Riding in a Hurricane

[streido]

Good to hear. Looks bad on the news today from this side of the pond.

[axy]

A year or two ago we had a lively discussion here about USA and hurricanes. I asked a question about that, because such strong winds are very common where I live and usually nothing happens or at least not much, except a tree or two plucked from its roots and some objects that are not tied down get blown away. We have houses with strong solid foundations, anti-earthquake bricks all over and solid brick or cement-block walls. For me it is very strange to see on TV and movies that many houses are made of cardboard-like material, plaster panels or simple wooden panels that float all over the place. I was told that the quality of the houses depends on the money invested, of course, but such weak-structured houses would not be allowed to be built here at all. It is quite difficult and long process to get a building permit here.

This would be a typical solid brick-baked clay roof tile small Croatian family house:



Winds of 120 km/h are quite common here. Just a few miles from where I am now on one of the bridges they registered in 1996. 212 km/h while the highest wind speed was on one of the highways along the cost, 308 km/h. This is not, of course, normal, and from time to time it can happen that a truck that does not respect traffic ban for trucks gets flipped over, but it is pretty much normal business around here. I usually ride a bike through what would be called a tropical storm, or probably low scale hurricane.

Anyway I see now that this fact was recognized inside online community.

[streido]

I wondered about the houses too Axy 

Every time a tornado rips thro some small town it looks like armagedon and everythings blown away? I always wondered why they used wood panels and not bricks and mortar? Surely it would make more sense than having wooden homes, or am i missing something?

[Vivo]

Glad to hear you're ok fsh...


If you live in an area frequented by typhoons and storms, you will tend to prepare in every way.  Our country is visited by 25 storms/typhoons a year, from June till November or December. I have a two storey concrete house with 8 inch thick walls. Our furniture is all hardwood or steel with removable foam cushions... We have life vests in the closet.. other homes have rubber boats in the yard in cases of floods... The city has river water monitoring systems that send out siren signals when water level rises... Our country has a Disaster Management system to address these because aside from typhoons, we have earthquakes and lots of volcanoes to deal with.  Maybe in the U.S., people feel that since these disasters rarely visit them, they need not invest in super strong houses. In fairness, Americans are more prepared for snow or winter. If I happen to live in the U.S., I might find it very difficult to adjust... like plowing the snow, driving on ice, wearing heavy clothes, eating preserved food, etc.

The northern tip of the Philippines is the Batanes island where most of the typhoons pass. The houses there are super strong stone houses and not even Sandy can destroy.....

[08087]

Construction methods vary from state to state in the US, in NJ where we do not get hurricane force winds as a regular event we use stick like methods, it is quick, inexpensive and allows for easy fixes for what we normally encounter. I can't comment on tornado areas but I do know that a brick home taking a direct hit would also come down, this is not the 3 little pigs were talking about.

In Florida where they have hurricans as regular events they use cement or brick almost exclusivly and hurricane proff windows/doors etc have been manditory since the id 90's if you don't have them you need shutters that meet certain codes.

I just learned my summer home took a direct hit from this storm and maybe a complete loss, I won't know for sure until the police allow people back into the area, but for now it's not looking too good. I do have flood ins which is up to date so as long as the company doesn't go bankrupt I'll be OK anf getting a check to make repairs or replacement. I'll pass on info as it comes into me from neighborrs, as I won't be down there until sunday.

[streido]

So you dont have national guidelines then for minimum construction methods? Its all state by state? I know for sure many of the "flimsier" homes would not meet UK standards and would not be allowed to be built, and we dont have many tornados here, just wind and rain and snow. If built well a brick home should stand up to a tornado easily, the roof may go if its not secure enough yes but the walls etc ought to stay up.

Why rebuild every year in a tornado zone in the 1st place? If it were me i would not live in the place that every year gets hit, like tornado alley. If it comes down then move, dont rebuild, imo.

[axy]

Stone houses were made here too... Very similar, these are probably 200+ years old, on islands. In fact, I lived for the first 28 years of my life in a big 3-floor stone house rennovated just after WW II. The house was built just prior to WW I and it is in the very center of the city. You can see it in the depth of this picture on the right, yellow one.



