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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DuckTapeSunroof who wrote (701308)	9/10/2005 9:23:46 PM
From: HPilot	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Believe they need to be.... Buddy, you seem to think that houses in FL are not strong. Here in Georgia they are built to just 90 MPH, which is only 10 MPH more than required for mobile homes. You won't find even one hurricane strap, just nails holding the roof on. These houses will fall with even a cat one storm. In south FL, BEFORE ANDREW, the walls were Concrete Masonry Units (CMU) with concrete poured into the empty cells, the blocks are built with gaps every 15 or 20 feet, rebar that is welded to rebar from the concrete floor is placed in the gaps, corners and over the top of the block wall. Then plywood is placed on each side of the wall at the gap and about a foot and a half over the wall. When poured this makes a concrete column and corners with a concrete beam over the top. If houses were built as they are here in Georgia, ALMOST EVERY ONE WOULD BE DEAD. Instead most people survived by holing up in their bathrooms or garages. They may have lost their roofs, but they were alive. As I recall the main issues were hurricane shutters, roof structures, and wood walls. Six inch stud walls were not enough, I saw several such buildings completely collapsed and you could hardly find a broken stud, the nails simply pulled apart. Fortunately most houses are CMU, though some used wood walls on the second floor. My house had straps around the corner of the wood walls and that seemed to help a lot.