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You talk about how fragile these old houses are...these old houses which are over 100 years old...these old houses which deal with blizzards every winter...they don't seem fragile.
Try a hurricane for a test, see how they manage. Better yet try a colony of termites.
Try a hurricane for a test, see how they manage. Better yet try a colony of termites.
Meh. Key West has plenty of older wooden homes and many of the structures are still in fine shape even after the humidity and potential threat of storms. Even New Orleans, which got hit with Katrina, still has many of its historic wooden homes preserved and looking better than ever.
Meh. Key West has plenty of older wooden homes and many of the structures are still in fine shape even after the humidity and potential threat of storms. Even New Orleans, which got hit with Katrina, still has many of its historic wooden homes preserved and looking better than ever.
Are you an expert on hurricanes? Because the following video shows widespread damage of wooden houses from the 1919 hurricane in KW. Unless we're talking about concrete houses, nothing else can withstand a Cat 3-4 direct hit. There's a reason houses are built of cement blocks in FL (even though it should've been concrete reinforced with rebar and flat roofs). Those wooden houses up north don't stand a chance down here. Not to mention earthquakes...
The design of the homes are going to have everything to do with the natural disasters that occur in the area and frequent weather and climate conditions. Just because the houses are different doesn't mean either are better.
I prefer the old style colonials and if there's anything to be said here.... a house that has stood for 150 years is certainly nothing to chuckle at!
Are you an expert on hurricanes? Because the following video shows widespread damage of wooden houses from the 1919 hurricane in KW. Unless we're talking about concrete houses, nothing else can withstand a Cat 3-4 direct hit. There's a reason houses are built of cement blocks in FL (even though it should've been concrete reinforced with rebar and flat roofs). Those wooden houses up north don't stand a chance down here. Not to mention earthquakes...
I watch that video and I already see a few homes standing while others were completely destroyed.
I'm not saying that wooden homes can sustain more damage than a concrete home, especially a one-level concrete home, but you make it sound that a hurricane hitting an area with wooden homes = 100% nuked, even though a lot of Key West's and NOLA's wooden homes are still there. Also, the damage a hurricane can cause sometimes depends on the tornado's that a hurricane can produce. That's probably one of the reasons why some homes in these hurricane Sandy pictures are gone and some are left standing:
I watch that video and I already see a few homes standing while others were completely destroyed.
I'm not saying that wooden homes can sustain more damage than a concrete home, especially a one-level concrete home, but you make it sound that a hurricane hitting an area with wooden homes = 100% nuked, even though a lot of Key West's and NOLA's wooden homes are still there. Also, the damage a hurricane can cause sometimes depends on the tornado's that a hurricane can produce. That's probably one of the reasons why some homes in these hurricane Sandy pictures are gone and some are left standing:
Damage in those first 3 Sandy pictures was caused by fire. First two look like Breezy Point, Queens (where over 90 homes burned) and third looks like Brick, NJ (where about 50 burned).
The fourth picture looks like Ortley Beach, NJ, which was truly devastated. That was where you really saw some homes wiped out and some still standing. You'd see 3 ocean blocks almost completely gone, save a few homes, then another block in it was fine. Mantoloking also saw this type of damage.
Ortley
Mantoloking
I know this is a NE/FL thread, but that damage still haunts me. CT had some similar damage right on homes right along the ocean, and so did MA (Scituate comes to mind - bad storms always pound Scituate), but to my knowledge they did not see the scale of damage as evidenced in the above pictures. Not in this storm at least. It would truly take a monster hurricane to hit NE that badly, it is so far north. Sandy hit NJ at the right time in the right conditions, and that type of storm is very rare this far north. NE may not get hurricanes like FL does but they do get nor'easters and blizzards. Nor'easters can be nasty, especially because they can hit any time of year. Summer/Spring ones bring flooding rains and winter ones bring lots of snow.
Last edited by JerseyGirl415; 09-23-2014 at 08:09 PM..
Damage in those first 3 Sandy pictures was caused by fire. First two look like Breezy Point, Queens (where over 90 homes burned) and third looks like Brick, NJ (where about 50 burned).
