Olympus-OM
[Top] [All Lists]

[OM] Re: If you don't hear from me, don't worry, I haven't gone anywhere

Subject: [OM] Re: If you don't hear from me, don't worry, I haven't gone anywhere.
From: Chuck Norcutt <chucknorcutt@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2005 07:09:52 -0400
NSURIT@xxxxxxx wrote:
> 
> We are slightly Southwest of Houston and will get heavy wind & rain.  
> Probably not flooding in my area.  This is not being macho to stay and  
> protect my 
> stuff, but rather just to be available to my customers when the storm  has 
> passed.  We have sent our employees to higher ground and hope we are  not in 
> denial 
> about the dangers.  Bill Barber
----------------------------------------------

If you're only afraid of the sporadic tornadoes I think you're in 
denial.  I haven't seen anything of Katrina but I saw plenty of Andrew. 
  I've seen the aftermath of one large tornado and one small one and the 
path of Andrew's eye was not much different than you'd expect from a 30 
mile wide tornado. Category 4 winds are fully capable of totally 
demolishing a house and tearing it to splinters.  A tornado does it in 
seconds, the Cat 4 will just take 10 or 15 minutes to do the same.  Sort 
of like being hit with a baseball bat one time or a hockey stick a 
hundred times.

When I lived in Florida my concrete block house was constructed to Cat 3 
building codes which tie the walls to the floor with re-bar and tie the 
roof to the walls with steel strapping around the trusses.  I had every 
door and window protected by storm shutters of heavy, corrugated 
aluminum or reinforced plywood.  I also laid in about 2 weeks supply of 
food and water since it was always my intention to ride out the storm 
rather than risk evacuation over an inadequate road system.  When Andrew 
hit I was about 50 miles from the eye and the house survived with little 
damage.  Based on a radar image taken about 5:00am I think we got winds 
of about 120 mph for a short time.  After viewing the path of 
destruction where the eye passed, however, I'm not so sure I made the 
right decisision.  My house had a mansard roof design which is much 
better than gable end for hurricanes but I suspect that my house would 
have lost its roof if we had been hit by that Cat 4 eye.  Once the roof 
is down the walls are vulnerable too... even the concrete block walls.

I have no idea what the building codes are like in Houston but I'd be 
surprised if your house has been constructed to withstand even a Cat 3. 
  You should seriously rethink your position.

Chuck Norcutt


==============================================
List usage info:     http://www.zuikoholic.com
List nannies:        olympusadmin@xxxxxxxxxx
==============================================

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>
Sponsored by Tako
Impressum | Datenschutz