CNN reporting on a concrete house that survived Katrina's storm surge.

[CottonBear]

The owner is a structural engineer. Scott Sundberg designed the home for a Camille storm surge but the Katrina storm surge was 6' higher. The bottom floor flooded but the structure is still there! It is all concrete and is on piers. They lost their cars (parked under the house) and the belongings on the first floor were flooded but they still have the house! It looks like they lost windows on the first floor.

Sundberg says Gulf Coast homes need to be built higher and stronger. He said a concrete home only costs 10% more than normal wood frame construction. The Portland Concrete Association has information on construction. The owner said the home is termite proof as well!

This may be the way to rebuild on the coast. This was the ONLY house left standing in its neighborhood in Pass Christian, MS. Amazing!

CNN might rerun this segment. It's a really cool house.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

1. Big poles as piers work well, too

You see them on houses at the coast.

And I think a blow up raft and axe in the attic wouldn't be a bad idea, either.

[ret5hd]

2. We visited Belize last year...

(i'm sure the surrounding countries had very similar structures)

very many of the houses were constructed like this...rich (well, maybe not the "rich", but the few "middle class") and poor alike. about 8 feet up on concrete piers, concrete walls, concrete floor. cars, bicycles, etc, parked under the house. the more modest homes had open windows with storm shutters to close during a storm. built pretty damn well from what i could tell.

[CottonBear]

3. That is very interesting. Metal storm shutter should be mandatory.

I would add an upper floor balcony/dock where a boat could be moored during a flood. Heck. Why not hang a canoe or john boat on the side of the first floor in the balcony/dock area. You would be ready for escaping if necessary!

I'm sure that the home would be cool in the summr and warm in the winter. If designed with prevailing cooling breezes and passive solar gain in mind the home could be very energy efficient! I'd add a passive solar water heater, solar panels, a cistern to catch rain water and a rooftop garden!

[ret5hd]

4. Almost EVERY house had a cistern to catch rainwater...

and they were all designed to be passive water heaters: on the sunny side of the house, black, etc.

[Canuckistanian]

5. This is no big secret or revelation

Most of the island of Okinawa has concrete buildings and they always survive typhoons.

But most think that concrete houses would be ugly.

Insurance companies should offer big discounts to people with these kinds of houses.

[SW FL Dem]

6. Most of the newer houses in South Florida are concrete block

construction. The only wood in my house is the rafters and the plywood roof. The interior walls have aluminum studs. These houses did quite well in Wilma. The only drawback is that it is a real bitch to hang curtains or blinds, regular screws don't work and Tapcons don't fit into the regular brackets.

[CottonBear]

10. Maybe they should build in window brackets/hangers for blinds and curtains

Your house sounds very sturdy and termite proof! How are your heating and cooling bills? It would seem that the house would be cool in the summer.

The home on CNN was poured reinforced concrete. I suppose one could add color to the concrete to provide a color other than gray!

[RebelOne]

11. I would say that a majority of the houses in South Florida,

new or old, are concrete block or stucco.

[DemoTex]

7. Pensacola Beach: "Dome of a Home"

One of the talking weather heads rode out hurricane Ivan in a similar structure, the Dome of a Home. It is a composite-plastic and steel-reinforced concrete structure evocative of Buckminster Fuller's geodesic domes.







http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0922/p14s01-lihc.html
http://www.domeofahome.com/news_detail.asp?ID=29
http://www.domeofahome.com/DomeHome_sun-sentinel.pdf

[KoKo]

8. Look at the power of that storm. Even with concrete it ripped the front

facade off where the stairs were... Amazing. Looking at this I can understand why there's nothing left of the wooden structured houses.

Sheesh...:eyes:

[400Years]

9. they've been doing it this way in the Yucatan for years now