How Did Everyone Fare? (Miami: home, neighborhood, live)

[Robyn55]

Originally Posted by snuffybear

How can you tell if a house is slab-on-grade? Is this the houses with no steps?

And houses with steps are above grade (raised foundation?).

My definition - which isn't necessarily a technical one - is where the slab/ground floor of the house is built level with the ground. With perhaps one small step up. Basically - a "stepless entry". I think a house should be at least a little elevated from the surrounding land. And there should be grading to channel water away from a house. There are all manner of things that flood - even under relatively normal conditions - and the idea is to keep the water from getting inside your house. Robyn

[Robyn55]

Originally Posted by Pedal Wench

Parts of St Aug Beach were okay - oddly enough, places along the intercoastal sustained much more damage and surge flooding than places right on the ocean. I dropped off donations at the neighborhood just across A1A from me and they had 3-4 feet of flooding. I was just saying that I, personally was good. Sorry if that was misinterpreted.
We had winds over 70mph, with gusts approaching 90mph. A lot of wind damage in the RV resort nearby, also right on the ocean.

It's not really that odd when you think about it. This storm created a mighty storm surge in the St. Johns River - the ICW - and all the surrounding tributaries and marsh lands because it pushed tons of water into those water bodies. Into smaller and smaller spaces. And the water had to go somewhere. In our case - it came up from the ICW - flooded Roscoe Blvd. - crossed Cabbage Creek - flooded our house (garage only) - crossed our street - flooded houses across the street in various degrees - and then flooded the retention pond in back of those houses.

Doesn't always happen that way. In Hurricane Andrew - we lived on Biscayne Bay (in Miami). And had a 14 foot storm surge from the Bay into our (high rise) condo (friends to the south of us on the Bay had a 22 foot storm surge).

With your estimated wind speeds - you probably had a nice big strong tropical storm. Like Frances and Jeanne in 2004 here. You were lucky you didn't lose power for any extended period of time (we only lost power for a day during Jeanne but the area where you are lost power for perhaps 1-2 weeks). The only thing that is worse than losing your power for an extended period of time is losing your house.

Hate to sound like a preacher. But I think everyone should sit back and reflect on what a big hurricane might actually do here. I've heard people complaining that they'll never evacuate again (because they waited in line for the bridges to reopen). Or that their houses are great because they came through this unscathed. And yada - yada - yada. Most of us dodged a major bullet. We should be thankful for that. But not forget that things could have been a lot worse. And plan accordingly for the future. Robyn

[904jax]

Originally Posted by snuffybear

Do you work for them? Sounds like a marketing spiel...

I do not work for the PARC Group or Nocatee. Actually, I hadn't thought much about Nocatee's drainage system until Tim Deegan discussed it at length on TV during the hurricane coverage. That piqued my curiosity so I did more research and took notice.

[904jax]

Originally Posted by Robyn55

My definition - which isn't necessarily a technical one - is where the slab/ground floor of the house is built level with the ground. With perhaps one small step up. Basically - a "stepless entry". I think a house should be at least a little elevated from the surrounding land. And there should be grading to channel water away from a house. There are all manner of things that flood - even under relatively normal conditions - and the idea is to keep the water from getting inside your house. Robyn

Is your home on piers? What distinguishes your home from other homes with concrete slab foundations on a fill dirt platforms that raise the homes a few feet above the street?

[Robyn55]

Originally Posted by 904jax

Is your home on piers? What distinguishes your home from other homes with concrete slab foundations on a fill dirt platforms that raise the homes a few feet above the street?

It's all a question of degree/height relative to the flooding risks around your property. For example - you can live at an elevation of 500 feet - but if you're only a foot over the flood level of surrounding water bodies - including rivers - you can be at risk.

When it comes to our house/foundation - we raised it about 4 courses of block above our land (which we had demucked and filled to I forget how high above the street level). Overall - we are about 8-9 feet above sea level IIRC (or maybe it's the mean high tide line - can't remember). A lot of houses here were only 4 feet above that level or so.

Mechanically - the way that it worked best I can recall (it's been a long time) was that we trenched/poured the footers on the ground. Then we installed four courses of block. Then - and I honestly can't recall here - the four courses of block were either filled with sand - and then concrete - or just concrete. And then our house was built on top of that. We have like 4 big steps up to our house. While many of our flooded neighbors had just 1 little step.

I'm really not familiar with piers. I am familiar with other means of elevating houses. Including bottom floor breakaway construction - and various kinds of stilts and pilings. We lived in a high rise condo in Miami (Key Biscayne) where the building was built on pilings filled with compressed sand. A rather unusual European building technique that was questioned at the time it was built (in the 70's). But it survived Hurricane Andrew (although other parts of the building didn't).

