Weather

[Overlander]

hurricane in florida is not news. hurricane in michigan is news.

how about you just resist posting something stupid for one goddamn day?

Tall order

[japhy]

The lateral force associated with 140 mph winds is huge. Luckily most commercial buildings in FL should be designed to withstand this without structural damage. Windows, doors, roofs will need lots of repairs. It's the flying debris that can cause a lot of damage. I had photos of a Walgreens in Moore OK after their big EF5 tornado. The building was outside of the direct path and structurally was fine. But an empty dumpster from the parking lot went took flight and left a dumpster shaped hole in a parapet wall and then took out every rooftop Mechanical unit in it it's flight path opening holes into the store that poured in water and destroyed the merchandise.

The biggest threat is storm surge. While the wind can create forces in the low hundreds of pounds per square foot. The storm surge forces can be at the level of thousands of pounds per square foot. That stuff can be catastrophic. Some parts of infrastructure are designed to resist this force and others designed to break free and decrease the surface area and therefore decrease force to the superstructure.

Disney is a good case in point. There are things in the park that will tear away at around 110 mph. Some will just fly away and some pieces are attached by airplane cable so that when they break lose, there is a reduction in the amount of destructive flying debris. Some pieces of facades will bend to reduce force on the structure and then can be bent back into place after a major event with a procedure in place to determine if the metal was fatigued in the bending/stress relief process and therefore should be replaced.

All that said, there is only so much I can do to protect you Shirley. These events will be more frequent and are expected to be larger in the future. We know this cuz every update in the building codes includes increased design forces for buildings in the southeast. But I can find you nice house in the Empire. You can bring the grandkids, they will enjoy the mountains as much as they do the ocean.

[KUTradition]

none of that matters if it ain’t in michigan

[Shirley]

Large of you to offer, japhy, and I appreciate learning about storm damage abatement enginerding, but what I want to know is, how far is the Empire from Aurora, Co., where the Venezuelan gangs have taken over?

[RainbowsandUnicorns]

Large of you to offer, japhy, and I appreciate learning about storm damage abatement enginerding, but what I want to know is, how far is the Empire from Aurora, Co., where the Venezuelan gangs have taken over?

I've been told the gangs in the Empire make the Venezuelan gangs in Aurora come off as being a bunch of Tinkerbells and Peter Pans.
Them folks go all RFKJr. up in there.