Hurricane-proof House

[Edwin Pawlowski]

In certain flood prone areas it is already requird by code. Has been for a number of years in some places. It is js ut common sense if you are prone to flooding either on the coast or the banks of a river. Houses in Florida and the New Jersey shore have been rasied on pilings for the same reason.

Every building? Yes, but for many it makes a lot of sense. In some areas there are even basement apartments that are about six feet below grade. Makes for some interesting things in the bathtub when plumbing problems happen.

Las Vegas is using elevated walkways to avoid traffic. It can easily be used in other areas too. Well, maybe not always easily, but it is not a bad idea.

Maybe. In New York it is common to leave a car parked or "stored" for weeks at a time. Parking, storeage, just variations on termonology.

[W Canaday]

IIRC, carbon dating isn't useful for such a short time span. Most likely it was dated by its location in a snowbank or some similar natural / quantifiable phenomenon.

How the the reporter know this? Easy. It's what his editor told him to say.

[Michael Daly]

Composting toilet. Pricier, but works just fine. Put one on the second floor to avoid the flood.

Mike

[Michael Daly]

Local Hell's Angel hangout was raided - the cops used a backhoe to open the door. The HA rebuilt with a concrete wall in front to the door so they couldn't use a backhoe again.

Mike

[EagleMtn]

I dobt that a concrete wall will stop a backhoe.

[Michael Daly]

It isn't that they aren't there - they do exist in certain crevices in rock faces and survive in tiny microclimates. Since they aren't too mobile, your dead seal on a beach can last a long time.

Mike

[W Canaday]

Additionally, some means of steerage / propulsion when floating. Fish traps while afloat. Ability to remain floating and maintain steerageway while covered with humans clinging to the outside. Possibly embed rebar handles for same to hold onto in the roof.

Carry enough food to serve as an ark for those on the outside for a week with a one-way door to ration it out.

The idea is to keep the owner relatively safe while keeping in mind that if it breaks free of its pilings, it will likely be the largest thing afloat for miles.

Jes' my 'first approximation' thoughts on the matter. High winds argue for a rounded shape. High waters argue for flotability. Loss of external services argues for self-containment following the incident. Inability to predict the actual threat argues against anchoring it permenently. Any storm large enough to dislodge it argues for secondary use as a life boat. Personal security argues for waterproof and force (crowbar) resistant shutters under manual control.

I would also argue for stocking a Bible and becoming thoroughly familiar with it beforehand because there are some things that simply can't be engineered against. Ever. Like the earthquake the day of the storm that wedges the pilings too tight for the structure to float free and the 80 foot tsunami that renders the shutters useless. Or the aftermath of the storm when you realize that you are bobbing in a two inch thick layer of kerosene ... and surrounded by flames.

Having a house that is ONLY hurricane proof ONLY works if the disaster that strikes looks a lot like a hurricane. Not much use against falling Stealth bombers or bulldozers under a court order. Or pestilence. Or food shortages.

[Morris Dovey]

| Carry enough food to serve as an ark for those on the outside for a | week with a one-way door to ration it out.

If it's to be an ark, then stretch that week to forty days (to allow FEMA adequate time for response). Add a helipad for Coast Guard evacuation of the hangers-on.

Caution: Federal law prohibits direct discharge of raw sewage into coastal waters. Your ark may require sanitation systems of heroic proportion.

-- Morris Dovey

[Notan]

Constant, evenly dispersed pressure.

Not.

Notan

[Edwin Pawlowski]

How long will it take a backhoe to get through it?

Relative to what? There are many mechanical or structurally made 10 x or more heavier than even a big backhoe.

[Notan]

My point is, it's not the material that's used, it's how the structure is designed.

Notan

[Adam Weiss]

Cameras, man, cameras.

Cops, whether local guys on the beat, DEA agents, Secret Service, swat teams, or anything, don't fear guns. They make sure they're always more heavily armed than and outnumber the people they've been told to take out.

And they don't worry too much about heavily fortified buildings. As your post states, if they find a door or wall that their battering rams can't take down, they'll use a backhoe; if that doesn't work, a bulldozer.

What law enforcement fears; what can really put a stop to what they're doing, is cameras. A single video of a cop doing something that doesn't look right, sent to the media, will be more damaging to a cop than a million guns, and a bigger impedement to their goals than a house built like Fort Knox.

I saw video today of a scuffle between cops and evacuees. One of the cops completely ignored his cohorts efforts to get a handle on the situation, and instead approached the camera-man - yelling "TURN OFF THE CAMERA! TURN OFF THE CAMERA NOW!"

[Adam Weiss]

I like the way you think.

Put a composting toilet on the second floor.

And add a rooftop vegetable garden.

And a cistern to catch rain water.

Life could be sustained indefinitely.

Would one of those transparent plastic tent/ water purifiers that they say to use if you're adrift at sea work on nasty flood waters? Or is it just for getting the salt out of sea water? Anyoone know?

[Adam Weiss]

I'd warn against shooting a cop surrounded by other cops (with guns) in the face.

I'd say the camera guy should have kept rolling, braced himself, and seen if he could get the coming assault by an officer caught on film.

Easy.

He had something to fear.

Remember Rodney King? It wasn't a gun that brought the LAPD to its knees. It was a camera. Cameras are better than any other thing at capturing the truth. And when the truth is leaked about police activity, it's often rough for the cops involved.

Witness Amadou Diallo.

41 shots.

[Notan]

If I'm not mistaken, my post was in response to Edwin's post.

I must've missed the point at which you started speaking for him.

Notan

[ameijers]

(snip)

Some of us a little isolation. Not all of us can stand to live in a beehive, or care to live in densely populated areas. Not slamming people that like that lifestyle, but the times I've had to live in structures like that (ie, college dorms, big-city apartment blocks), I found it highly irritating. I don't wanna hear when the neighbors flush, fight, or f**k, and I don't wanna irritate the neighbors when I turn up the TV loud. I also like sitting quietly on the back porch at dawn, trying to be still enough that the birds will come to the feeder while I am on 'their' side of the glass. Can't do that in a high-rise, or even in most condos. Suburbia has its downsides of course- mowing/raking/snow shoveling being 3 of them. If I didn't have to worry about resale, I'd live in a shack on the edge of the woods. But you have to be well off to live like Thoreau these days.

aem sends...

[Notan]

As I've said before, I can respect the fact that you're opinionated, and stand firmly for the things you think are important.

But, you have this attitude, where anyone that disagrees with you is unitelligent, uneducated, and . You like to portray yourself as holier-than-everyone-else. You have *the* answer, while no one else comes close.

Maybe you've always been this way, but it's only lately that I've begun to see you as nothing more than a non-religious bible thumper.

While I'm sure that you couldn't care less about my opinions (or anyone else's, for that matter), you *don't* have all the answers.

There's lots of stuff you're missing. I'm hoping you'll catch up.

Notan

[Notan]

Spell-checker turned back on... That was "unintelligent."

Notan

[Notan]

No, spell-checker.

And, that's exactly what I'm talking about... You always *think* you know better.

I *misspelled* a word, which a spell-checker would have caught.

A *grammar checker* (By the way, you should've used your *spell checker* on that one! ) would have told me if my sentence was grammatically incorrect.

Notan

[Adam Weiss]

Why not? A composting toilet works like a compost pile. Basically it turns waste into nutrient-rich topsoil.

The topsoil is then used to help grow the plants in the vegetable garden.

If you're looking to build a house that can not only withstand a hurricane but can also allow you to live relatively comfortably while the power and water is still out, this sort of adaptive reuse of human waste makes alot of sense.