Easy, he counted the rings. ;-)
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Roughly 70%.
Don't live there, don't build there. You're an idiot if you do.
You're welcome. One of the benefits of reading Popular Mechanics as a kid 50 years ago.
Easy.... Find a Mountain in the Rockies build a deep shaft........ Building in New Orleans disregards your own concerns. You can't account for all the possibilities of a Hurricane it's to independent and random, best you can do is work from historical data. By it's own design if a storm impacted the area, you would become an oasis, and if offering no assistance most likely you will simply be destroyed using most readily a flammable liquid.
I see you account for your own failure? And the house would need a secure means of transportation for escape if necessary. I'd say the best would be a hot air balloon..................
Since everybody for the most part overlooked the obvious........ I'd say it may stand, just nothing at home upstairs!
^^^^ I think you wrote it above! :-)
wind or sail boats would not work.
Yabbut ... a pyramid deflects wind like a wing, plus you can cover all avenues of approach from one location.
You're in S Louisiana, right? ... how'd you fare in the latest hurricane?
There's a big clue whenever you see news shots of the flooded city. What structures are still standing, almost completely untouched?
The big apartment buildings.
Just build multistory buildings, and put all essential building utilities on the second floor or higher. Let the bottom floor have only easily repaired interiors and utilities. Connect the second floors of the buildings using a system of walkways just like in Minneapolis.
You could even build the walkways open air, using the wrought iron balcony style popular for Mardi Gras in New Orleans. This would make the city a fun place to visit.
Essentially this is the "house on stilts" idea but on a big enough scale you could house a population of 500,000 in a densely populated area.
For car storage some buildings would use the lower 3 or 4 stories for car parks. Again, visit Minneapolis to see this sort of structure. You'd need fewer cars since this would be a densely populated area with lots of people able to walk to work.
This is the future.
Of course, this doesn't fit in with the real estate agent / developer scenaria where every American is isolated on his own lot with 2 acres of grass to mow every weekend. That's going to prove economically non-viable when fuel prices rise, anyway.
Max
This is already provided, Joe Taxpayer is footing the bill.
I don't know who Robin is let alone her/his butt.
If it's a him, I WILL let it alone....
I am in SW Louisiana and Katrina did not affect us at all. I am about 35 = miles, as the crow flies, from the Gulf coast and at a 26 ft elevation. = I live in a monolithic dome on the order of the site I posted and = hurricane winds on this dome would be like you blowing on your truck. I = may still loose windows and possibly one door but that can be addressed = also. My philosophy, as a results of living thru many hurricanes = including Audrey in '57 which came in right on top of us, is "You can't = stop the wind from blowing, but you can decide what gets broke!".
--=20 SwampBug
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wind or sail boats would not work.
Yabbut ... a pyramid deflects wind like a wing, plus you can cover all avenues of approach from one location.
You're in S Louisiana, right? ... how'd you fare in the latest = hurricane?
--=20
miles, as the crow flies, from the Gulf coast and at a 26 ft elevation. I live in a monolithic dome on the order of the site I posted and hurricane winds on this dome would be like you blowing on your truck. I may still loose windows and possibly one door but that can be addressed also. My philosophy, as a results of living thru many hurricanes including Audrey in '57 which came in right on top of us, is "You can't stop the wind from blowing, but you can decide what gets broke!".
Pine Island born , , ,
merci mon ami
--=20 SwampBug
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miles, as the crow flies, from the Gulf coast and at a 26 ft elevation. = I live in a monolithic dome on the order of the site I posted and = hurricane winds on this dome would be like you blowing on your truck. I may still loose windows and possibly one door but that can be addressed also. My philosophy, as a results of living thru many hurricanes including Audrey = in '57 which came in right on top of us, is "You can't stop the wind from blowing, but you can decide what gets broke!".
I'm sure there are.
Here's a turn-key design, courtesy of Uncle Sam:
More to the point, you wouldn't be able to break ground on the house's foundation without having to deal with it.
Lee
I usually hang up after 3-4 rings.
Normal houses should be able to survive a direct hit Cat 2 hurricane (correct me if I am wrong). A direct hit from anything above that will cause damage however strong you build it. Once there is damage and the rainwater/floofwater gets in the inside contents that can absorb water are toast. And the stronger and heavier your building the more damage there will be to your house and to your neighbor's as the parts tear off in the high wind or flood surge. You also don't want to build a house so heavy that it looks like a prison and cost more than one. You'll never pass the guidelines for neighbourhood architectural conformity anyway.