I think the whole idea is you want to be higher than the water is. Wherever you live - under any circumstances you're likely to encounter. Even if you just have a busted sprinkler head or a walkway with poor drainage if it rains hard.

Note that another thing that helped us here (both in this storm and in the past) was how our builder graded our property. In terms of channeling water off into swales on the sides of the property. There are a lot of houses here where - even after a normal gully washer - water ponds on your driveway. Our driveway isn't flat. It's graded so the water runs off into the swales.

Overall - I think we lucked out this time around. I am not so sure we will be so lucky next time around. Robyn

[EricBoyd]

Originally Posted by Robyn55

Mechanically - the way that it worked best I can recall (it's been a long time) was that we trenched/poured the footers on the ground. Then we installed four courses of block. Then - and I honestly can't recall here - the four courses of block were either filled with sand - and then concrete - or just concrete. And then our house was built on top of that. We have like 4 big steps up to our house. While many of our flooded neighbors had just 1 little step.

That's stem wall construction. We have the same thing at our house. And, our block stem wall was filled with concrete when the finished floor was poured. I think we have a 2-course or 3-course run.

[Robyn55]

Yes - that's what it is - a stem wall . Useful not only to elevate a dwelling for flood purposes - but also to see where termites might be building tunnels into your place. We might have 3 courses of block too. I'll have to check.

FWIW - when we were building here in 1995 - the building code in SJC was changed to prohibit running siding and similar down into the ground and creating (even very small) hollow areas where the termites could build tunnels that weren't visible. Our head of building/zoning back then was a really good progressive guy for these parts. So good that he got poached by a larger Florida county - Broward IIRC .

And - looking at the damage in Vilano Beach and South Ponte Vedra Beach and similar - well there's a story there too. At least some of those houses didn't comply with FEMA flood requirements even back in the 90's. Our Congresswoman - the late Tillie Fowler - who I otherwise thought was pretty good - managed to get a bill passed that allowed some houses in that area to escape the normal FEMA requirements. In retrospect - I'm not sure she was doing anyone any favors. I've been told that just about all of the houses down there in that area are total losses. And I'm sure many - especially the newer ones - will cost a heck of a lot more than federal flood limits to replace. Perhaps this time around - the county and other government bodies will take a more careful look at enforcing normal FEMA requirements before allowing people to rebuild. Robyn

[Robyn55]

904jax - To give you an idea of what I was talking about when it comes to steps...

I was talking today with someone I know who lives in Nocatee. Lakeside. He basically has a "stepless" entry to his slab on grade house. He really didn't get much of anything during Matthew. But there was just enough rain - and just enough wind - to push "puddle" water under his front door. Which got his foyer floor just a little wet. For a day or two (he was out of town for the weekend visiting family best I can tell). He mopped up the little bit of water when he got home. But - today - the (wood?) floors started to warp and bubble. This is the kind of event that could happen during a bad summer thunderstorm - and a builder should know better to build that way.

FWIW - he also said his next door neighbors taped their front door (don't know with what). And they didn't get any water intrusion. That shouldn't be necessary IMO for the kind of rain/wind Nocatee got when Matthew was passing by.

Water can really make a mess of things even under normal circumstances if a builder doesn't pay attention to handling it properly. For example - the brand new rental house we moved into here in 1995 had a "slab on grade" shower. With a wood frame entry covered in tile. It rotted out and started to leak in < 6 months. And never really got fixed right by the time we moved out a year later. Our builder did a clever thing IMO with our showers. He recessed them into the concrete slab. So there's nothing to rot/leak. Robyn

[904jax]

Originally Posted by Robyn55

904jax - To give you an idea of what I was talking about when it comes to steps...I was talking today with someone I know who lives in Nocatee. Lakeside. He basically has a "stepless" entry to his slab on grade house. He really didn't get much of anything during Matthew. But there was just enough rain - and just enough wind - to push "puddle" water under his front door. Which got his foyer floor just a little wet. Robyn

Our builder did a clever thing IMO with our showers. He recessed them into the concrete slab

It must be a builder specific thing. Our home is four (4) steps above the sidewalk level which is in turn above the street level. Out of curiosity, I measured the floor of our house in relationship to the street level. It sits three feet six inches above street level. It would be very hard to "puddle" water under our door which is a step up from the porch (the porch is four steps above the sidewalk). Fortunately, we were watertight during Matthew.

Originally Posted by Robyn55

Our builder did a clever thing IMO with our showers. He recessed them into the concrete slab

We have that feature as well. We like it.

Did your builder use steel rods that were set into the foundation and connected into the roof structure? These rods supposedly improve the integrity of the structure of our home, which should help in a hurricane.

[snuffybear]

Does that mean you step down into your shower? ("recessed into concrete slab")