With all of the hurricanes that have come roaring through the southeast I was wondering if anyone on here has been damaged? I certainly hope not. Has anyone had their to-do list altered as a result?
I have had repairing some of the teak on my sister's sailboat put on my list. It looks pretty straight forward, the biggest obstacle will be the distance from the work (she is in Jacksonville, I am in West Virginia). My dad was down there this past weekend and was supposed to get some very detailed measurements, tracings, drawing, pictures, etc, but he and my mother got chased out by Jeanne before he could, (go figger).
I live in Polk County. Intersection of three of four storms.
What a mess. This last one was the worse. At least it was in our area. My next door neighbor has power but I do not. I am sending this by the grace of a long extension cord. At least it keeps the freezer and refridgerator cold. No power for hot water and cooking.
Trees took my back fence out but the house and shop are secrue. I did have flooding in the shop. As the water receeded the shop drained. I have everything in pads or rollers so little damage.
I was laid off back in June and the last two months have made it hard to find work in my field. But that has it up side. I am at home to take care of the mess. I was expecting the layoff so we were prepared. The downside. I have been taking care of the mess for 7 weeks and no time for woodworking. I was going to replace the kitchen cabinets during the layoff.
I'm in Ormond Beach, so we've gotten the better part of three of the storms, too. We've fared okay. With Charley I had three tree canopies from a neighbor's trees on my roof. Scored a new chain saw for that and got it cleared off in a couple of days. Had a driveway-to-driveway wall of brush over six feet high. Power was out 65 hours.
Frances produced 24 trash bags of small debris and about two or three cubic yards of larger debris but no damage. Power was out 49 hours.
The area was so cleaned out by those two that we have virtually nothing to do after Jeanne. Still the power was out for 36 hours this time.
In my particular location the peak winds seemed about the same in all three. I think the eye of Charley came over us, but it was fairly disorganized by the time it got here. It also went through quickly. I don't think we had strong winds for more than six or seven hours.
Frances in particularly, but Jeanne, too, just blew and blew and blew. I've never been in a storm that kept the winds up so long. In the case of Frances, it was because it moved so slowly. In the case of Jeanne it was because it came through (we were on the north side of it) and then somewhere between Orlando and Tampa apparently started a sweep to the north, sort of pivoting around equidistantly from us. Consequently you could say we got it coming and going.
All's well now, though. But I've had about enough for this year.
My family's thoughts and prayers are with you. We lost our *home* (man, those four little letters carry one hell of a connotation when it's gone!), and most of the "stuff" in it, in Allison in 01, so I can appreciate somewhat how you feel. Things will never be the same, but in many way's they're better, and the big thing was that no one in our family was hurt.
My hat's off to you for your attitude ... hang in there. Its a tough thing to deal with, but with family pulling together, the sun will still be shining on the other side.
Yeah, I lost my boat (which I had just purchased 3 weeks before) when it broke from the marina dock on the Allegheny River and ended up 80 miles (and 4 locks & dams) down the Ohio due to the floods from Ivan. Also got to rip out the basement gameroom carpet (due to flooding) and will be deciding how to replace it. All in all, though I got off VERY light compared to lots of folks around here who lost their homes and businesses to the floods.
----------------- I'm glad to read in the posts received so far that none here were injured. But I cannot help but wonder why Americans who face the extremes of climatic maelstroms don't simply adjust to suit.
Every year we see pictures of wrecked timber frame houses and scattered trailer parks, so why have them? America is well capable of superb design and it's a mystery to me why you rebuild again and again what has already been wrecked.
A dome shape must surely provide more protection even if you insist on making it out of wood.
The building codes in FL have been tightened considerably, but this has been a rather modern change. There are (or were) lots of stick framed houses in the area that were built before the code updates that came after Andrew. =========================================================================== Chris
Good Evening to all, I live in Pensacola, Fl., where Ivan came thru, there is a stucco dome house on the Pensacola Beach, built to Hurricane code since Opal and Erin came thru here 8 or 9 years ago, the owner and news reporters stayed in during the Storm, not much damage to the house, but everyone who stayed said they'd never do it again.
Now if this doesn't count as bizarre I don't know what does. We have been getting rain from the remnants of Jeanne, and a few hours after I posted this question, my niece came up from the basement and announced that we had a swimming pool down there. Sure enough I went down and 3/4 of the basement had a few inches of water in it. The weird thing was there was a hissing/bubbling noise all around me. I checked for a leaking main, but it was pretty apparent that the water had welled up from the sump. I can only guess that the noise was either water flowing along the outside of the foundation, or it was air and/or water being pushed through normal settlement cracks in the foundation. I could also hear the sump making that classic stalled electric motor hum, so I quickly opened up the well and pulled the sump out. What I found was a load of construction debris (the house is only a year old this month) jamming the impellers. I cleared that mess and quickly got it back in the well and got it pumping. A friend, my daughter, and my father in law all helped with the clean up. Fortunately I have two wet vacs and they did a good job of cleaning up. I'm just glad that I had decided to take this week off from work so I was here to handle it.
