THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, April 5, 1996 TAG: 9604050482
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEVE STONE, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ORLANDO LENGTH: Medium: 86 lines
We can build a hurricane-proof home. The materials and technology exist. But who could afford it?
That's a critical question as mitigation - the effort to minimize costly damage when disasters hit - becomes the watchword for emergency planners in the late '90s.
``We have established mitigation as the very cornerstone of our emergency management program,'' Harvey G. Ryland, deputy director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, told the National Hurricane Conference meeting here this week. His agency is seeking $20 million from Congress to foster mitigation programs. ``Our leaders are coming to realize that we can no longer afford the death, injuries and loss of property resulting from natural disasters.''
And one possible answer to those concerns may be evolving in the small North Carolina coastal community of Southern Shores, where a program to encourage better home construction and upgrades on existing structures has been launched.
The program, called Blue Sky, is a national, incentive-driven program aimed at strengthening new and existing homes.
The program is intended to produce affordable homes that can survive storms - not necessarily escaping damage, but absorbing a hard punch and remaining habitable and repairable.
``Blue Sky is conventional housing. We're not building bunkers; we're not promoting hurricane-proof housing,'' said Cay Cross, Blue Sky's program manager. ``We're saying the house that you and I live in can be made hurricane resistant.''
And to prove it, a new community center being built in Southern Shores will incorporate many of the most challenging design features of older and newer homes, constructed in ways to make them safer.
The program, funded by a consortium of federal, state and local agencies working with businesses, professional associations and academic institutions, is attacking the issue on several fronts ranging from basic research to widescale public education.
And education - of contractors as well as consumers - is a key ingredient.
``They want the aesthetics and they don't always realize that the structure is much more important than the frills,'' said John DeLucia, Blue Sky's engineering consultant. Blue Sky's designers hope to convince people ``that there are good reasons you shouldn't spend the extra $10,000 on the tiled jacuzzi on the second-floor deck but should put it into the basic structure.''
Studies are under way at Clemson, Johns Hopkins and West Virginia universities, at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and the University of Colorado to help engineers understand what works and what doesn't in home construction.
Sometimes it's tedious lab work - designing different structures and then seeing what forces they can withstand. Other times, teams examine what storms have actually done. There are even plans to ``wire'' some structures so that if they are hit by hurricanes or floods, there will be a detailed record of what happened.
``There is nothing like first-hand, visual observation of how things occurred; how things came apart or why they didn't,'' DeLucia said. ``But we really don't have a good handle on what happens'' when high winds or storm surge hit a structure. He hopes that will change with new research.
If Blue Sky evolves as anticipated, the payback could be big, said Ralph Calfee, the program's technical manager. Within a decade, he believes, there will be ``a substantial reduction in damage due to hurricanes; a substantial reduction in displacement and sociological impact; and a significant reduction in the costs to government.''
And, perhaps, even lower insurance costs.
In the wake of hurricanes Hugo, Andrew, Erin and Opal, insurers have been dumping clients, raising rates astronomically and even abandoning parts of the country where hurricanes are more likely to happen.
``If we can prove that we can build to meet the elements, and that people can still build the same beautiful homes they want with all the glass, right on the water, then people will do it and the insurance companies will insure it,'' Cross said. ``But after all these major disasters, we've got to prove that we can build better.'' MEMO: BETTER HOMES
Blue Sky is a national, incentive-driven program aimed at
strengthening new and existing homes.
The program is intended to produce affordable homes that can survive
storms by absorbing a hard punch and remaining habitable and
repairable. by CNB