The only big difference is that I realize people in Asia like roofs to be made of those leafy-stringy veggie stuff, while we have always used roof tiles made of baked clay, even centuries ago.

[axy]

So you dont have national guidelines then for minimum construction methods?

Over here we have extremely strict laws and it has been like that pretty much at least for the past 60 or so years.

Houses can be built using bricks/mortar/anti-earthquake bricks, traditional wood (but these are wood-log houses with solid foundations, not cardboard or wooden board houses, almost impossible to tear apart) that is rarely used in mountainous areas, stone houses (also traditional, not used) and houses made of prefabricated elements that are again quite similar to brick+mortar combination it is just that specialized glue is used and they dry quickly.

The paperwork to build a house is huge and bureaucratic procedure is crazy. You need architectural design, static design, anti-earthquake design etc. Only then you can get a permit. It can take 2-3 years to get all the papers after you buy land (a lot of other things to take care too, you cannot build unless you have direct access by road at least 5 m wide, or you have to build it first and then build the house, there has to be separate access for fire and emergency services etc.).

I would not say the laws are far off the laws in UK in that regard. Houses are relatively similar too, even though we do not have that many semidetached houses and we tend to build horizontally until 120-130 m2 is filled, and then move to second floor while in UK there are many homes with a room or two on the ground floor, then a room or two on the 2nd, then a room on 3rd.

[streido]

Yeah most of our laws were updated prob in the 60's-70's-80's to mainly make the houses safer and more efficent. A lot of the laws deal with Health & Safety, fire retardation and fire safety and general building regs, recently its been enviromental changes to make them better insulated and use less power. You cannot build or re-build anything here without having it regularly inspected during the build, and that is after having the design and blueprints passed by the local councils Building Control officer. If it doesnt meet the standards it wont be built or if you go ahead anyway then it will be torn down.

[axy]

Yeah most of our laws were updated prob in the 60's-70's-80's to mainly make the houses safer and more efficent. A lot of the laws deal with Health & Safety, fire retardation and fire safety and general building regs, recently its been enviromental changes to make them better insulated and use less power. You cannot build or re-build anything here without having it regularly inspected during the build, and that is after having the design and blueprints passed by the local councils Building Control officer. If it doesnt meet the standards it wont be built or if you go ahead anyway then it will be torn down.

Ditto. Whole nine yards. Insulation, inspection during building, tearing down in case that something was not built correctly or without license... Also, if YOU tear it down, it is much cheaper than if the state inspectorate organizes demolition and waste disposal. Almost like sort of a double-punishment. 

[08087]

A year or two ago we had a lively discussion here about USA and hurricanes. I asked a question about that, because such strong winds are very common where I live and usually nothing happens or at least not much, except a tree or two plucked from its roots and some objects that are not tied down get blown away. We have houses with strong solid foundations, anti-earthquake bricks all over and solid brick or cement-block walls. For me it is very strange to see on TV and movies that many houses are made of cardboard-like material, plaster panels or simple wooden panels that float all over the place. I was told that the quality of the houses depends on the money invested, of course, but such weak-structured houses would not be allowed to be built here at all. It is quite difficult and long process to get a building permit here.

This would be a typical solid brick-baked clay roof tile small Croatian family house:



Winds of 120 km/h are quite common here. Just a few miles from where I am now on one of the bridges they registered in 1996. 212 km/h while the highest wind speed was on one of the highways along the cost, 308 km/h. This is not, of course, normal, and from time to time it can happen that a truck that does not respect traffic ban for trucks gets flipped over, but it is pretty much normal business around here. I usually ride a bike through what would be called a tropical storm, or probably low scale hurricane.

Anyway I see now that this fact was recognized inside online community.

While you make apoint on the winds you miss the point that hurricanes are far from just wind, along the east coast of the US you also get what is refered to as storm surge, and extreamly high tides, couple that with a full moon that was in effect at the time it only get compounded when you have winds around 80 MPH coming from the north east. The tide comes in and the wind does not allow it to retreat as it normaly would, then 12 hrs later the tides comes in again then of course you have the storm sugre which was about 10-12' in some areas and you have what they call the perfect storm.

