Saturday, September 20, 2003
Good day! It's Saturday and Isabel is gone, so today is a good day to clean the cobwebs of my mind and see what on it.
I feel so bad for the area in Maryland, the Virginias and Ohio that got hit by the flooding rains during and after Isabel's passing. Is there anything we can learn from this? Fortunately, the rainfall totals were less than the 8 to 10 inches forecast but the ground was already saturated. A report on MSNBC from Richmond the day the hurricane made landfall told of the ground water level at only 11 feet and some inches from the top of the ground. This can put old trees in peril, and what we can learn from this is that nature takes its course. A reporter took note that a flagpole was the only thing standing in an area of destruction. Well, a flagpole doesn't present as much surface area as a house to the wind, duh.
Is there such a thing as a hurricane-proof house? It doesn't have to be the brick house the third little pig built, but a house whose frame can sway a bit, and whose roof is secured to the frame (making it, for all intents, a single entity) could ride out a storm better than one without these features. Come to think of it, and I'm not an architect or engineer, these sound a bit like the earthquake-resistant houses. Another point I learned recently, was that the profile away from the wind is very important, which means the roof line on the side away from the wind. The person explaining this showed a pyramid as the ideal shelter from the wind. That complicates the design a bit, as we don't know which direction the wind is coming from. I hope that we will see more information in the future on hurricane-proof houses.
Of course, the caveat to a house that can stand the wind is not to expose it to a storm tide, or locate it in a flood plain. We need to consider new building regulations that will not expose the insurance companies to tremendous losses and our society from losing hundreds or more people in flooding conditions. This could mean the return of barrier islands to their original state, and beachfront homes prevented from being located on the beachfront.
I don't want to sound smug, but I kind of like living in New England, knowing we are not daily exposed to extreme weather conditions, but ever mindful of the threat, not only from severe storms, but from earthquakes! Yes, New England is in a fault line that hasn't seen much activity lately. A small 3 point earthquake a few years ago moved a house off its foundation in Southeastern Massachusetts, and the homeowner did have earthquake insurance! Most New Englanders don't.
So, that's it for Saturday, September 20. I'm Larry Lovering.
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I feel so bad for the area in Maryland, the Virginias and Ohio that got hit by the flooding rains during and after Isabel's passing. Is there anything we can learn from this? Fortunately, the rainfall totals were less than the 8 to 10 inches forecast but the ground was already saturated. A report on MSNBC from Richmond the day the hurricane made landfall told of the ground water level at only 11 feet and some inches from the top of the ground. This can put old trees in peril, and what we can learn from this is that nature takes its course. A reporter took note that a flagpole was the only thing standing in an area of destruction. Well, a flagpole doesn't present as much surface area as a house to the wind, duh.
Is there such a thing as a hurricane-proof house? It doesn't have to be the brick house the third little pig built, but a house whose frame can sway a bit, and whose roof is secured to the frame (making it, for all intents, a single entity) could ride out a storm better than one without these features. Come to think of it, and I'm not an architect or engineer, these sound a bit like the earthquake-resistant houses. Another point I learned recently, was that the profile away from the wind is very important, which means the roof line on the side away from the wind. The person explaining this showed a pyramid as the ideal shelter from the wind. That complicates the design a bit, as we don't know which direction the wind is coming from. I hope that we will see more information in the future on hurricane-proof houses.
Of course, the caveat to a house that can stand the wind is not to expose it to a storm tide, or locate it in a flood plain. We need to consider new building regulations that will not expose the insurance companies to tremendous losses and our society from losing hundreds or more people in flooding conditions. This could mean the return of barrier islands to their original state, and beachfront homes prevented from being located on the beachfront.
I don't want to sound smug, but I kind of like living in New England, knowing we are not daily exposed to extreme weather conditions, but ever mindful of the threat, not only from severe storms, but from earthquakes! Yes, New England is in a fault line that hasn't seen much activity lately. A small 3 point earthquake a few years ago moved a house off its foundation in Southeastern Massachusetts, and the homeowner did have earthquake insurance! Most New Englanders don't.
So, that's it for Saturday, September 20. I'm Larry Lovering.
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