because there's no economic activity. You can't live without money.
Next obvious question.
There is no need to spend $50K. I designed and built a masonry (steel reinforced concrete, ferrocement and stone) small (252 sq-ft) home for our family for $7K. It is great to live in. It is also tornado proof but that is merely incidental. Because of it having a high thermal mass inside an insulating envelope it also stays cool in the summer and warm in the winter which saves more money every year on energy costs.
There's a reason nobody lives in those places. It's because there's no economic activity. You can't live without money. Next obvious question.
Okay, how about: "Did you know we have literally tens of millions of acres of those those unoccupied relatively safe places, all within an hour's drive of a population center?"
Personally, I live in the "densely populated" Northeastern US - I live within an hour of two major cities. And land goes for around $1000-$2000 per acre around here. Other than an irrational-bordering-on-insane emotional attachment to a physical location that actively tries to kill them, I can't even remotely fathom why anyone would want to live in Tornado Alley rather than in my area.
And just for the record, many of the disaster-prone areas we hear about don't exactly have the most thriving economy around - NOLA makes a great example of that. We have a literal sprawling low-density ghetto, sitting below sea level in a coastal flood-plain in hurricane central, that completely unsurprisingly got washed off the face of the planet... And the morons moved back when it dried out??? Seriously, WTF, how dumb do we as a species get?
"Well, it shouldn't happen but every 20-30 years" - So I guess you want to give Mother Nature another chance to line you up in her crosshairs?
You have to be pretty unlucky to get hit by a tornado, though. Very big ones are only a mile wide and typically run for a few miles.
The majority of tornadoes miss your house completely.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
No, it's the same thing. We have both concrete block (nowadays called CMUs -- concrete masonry units -- because everyone likes acronyms) and poured-in-place concrete like you are describing. And certainly for a given thickness a poured-in-place wall will be much stronger. But I'd still take a concrete block wall over a typical plywood one.
When a tornado swept through Barneville Wisconsin, it flattened nearly the entire town. But the water tower remained standing. Now water towers are pretty heavy but their center of gravity is obviously very high. Traditional construction techniques favor rectangular homes or homes with right angle flat sides. Tornado survivable buildings should be another shape, something more like the domes used in Antarctica.
The problem is not "can my 35cm concrete wall resist a tornado's 200-400+ km/h winds better than a truck?"
The problem is "can my 35cm concrete wall resist a tornado's 200-400+ km/h winds _hitting it with a truck_?"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jLB4Mz4V10
Hopefully the answer is yes, but I still wouldn't want to find out the hard way.
It sounds crazy but they make a lot of sense.
1. Heating and cooling is less of an issue. The earth holds a pretty consistent temperature and you can regulate your home by exploiting it.
2. Winds, hurricanes, etc are less of an issue because you're either flush with the ground or nearly so.
3. The roof can more easily be used as a garden or expansion to your property. All natural light comes in through skylights.
4. The major problem will be flooding. There are a variety of ways to deal with that from simply building on high ground to building some sort of double wall into the foundation so that water can collect there and drain away without entering the home. Pumps... etc.
I don't know... maybe its a dumb idea but I'd like to see some people try it. Imagine if your full property foot print could be turned into a backyard while your home rested below the ground. Every room with a skylight. Cool in the summer. Warm in the winter.
I just think its a nice idea.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
The issue is "death by traffic accidents out number deaths by natural disaster".....News flash....there are more deaths per year by traffic accidents than by natural disasters by a very large margin. There being a slightly greater number of traffic deaths compared to natural disasters than other states does not increase your risk in any meaningful way.
I don't understand the need for this. Tomatoes are simply to small and soft to pose much peril to a house, even in large numbers. The only way there could possibly be a danger is if somehow they were exposed to large quantities of radiation, clearly impossible.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
This is an old idea.
Houses in the North West of Australia have been built using an inner safety core for at least 35 years.
I know, I've lived in one.
That's very generalising of you.
Across Bachelors and Masters, I did about 80% mathematics and theoretical physics, 10% computing, and 10% history of mathematics. The greatest challenge was in history of mathematics, as it combined mathematics, linguistics (interpreting unfamiliar languages and unfamiliar notations), philosophy and history.
The US territory of Guam has hurricane proof and earthquake proof homes. They are built of concrete and come with built in storm shutters that can be opened and closed from the inside. There's no need for a dome to survive a typhoon (hurricane to mainlanders). Regular home shapes work well enough. They mainly ride out the storms within their own homes with very little loss of life and property. Contrast this with the US mainland with annual problems. Stop being cheap. Stop using wood in hurricane and tornado zones. They should just be replaced with concrete as they blow away. It saves both homeowenres and insurance companies a lot of money very long term.
The homes on Guam were replaced with concrete after the 1976 super typhoon (~150mph+) blew many of them away. They stopped building out of wood since that time. Before the 1980s, everyone sheltered in the reinforced concrete schools and waited out the typhoons, hoping their home hadn't blow away. The main problems after a typhoon now is repainting and cleaning up the yard. It's mostly cosmetic fixes. The only time they have major problems on Guam now is when a super typhoon (~150mph+) comes along about every 20-25 years and blows out the power lines and the concrete power poles. They could probably start putting some lines underground now to reduce the power outages, but they have quakes too and some areas are too low and easily flood during a typhoon. They had their 8.0 quake just over a decade ago too.
