Page 13 - Green Builder's Resilient Housing Design Guide 2019

THE (BUILDING)

We know how and where

SCIENCE OF buildings fail in hurricanes.

Now it’s time to prepare

for the worst.

BY MATT POWER, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

FTER HURRICANE KATRINA IN 2005,
I visited New Orleans several times to explore
and write about what survived—and what
didn’t. I also visited the site of the La Plata, Md.,
F4 tornado back in 2002, and wrote about what
happened there—whole houses swept off their
A foundations, exploding roofs, chimney failures.
Back then, those seemed like freak storms. Now, they feel like
early warnings of what was to come.
We have entered a new age of weather extremes, at least part of it human induced. That’s
simply a scientific fact. This year’s double whammy of Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane
Irma was supercharged by higher-than-normal ocean temperatures. And those temperatures
continue to rise each year. Given this situation, how are our Southern friends and families
to cope? Will South Florida, Houston, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and other points south
simply become unlivable?
Let’s hope not. But we need to take the threat seriously. Builders now have the knowledge
AND the products to design and build more-resilient housing. Also, new coastal building
codes have proven remarkably effective. After Hurricane Charley, FEMA found that not
one home built to the 2001 Florida Building Code failed structurally.
FEMA also has done some first-rate research over the past decade. They have published
several post-mortem reports on the aftermath of major hurricanes. Sifting through them,
it becomes apparent that many aspects of modern homes and multi-family units could
be further amended and fortified at a reasonable cost, particularly in the new construc-
tion phase.
A key takeaway is that both materials and process matter. If buildings are designed and
assembled with extreme weather vulnerabilities in mind, they inevitably perform better
READINESS the post-mortem reports from FEMA: Many of the worst failures could have been prevented
when the crisis strikes.
For builders, architects and building designers, there’s actually some good news buried in

simply by strictly adhering to the building code.
They identified numerous “weak points” in the building process that were severely dam-
aged by Charley. I would concur, based on personal observation of dozens of ruined homes.
To keep this simple and digestible, I’ve pulled out nine of the most problematic building sci-
ence flaws and offered solutions.

Resilient Housing Design Guide GREEN BUILDER MEDIA 13