The fourth picture looks like Ortley Beach, NJ, which was truly devastated. That was where you really saw some homes wiped out and some still standing. You'd see 3 ocean blocks almost completely gone, save a few homes, then another block in it was fine. Mantoloking also saw this type of damage.
Ortley
Mantoloking
I know this is a NE/FL thread, but that damage still haunts me. CT had some similar damage right on homes right along the ocean, and so did MA (Scituate comes to mind - bad storms always pound Scituate), but to my knowledge they did not see the scale of damage as evidenced in the above pictures. Not in this storm at least. It would truly take a monster hurricane to hit NE that badly, it is so far north. Sandy hit NJ at the right time in the right conditions, and that type of storm is very rare this far north. NE may not get hurricanes like FL does but they do get nor'easters and blizzards. Nor'easters can be nasty, especially because they can hit any time of year. Summer/Spring ones bring flooding rains and winter ones bring lots of snow.
There's no doubt that Hurricane Sandy did some serious damage, especially for its type. I believe on landfall, Sandy was a Category 1? I'm not too sure how some homes would take a Category 2 or 3 storm though. But like I said, many of NOLA's older wood homes and some of Key West's pre-1900 wooden structures are still around after some heavy natural beatings, so it's possible that those homes in the NE can sustain some heavy winds. They're not as strong as a concrete home, but many are strong enough to be restored like new afterwards.
There's no doubt that Hurricane Sandy did some serious damage, especially for its type. I believe on landfall, Sandy was a Category 1? I'm not too sure how some homes would take a Category 2 or 3 storm though. But like I said, many of NOLA's older wood homes and some of Key West's pre-1900 wooden structures are still around after some heavy natural beatings. People would be surprised at how some wooden homes end up living through some storms. They're not as strong as a concrete home, but many are strong enough to be restored like new afterwards.
For Katrina, the water that flooded was all from the lake, correct? The storm surge from the ocean to an oceanfront town or city is more powerful than a storm surge from a river or lake. I live in a town with a winding river that floods severely, but homes are never knocked off their foundations, wooden or not (actually I think in Irene 3 were but 2 of those homes also had trees fall on them in addition to flooding which is probably what did it). And my town also had levees that broke in Irene, causing 6+ feet of water to rush in in minutes, submerging homes up to their second floors for blocks. On the other hand, when the ocean came barreling in in Sandy, homes, wooden and sometimes not, were knocked off their foundations left and right. The pounding waves and strong tides and pulls are more powerful, I'd imagine.
How far inland are Key West's still standing old wooden structures, just curious? How many blocks? I doubt there are many, if any, on the beach or even beach block. I'm not surprised that there are still old wooden structures standing there but at the same time, the Keys have many homes that are up on stilts, which proves something about architecture and storm strength there.
Hurricanes don't bother me, as an aside. As long as I have a beach home that is built to withstand it, I'm fine living somewhere that gets frequent hurricanes, like Florida. I would probably evacuate, but knowing my home is elevated and held firm into the ground, I would be okay with it.
Florida of course is affected by more numerous and stronger hurricanes then New England. And the Florida coastline seems more densely populated (on average) and thus more vulnerable then New England.
However, New England CAN be hit by major hurricanes, it just does not happen that often. The Great New England Hurricane of 1938 killed as much as 800 people. Rhode Island in particular is vulnerable to this type of hurricane because the shape of Narragansett Bay lets flood waters funnel inland.
Florida of course is affected by more numerous and stronger hurricanes then New England. And the Florida coastline seems more densely populated (on average) and thus more vulnerable then New England.
However, New England CAN be hit by major hurricanes, it just does not happen that often. The Great New England Hurricane of 1938 killed as much as 800 people. Rhode Island in particular is vulnerable to this type of hurricane because the shape of Narragansett Bay lets flood waters funnel inland.
Is this the one that also severely affected Long Island? Or was that a different one?
I saw a cool map recently, it was an image of the East Coast and some more inland Eastern states with lines drawn to show which hurricane people remember as being the worst hurricane to ever hit their area. All of NJ pretty much had Sandy, for example, and same for NYC, but LI had something else (I thought it was the 1938 one), and most of New England had that one you mentioned.
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