If I weren't already in this conversation, I'd +1 Insightful your post.
I'm in Florida. We don't get earthquakes, but we definitely get storms. Besides hurricanes, we get our summer thunderstorms. The homes that stand up to them.
This video was from July 30 .. I'm only mentioning it because it was recent, and lots of people saw it. This video isn't from me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybUPOUxIxzo
I was leaving work on the West side of the storm. Looking East, the sky was black. We also got some very heavy gusty winds, up to about 60mph. I don't mind missing the twisty part. We've seen
Any home worth staying in is concrete block or brick. Homes that are wood frame don't hold up so well when big storms hit.
I have a personal weather station. We had a maximum windspeed of 119.0 mph on July 24, 2013 at 02:42am (Eastern). If you view the yearly graph, it shows a few good gusts this year. We didn't have any tropical storms hit us this year.
http://www.wunderground.com/weatherstation/WXDailyHistory.asp?ID=KFLHOLID5&day=24&year=2013&month=7&graphspan=year
All in all, it's been pretty calm, including the July 30 waterspout/tornado.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
This is why I said walk, and not drive.... DUH!
Only the insane would drive, everyone knows that is the fastest way to death.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I live in the NE, too, and there's little chance of earthquakes, tornados, or hurricanes. Stay out of flood plains, and all we have to worry about is liberal politicians. Well, it snows some, but that we can deal with (and play in).
Perhaps not that drastic but it has been proven in SF that house on bedrock shake and collapse a HELL OF A LOT less that those on "dirt". Do a geological survey of an area and then zone them as non-inhabitable. Think of all the lovely parks we would have.
It is called educated planning.
You have obviously never met a real estate developer. We've had them dig trenches in floodplain swamps to try to drain and pass off as prime flat land. As long as there are people stupid enough not to check out the geology of where they live, there will be pathologicals who are really happy to sell them really bad land.
And as the people who have the money to pay off, errrrr, influence zoning boards, guess wh owins that battle?
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
While I agree that owning land is an absurdity, "Just move somewhere better!" is one of the least logical cries of the over-privileged.
Ahh, to be a victim! You don't have to quit your job, pick up all your belongings and move to a mountain fortress to be safer. Where I live, there are several zones. There is flood plain land (some of which is surprisingly expensive. Nice flat land, grows nice yards. There is land that is more subject to tornados, a few flat valleys where we get one every couple years, and farmers sell to developers who put up developments where they used to farm. There is forested land and mountain land. The mountain land tends to rough winters. I suppose th eforested land could possibly be a fire risk, though it rains pretty often here.
Point is, within a 30 minute ride of where I live, you can have the danger of your choice. For myself, I have always bought or lived in houses that were on top of hills in forested areas. I guess I'm more likely to get struck by lightninig?
But even though there is land that is more expensive than others, a person of normal privileges can avoid living in flood, or tornado prone areas here. As for earthquakes, well, even in these cases a person could check out to see that they are living on the "right" side of the fault. If they are the priveliged, they might think of not building their house in a Chaparral canyon or on a muddy hill just aching to fall in the ocean. Heck, if I lived near the ocean, I'd try to find the historic heoghts of Tsunamis if any ever occured there.
If they consider it. But to blame the "over-priveliged" for not trying to live in as safe an area as you can find is sort of silly. I suspect the poorest of us have access to a library.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
For myself, I have always bought or lived in houses that were... ...a person of normal privileges...
What.
For myself, I have always bought or lived in houses that were... ...a person of normal privileges...
What.
What what?
Don't build a house or live in a place that you shouldn't. And if you have to, there is no way possible to not live there - then be a victim. And you don't have to be wealthy to live in a safer place.
Because in the end - it really isn't about rich versus poor. It's about people thinking "It won't happen to me.", or otherwise willful ignorance. Weathy people as well as poor people fall prey to that.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
And you don't have to be wealthy to live in a safer place.
Were you high when you wrote that? I mean were you floating on some ethereal plane where money doesn't increase the choices available to you?
And you don't have to be wealthy to live in a safer place.
Were you high when you wrote that? I mean were you floating on some ethereal plane where money doesn't increase the choices available to you?
Are you so dull witted that you cannot argue without insults? Does your world need infinite resources in order to have choices? I'm not wealthy, but I picked where I live from places that were available.
This either/or world of Wealthy and you live in a safe area free of danger, or you are poor, and you live in a mobile home on a active fault line in a flood plain in Tornado alley is just silly. Some wealthy people live in very dangerous places. Some poor people live in rather safe places. And vice versa. To argue that people have no choice is specious.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
"...so dull witted... argue without insults?"
Quite.
Your whole post is a straw man, so I shall ignore it.
Damage due to a tornado is still a pretty low risk and is covered in a basic insurance policy, unlike damage from an earthquake, flood, or hurricane. Nearly everyone who loses their house to a tornado is covered and can rebuild with the insurance money. For those of us that grew up in tornado country it's not that big a deal. Shelters and insurance are pretty cheap and the probability that you will be hit is low.