Hurricane questions not often talked about. (tornado, storms, city, wind speed)
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I've searched for quite a while now and cannot find some specific info concerning Hurricanes. Can any of you fine people direct me to a website or just answer some questions for me?
1) How far inland does a hurricane heading onto land from the eastern seaboard need to travel for it to diminish in strength? For instance does a CAT4 turn into a CAT3 10 miles over land, 20, 50 etc?
2) Do east coast Floridians need to worry about storm surge like they do on the west and continental coasts? I've just not heard of surge water entering miles inland flooding Miami, Palm Beach or the like.
3) If the Okeechobee levies break would flood waters reach PBC or anywhere along the coast?
4) Building code information detailing Hurricane construction methods and how much wind they can sustain.
Thank you for any information. I'm hoping this thread can generate some facts and myths not often referenced.
I've searched for quite a while now and cannot find some specific info concerning Hurricanes. Can any of you fine people direct me to a website or just answer some questions for me?
1) How far inland does a hurricane heading onto land from the eastern seaboard need to travel for it to diminish in strength? For instance does a CAT4 turn into a CAT3 10 miles over land, 20, 50 etc?
2) Do east coast Floridians need to worry about storm surge like they do on the west and continental coasts? I've just not heard of surge water entering miles inland flooding Miami, Palm Beach or the like.
3) If the Okeechobee levies break would flood waters reach PBC or anywhere along the coast?
4) Building code information detailing Hurricane construction methods and how much wind they can sustain.
Thank you for any information. I'm hoping this thread can generate some facts and myths not often referenced.
1) It depends more on the speed of the hurricane. Hurricane Charley made landfall as a Cat. 4 on the west coast and exited the east coast as a Cat 1 or Cat.2. Some slower moving storms just disintegrate before they exit the state.
2) Yes. If you live in any low lying area, you should watch out for storm surge. Also, your location in comparison with the storm has a lot to do with it. Usually, the areas to the North of storm have worse surge on the east coast. The opposite is true on the west coast.
3) No. Lake O is very shallow and even if the whole lake flooded, it wouldn't be enough to reach that far.
4) Can't really help you here. You'll proabbly have to do your own investigating on this one.
From what I understand the effects of each substantial hurricane are studied and building codes have the potential to change with each one.
From Francis we learned that the WALLS of our houses would allow water to come through them...Francis blew rain sideways through the walls, they realized (DUH) that maybe they should seal the walls. This of course went on all day...I had water blow in vents in my roof...I had water blow in through my glass block window over my garden tub.
I know the hurricane bar I have to put in front of my garage door was a design they came up with after Hurricane Andrew. They say that the winds would rip off a garage door, once the wind got inside the garage, it would lift the roof off the house...
I would check in your area, down at City Hall to see what the codes are, it would be a good idea to see this informatino not only if your building but also if your buying so you will know how far off from the current codes your house is. That is one thing my Realtor told us about, because my house was not so old, the codes were exactly the same.1
hmmmmm, I didn't consider the speed of the storm. Thanks for the help.
I assume hurricanes in our hemisphere rotate anti-clockwise, so North surge on east coast landfall makes sense. Still, I don't hear of hurricanes on the east coast having storm surge issues?
hmmmmm, I didn't consider the speed of the storm. Thanks for the help.
I assume hurricanes in our hemisphere rotate anti-clockwise, so North surge on east coast landfall makes sense. Still, I don't hear of hurricanes on the east coast having storm surge issues?
I think they rotate clockwise if I remember correctly...
From what I understand the effects of each substantial hurricane are studied and building codes have the potential to change with each one.
From Francis we learned that the WALLS of our houses would allow water to come through them...Francis blew rain sideways through the walls, they realized (DUH) that maybe they should seal the walls. This of course went on all day...I had water blow in vents in my roof...I had water blow in through my glass block window over my garden tub.
I know the hurricane bar I have to put in front of my garage door was a design they came up with after Hurricane Andrew. They say that the winds would rip off a garage door, once the wind got inside the garage, it would lift the roof off the house...
I would check in your area, down at City Hall to see what the codes are, it would be a good idea to see this informatino not only if your building but also if your buying so you will know how far off from the current codes your house is. That is one thing my Realtor told us about, because my house was not so old, the codes were exactly the same.1
I never considered sealing the walls or even finding out if it was done. This information could turn out to be quite involved. Thanks so much.
1) How far inland does a hurricane heading onto land from the eastern seaboard need to travel for it to diminish in strength? For instance does a CAT4 turn into a CAT3 10 miles over land, 20, 50 etc? Well this is a hard one to answer over the net. It depends on each storm,as each is different. It depends on how large the storm is, how high the winds are at land fall, how organized the storm is and many other things.
An example, I bet if Andrew a Cat 5 storm if it were the size of Hugo and it hit central Florida. If it hit the central coast of Florida and exited over by Tampa, it would still be at least a cat 3 when it would get to the gulf. Just because it would be large enough to have a part of itself still over water getting fuel. It really depends on the storm.
Remember storm surge depends on many things, tides, wind speed, the direction (NW,SW,SE,NE) the hurricane comes on to land, location the hurricane comes ashore (tampa bay), the size of the storm (not cat)
3) If the Okeechobee levies break would flood waters reach PBC or anywhere along the coast? Yes parts of PBC surrounding the lake will get flooded not like Katrina, but yes flooding. In 1928 a levie did break and 2000 people were killed.
4) Building code information detailing Hurricane construction methods and how much wind they can sustain. Well I can't find the codes excatly, but I do know that each county has their own code. The state just uped the requirements through out the state, but it isn't up to par in all counties outside Miami-Dade County and Broward County which have the best codes in the county. Put it this way in other parts of the state you can still build a stick home (crazy people live in stick homes in Florida), not allowed in Miami. Also remember along with hurricanes are tornados, so it doesn't matter how good the code is if one hits your house during a hurricane.
http://hurricane.lsu.edu/_in_the_news/june_02_naples.htm (broken link)
Thank you for any information. I'm hoping this thread can generate some facts and myths not often referenced.[/quote]
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Thanks so much.
