I cannot comprehend why homes and other buildings constructed in tornado alley are built of match sticks that blow apart into a hundred thousand pieces when the first storm comes by. Its not like the people who live there don't know that they are living with tornadoes. Its not like they don't know that its only a matter of time until the wind comes and blows it away.
Several decades ago I read a study done by an engineering professor from the University of Iowa. They suggested some modest improvements to the structure of homes so that they would withstand the force of a tornado. He estimated that structural improvements would cost about 10% more. Engineering is not all that complicated. Its not like we don't have competent engineers who can design structures for EXPECTED winds. Its not like our ancestors haven't been building homes for a million years.
Last year in Alabama 250 people died and thousands more were injured when their crackerbox homes blew apart. One might expect that engineers, building standards committees, local building code officials, and government regulations would notice all the death and destruction. One might think that mindless liberals have a brain. Neither assumption would be true. In today's news we read of a man who's home blew away last year, so he built a new home just as fragile and flimsy as his previous home. It lasted 10 months. The new home was built just as poorly as his first home, and it blew apart just as easily. They are Designed To Fail. See other story.
It wouldn't take that much. Much of the damage is caused by lift, the rest is side pressure and damage from flying debris coming from your neighbor's house. The lift pressure and side pressure are not infinite. They are known and calculable. If you have 100 pounds of lift per square foot of house, build a house that weighs 200 pounds per square foot. Put a foot of concrete on your foot, for example. Put the concrete on the ground and tie your roof down with wood posts or steel straps. It isn't that hard. All it takes is half a brain and the decision to do it.
The 250 deaths last year, and those this week are the direct fault of home builders and code officials who sell crackerbox homes to unsuspecting buyers that don't know any better. They should be hanged for professional neglegence causing the death of 250 people. Most of the public wrongly believes that the homes they buy, the ones “built to code” are adequately designed for the area they are built. The fools who bought and live in the homes are at fault too, of course. Anyone living in a tornado area should demand that adequate structural strength is designed and constructed into the home. There is no excuse whatsoever for a fool to have his replacement home blown away 10 months later. That's just stupid. I'll bet he voted for Odumbo. That's just how stupid it is.
You can fix homes that blew away, but you can't fix STUPID!
The Lord wants people to suffer.
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ReplyDeleteResearch shows that Concrete homes stand up to storms.
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Bob, I Live in Mexico, and the houses today are mostly made of concrete. Perhaps brick walls, but beams and columns of reinforced concrete. I have commented the same thing, how stupid it is the richest nation in the world has houses that can't take normal weather issues.
ReplyDeleteRemember when NO got flooded? They will never rebuild that city completely.
A few years ago, a hurricane hit Cancun. They replaced glass; cleaned out the mud; put in new furniture, and were open for tourists in a few months. Concrete houses.
Houses taking thirty years to pay off in the States will be completely destroyed by a minor flood. Do you remember, Bob, when you had the photo of cops in Cedar Rapids, Iowa who were going to kill a man because he wanted to go to his flood damaged house to try to save it? I am told large areas of that town along the river will be bulldozed for park land. Houses destroyed completely.
Anonymous age 70
You are absolutely right, anonymous 5-27-12. In Seattle where I was born the whole low part of the city was filled and raised above high tied and flood zones. Much of New Orleans is below sea level. A few feet of FILL DIRT would have saved the city from Katrina. Once all the homes were destroyed, they could have put 12 feet of FILL DIRT before replacing homes. The Corps of Engineers dredges up hundreds of barge loads of FILL DIRT from the Mississippi which could easily be used to raise the level of New Orleans. Instead of raising the level of the city, they build on the same "below sea level" streets. How STUPID can people be. They are doomed. Stupid is its own reward.
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