There are plenty of old houses here that are very close to the current code, you just have to know what to look for. The CBS house with a poured tie beam and straps over the trusses is not that new. Shutters used to be more common than they are today. Lots of people actually removed the shutters because they looked "dated" My house was built in 1963 and about the only thing I would expect to lose is the covering on my roof and that would be an eye wall hit.
I think most of the structures built to recent standards did pretty well. seems the UK did not fare that well in the recent flooding incident. I was there about 15 years ago when they have gale force winds that not only felled thousands of trees but even blew brick walls over .
Seems it is difficult to imagine many structures standing up to 120 MPH winds ....
Watching on TV my hearts goes out to those in Florida I wish I was able to help....mjh
Here in Englewood on the west coast of Florida, we have been more than lucky... times 4. Charley passed just to the south of us. Frances to the north as did Jeanne and Ivan. Nothing more to our place than a few small branches and a ton of pine needles. In helping the Red Cross in Punta Gorda I saw the devastation those poor souls went through, but my heart is made heaviest by the plight of the many migrant workers in the Arcadia area that are unlikely to receive the same level of assistance that so many others have. It is paradoxical that times like these bring out both the best and worst of humanity... Many shoulder to shoulder working many hours to assist those in need. And unfortunately the others, ripping people off with generators at three times the going rate, stealing anything they can or selling stuff provided by FEMA or the Red Cross for free. I read of one household that wound up getting his entire roof tarped due to a 4X4 size hole, causing many small leaks from the fasteners and FEMA footing the bill which would have covered the cost of a complete re-roofing (and the insurance people only want to cover the cost of fixing the original hole!). Some people need to be dragged out and shot! Tom Maker of Fine Sawdust and Thin Shavings
Flooding is getting to be a real problem here. It seems to be a combination of bad planning (building on flood plains) and more extreme weather. It seems this is likely to continue to get worse and is making many homes uninsurable which will then make them uninhabitable. Floods that may have been expected every 40 years or so now come along every other year or two. So we will have to adapt. (too late for those living in the flood plains, they will have to push for compensation from the fools who permitted the buildings)
------------- That may have been the infamous hurricane of 1987. Wasn't expected and caused considerable damage. And it barely rated as a category 1.
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rarely get such winds but most structures survive, with some damage perhaps. Trees don't seem to be able to withstand it though and they get blown down all too easy.
-------------- That's true with conventionlal design, but if such winds were to become a regular occurance we would have to adapt and design something that would survive. Which is my point. Parts of the US are prone to hurricanes and tornadoes but every year the pattern is the same. It must be possible to built a practically priced structure that offers less resistance to the wind and still functions well as a home.
It is reasonable to assume that weather patterns are in general are changing and become more severe more often. That is certainly the case here. Our winters are now mild and very very wet. Our summers seem to last about 3 days (but then I suppose the Romans could have said that). If the gulf stream stops we'll all freeze just like the Canadians or Scandinavians and we are not geared up for it. We will all have to adapt to the weather.
> We rarely get such winds but most structures survive, with some damage
From what I hear hurricane intensity levels are cyclical, and from predictions the worst is not even over for this season. We hear long ago how much more intense winters and summers were here in the US and in the UK . I was a kid in the UK during the winter of 1947 when there were 30 foot drifts up in Derbyshire where whole passenger trains were buried. I was also around when Linton and Lindmouth were flooded and that was about 40 or so years ago in a similar location it seems . As far as that is concerned perhaps the problem is not man made but purely geographical.
As I mentioned most modern building standards In Florida result in structures which will withstand hurricane force winds . Building structures which will withstand tornadic winds which are far more severe seems unlikely unless they are below ground level....mjh
I really do not understand that statement. If you want to build your house on a floodplain and some government flunky doesn't say "you are not allowed to do that" then the government should become responsible for your stupidity (or your desire to live in a floodplain)? On the one hand, I do not think it is the Government's business to tell me whether or not I can build my house on the floodplain, but on the other, if I do it should be my problem. It would be nice for them to let me know that it is a floodplain though. I MIGHT even be willing to accept some reasonable building code stipulations such as flow-through designs for the first floor, etc. But "permitting" me to use my own land to build my own home......
-------------- It's easy to understand once you realise that our approach is the exact opposite of what you propose. Over here you build nothing without planning permission. Nothing. So the local authority responsible for handing out planning permission is also responsible for ensuring that your proposed property is not on a toxic waste dump, swamp, grumbling volcano, sink hole, flood plain etc.
---------------- Realistically though most of us buy existing or new development homes. So it is a role of government to protect potential buyers from charlaten developers that would build on cheap dodgy land that is a risk to life, limb and wealth. If you build here without permission the local authority will knock it down. Even with permission if you build it a couple feet away from where it should be built they'll knock it down.
------------- There simply isn't the space to humour the pioneering spirit that you espouse.
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