Ijust got word my boat which was on dry dock in my yard sitting some 11' above sea level was toosed around my yard and is now perched on top of one of my fences. So the water had to come up 11'  just to reach the bottom of the boat, another 16" to float the boat and then enough in addition to that to have it blow across a yard, the fence is 4' high so that means the boat had to be another 2' higher at the point when the water finaly let out. So we are talking about at least 14' of water all across the east coast coupled with winds of 80 MPH. I have no doubt that a brick or cement house would have faired better then a wood structure, and from what I've been tols thus far my house is still standing just fine, the water damage is what now will be the question and problem.

[axy]

While you make apoint on the winds you miss the point that hurricanes are far from just wind, along the east coast of the US you also get what is refered to as storm surge, and extreamly high tides, couple that with a full moon that was in effect at the time it only get compounded when you have winds around 80 MPH coming from the north east. The tide comes in and the wind does not allow it to retreat as it normaly would, then 12 hrs later the tides comes in again then of course you have the storm sugre which was about 10-12' in some areas and you have what they call the perfect storm.

Ijust got word my boat which was on dry dock in my yard sitting some 11' above sea level was toosed around my yard and is now perched on top of one of my fences. So the water had to come up 11'  just to reach the bottom of the boat, another 16" to float the boat and then enough in addition to that to have it blow across a yard, the fence is 4' high so that means the boat had to be another 2' higher at the point when the water finaly let out. So we are talking about at least 14' of water all across the east coast coupled with winds of 80 MPH. I have no doubt that a brick or cement house would have faired better then a wood structure, and from what I've been tols thus far my house is still standing just fine, the water damage is what now will be the question and problem.

Take a look at these:









We have all of that around here, at least every two months.  
For some reason it is called "rain" and "wind" here, and really there is no big deal... in a few hours like nothing happened.
But I do have full insurance for my appartments AND a car. 

One would think that I live in monsoon tropical belt...

[ts1]

It wasn't the 12 bft wind, but the cold (winter!) salt water flooding (up to) 6.45m above sea level, which killed the people in NW Germany even many kilometres behind the (previous) coast.
Millions of people where caught by multiple dam failures in the night. And then the ocean comes very rapidly. No light, no vehicle (already swept away): run/swim for your life!

Similar the christmas tsunami disaster.
Fortunately my Indian relatives are 15km away from the coast on a hill. But we saw the disaster later, complete trains were swept away even miles behind the coast.

Croatia is mountainous. Walk 100 steps and be safe even during a Tsunami.
You can't compare a rising ocean in low lands with "rain". Even a monsun rain will outperform your mediterranean rain by 10x.

[axy]

Croatia is mountainous. Walk 100 steps and be safe even during a Tsunami.
You can't compare a rising ocean in low lands with "rain". Even a monsun rain will outperform your mediterranean rain by 10x.

Not even trying to. However, rain can be surprising...

Anyway, my city has more rainy days during the year and more total rain than world-famous benchmark - London.
We enjoy around 1500 l/m2/year, however, sometimes it can fall 150-250 l/m2 in a FEW HOURS. This means two months of rain in a matter of few hours.
That's when pictures like above can be taken.

I am just now looking at the climate of India, and I see that the average is 750-1500 l/m2/year with extremes being eastern delta of Ganges (1500-2000) and western part (2000-3000).
2000 is the rainiest part of Croatia.

So, total shows that my city is close to highest Indian average, meaning that old Europe has a few tricks up its sleeve.

You are right, coastal part of the country has a lot of mountains, for example I work in the city center a hundred meters from the shore, my home is 12 kms away at an altitude of 400 m.
Just a few kms more than that and you are at 800 m altitude.

p.s. Dhaka, Bangladesh, up to 5000 l/m2/year. INSANE!

Did I forget to mention that I hate rain?

[streido]

The death toll is actually a lot higher so far in the Caribbean islands but they dont matter so the news didnt show much on that 

We had one day of short reports covering the Caribbean buried in the middle of the news, and so far we have had 3-4 days here showing the USA, even been the top story on some channels here?