So we can presume that your house will look be built like one of those antebellum houses that makes New Orleans so charming. It should also be a two storey house so that you will have a place of refuge in case of flooding
If I were to rebuild what I will do is to design a house that will have a concrete structural frame that will stand intact in a Cat 5 storm. Presumably the main panels and outlets for utility llines, water pipes and other services will be attached to or be protected by this concrete frame. This is so that while the service runs to the rest of the house can be destroyed one can easily re-establish new connections to the main panels and outlets.
Everything else of regular construction can tbe damaged, be blown or washed away but the frame stands. That way I can easily tear down the roof and walls and quickly rebuild without having to bulldoze the whole structure or having to resubmit the building approvals.
A refinement to this house design will be to make the first floor level a sacrificial part that a storm surge can wash away without bringing the second floor with it, or damaging the structure of the house. I saw some TV shots of a breachfront house in the Carolinas that survived such a surge. That left the house looking like it was built on stilits. The second floor was damaged and not worth salvaging. But had someone taken refuge there (none) that person would have survived. A conventionally build house would have been totalled and killed everyone within it.
One can understand the desire to stay in and sit out the storm, mainly to prevent looting, and perhaps to fix fixable damage on the fly before it becomes a big one. The chances of a direct hurricane hit are small enough for most homeowners to take this risk. The chances of a direct hit is nonetheless there and it will seem very stupid by then to risk life and limb for a house.
Therefore the problem should be recast as how can one stay for a less threatening storm and yet survive the perfect storm?
The answer will be a storm-proof safe room built on top of this concrete structure. It will probably be the size of a large bathroom and made of steel or concrete for protection against flying debris or tree falls. It should be capable of being buttoned down and float upright like a boat should it be dislodged. At that level of storm intensity there is no longer any consideration of living in it to guard your property. All you want is to survive the perfect storm and get the hell out, a stay of less than 48 hours.
And big office buildings.
And big hospitals.
And big hotels.
And big police stations are also all standing.
1970s style megastructures. Yeehah!But really, your idea of putting essential building utilities on the above the water line in floods is one I had before (re: thread titled "why don't they" on alt.architecture.
I suggested it for certain buildings that are of importance during catastrophes - hospitals in particular. They are often full of people who are in various states of disability who would have difficulty evacuating or may not survive evacuation. Furthermore, hospitals should be up and running during natural disasters and other catastrophes in order to be used by those suffering injury during the natural disaster.
In retrospect, it would be a good idea, though not as crucial, for fire stations and police stations to have the same hurricane resistance and auxiliary power systems as the hospitals. That way first responders can better do their jobs.
But doing it for every apartment building? Very excessive. Unless the people who choose to live in apartment buildings want it and the people leasing apartments can sell it.
I shudder to think of the poor old woman stuck on the 17th floor, surrounded by gangs of roaming youths who are ready to break in at any moment.
This is what happens when you ignore peoples' desires for open space and the privacy of private homes and cram them into giant megastructures where the identity of their home is reduced to a mere number on a door.
Just go over to Yahoo and do a search for "Housing Projects, Chicago" - you'll see what I mean.
Car storage?
People use their cars.
And Katrina showed us just how vital cars are to the evacuation of cities. Simply put, if you were in New Orleans and could get a car out, you were MUCH better off than you would have been if you were one of the thousands who didn't have a car or a spot in someone else's car.
Access to transportation was really the issue in New Orleans; not directly socio-economics or race. The rich new urbanist yuppie lawyer who refused to drive on principal was stuck in New Orleans. (He was interviewed on NPR) The cabbie who recently arrived from Pakistan and works 18 hours a day 6 days a week so his family can live at the poverty level could use his cab to get out of the city. (I saw him driving down the road in Houston right after I heard the first guy's interview on the radio).
No it's not.
Bullshit. And I know what you're saying is bullshit because if you visit France, or Spain, or Germany, you'll see people living in private suburban houses and driving cars to and from work. Meanwhile they snicker when America goes into crisis over $3 a gallon prices at the pump, because that's what they've been paying all along. In fact, many Europeans pay significantly more than that for gas, and it hasn't dampened their desire for comfortable, private, individual houses.
Their entire nation of Holland is like the city of New Orleans - below sea level and prone to very nasty storms and floods. It's also a nation with all of the high fuel prices and gas taxes as the rest of Europe. But the Dutch haven't abandoned private houses and cars - they've adapted them.
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