• Krauerking@lemy.lol
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      Oh wow it was literally just a cat 4 like a couple hour ago.

      So this is now one of the fastest developing storms ever now and it hasn’t even gotten moving. And halved the time needed for “rapid development” as a tag.

      We are gonna need some new terms for these mega hurricanes.

  • Freefall@lemmy.world
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    So, to take a page from their book…their God must be hella mad at them for the decisions they made and actions they have taken…OR, tHe LibZ ConTrOL thE WeaThEr!

    We may never know.

    • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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      Well fortunately most of Florida is about 3 feet above sea level, so this is a problem that will fix itself before long.

    • nepenthes@lemmy.world
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      12 hours ago

      It was a pleasant surprise to hear the Meterologist on the video in that article specifically explain warming oceans from carbon are causing the increased frequency/intensity.

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      This happened in 2005 as well, except with 3 hurricanes; Francis, Ivan, and Jeanne. I doubt climate change has gotten better since then.

  • Noble Shift@lemmy.world
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    23 hours ago

    I live on a 29’ cruising sailboat and I’m in SFla and I moved into a mangrove swamp / waterway last night to ride out in, same one that I just left for the last storm a week ago.

    It’s been 10 days since the last storm that we saw 45+ knt winds in, and for 5 out of the last 10 days, at least here, it’s been raining and everything is WAY over-saturated.

    This storm is going to seriously fuck some shit up.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      22 hours ago

      I know this isn’t a great thing to say due to housing costs, but I think you really need to find a different place to live than a boat because hurricanes are only going to get worse.

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        14 hours ago

        I’m pretty sure they know what they’re doing better than you. I imagine the mangroves will protect them fairly well from damage, and as long as they have power and their bilge pump is working they shouldn’t sink. The water is probably pretty shallow anyway, so that might not even be possible.

      • TheRealKuni@lemmy.world
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        17 hours ago

        As I understand it, mangrove swamps are a great place to ride out storms in a boat. They naturally reduce waves, and should help cut down on some of the wind. There’s a whole demonstration of how they work in the Keys. Can’t remember where I saw it.

        Obviously it would be better to not be in the path of the storm, but if you have to be, there are much worse places than around mangroves.

      • Maeve@midwest.social
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        18 hours ago

        I was recently looking at printed tiny houses. Some are pretty sturdy, and 0 carbon. They are pricier than tiny prefab but with no energy bills to speak of and sturdier construction, I’m wondering how they will fare in our area.

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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          People who end up moving into tiny houses often regret it because they don’t really consider what ‘tiny’ means (things like not being able to cook a really nice meal because your kitchen is so small or just the inconvenience of having to go up and down a ladder at night if you need to use the bathroom).

          The online real estate resource polled more than 2,264 U.S. adults about what they wish they had done differently with their current housing. A whopping 44 percent of participants had housing regrets, and the biggest regret among homeowners had to do with size. One in three homeowners said they wish they had chosen a larger home, compared to only nine percent who wished they had downsized.

          https://www.countryliving.com/real-estate/news/a44021/tiny-house-regret/

          • Maeve@midwest.social
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            Thanks for your reply. Meals wouldn’t be an issue. I’d be cooking dinner for my child and their partner at their place, so they wouldn’t have to worry about dinner and washing up, after work, and the model I’m looking at is single floor. I was more wondering about sturdiness in bad weather.

  • inclementimmigrant@lemmy.world
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    Maybe if they stopped voting for fucking Republicans and start fixing the climate they wouldn’t be all kinds of fucked as climate change causes insurance companies to say fuck these southern states.

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      20 hours ago

      Im from Florida and it’s so frustrating that we are always just 1 or 2 percent away from voting out these morons but we all have to suffer because the old people vote their shriveled asses off.

    • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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      Yeah, it seems like the only reasonable (in their mind) explanations should be it’s either climate change or the wrath of God. Either way, it should indicate they need to do something different.

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            Okay there, go ahead and provide your evidence that Democrats are just as bad as Republicans then.

            I’m not playing the “do the research” bullshit that you hear from MAGA morons.

      • III@lemmy.world
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        23 hours ago

        Of course they are, it’s why they are using their weather control powers to cause all of these storms. Duh.

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          They’re clearing out the coast so they can more easily mine lithium.

          This is legitimately a conspiracy theory being pushed and parroted by fucking morons people who voted red

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        23 hours ago

        We have a choice between 2 main groups. One believes there’s a climate problem of human making. The other does not.

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          I understand that. I just also believe that they will ultimately do nothing about it in a meaningful way. I hope I’m wrong.

  • Treczoks@lemmy.world
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    Originally they thought that Helene would be a cat 3, too.

    But the Democrats aim with the Hurricane machine proclaimed by MTG is getting better. Maybe the third try actually turns Mar-a-Lago into a pile of rubble.

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      I’m on the team running the weather machine this time. We are very excited for this run!

      After gathering so much data from the last several storms, we finally have the power to call hurricanes and tornadoes exactly where we want them to go!

      We’ll be feasting on the fetuses Boden personally hands us after this run, fellas!

      • Freefall@lemmy.world
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        Great, you just gave maga all the fully verified truth they need to confirm their insanity…

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        I just put 3,000 Soros bucks into the Jade Helmet system with instructions to level the homes of any florida lemmygrad commenters in this post. You’re doing “there is no god”’s work, friend.

  • LillyPip@lemmy.ca
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    Saw an article yesterday interviewing a couple who says they’ll now have to rebuild their beachfront house for the third time, and that their second rebuild wasn’t even finished when Helene sent their house surfing down the street. That their insurance won’t cover it.

    I’m flabbergasted that anyone would even consider rebuilding there. You’re lucky to even have insurance – most insurance companies have been fleeing the state.

    Here’s a radical idea: don’t rebuild there. This is only going to get worse.

    • Freefall@lemmy.world
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      They are morons and refuse to do the smart thing no matter how much it costs the government and insurance company.

    • Sir_Kevin@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      I was just driving around the beaches of Pinellas County (Tampa Bay area) today. Entire neighborhoods are destroyed. Beach front condos, restaurants and stores, also destroyed. In many areas, anything ground level got flooded/wrecked by storm surge. I saw several boats in places there are not supposed to be boats.

      If Tampa Bay takes a direct hit right now it’s going to be really fuckin bad for a lot of people.

      What’s also scary is that right now everyone has been piling up debris, ruined appliances and all manor of belongings outside for disposal. Piles ten feet high along every street. All this shit is about to be flying around in hurricane force winds and storm surge. Is a recipe for disaster.

    • WoodScientist@lemmy.world
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      Or more to the point. If you have the money to build a beachfront house, why are you not building it to be virtually indestructible? Like one of those indestructible monolithic dome homes.

      We can build concrete structures that will laugh at hurricanes. We can build them with their living areas raised well above the ground so water can simply flow underneath and around them. Sure, it’s more expensive to build this way, but it can be done. And really, I would argue that if you can’t afford to build such a home, you simply cannot afford to live right on the beach.

      • ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world
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        I used to live in Charleston SC and my boss owned a beach home on Folly Beach - one of two houses there that survived Hurricane Hugo in 1989. It survived because it was elevated on massive concrete pilings that extended 60’ down to bedrock. When it was built in the 1970s it was two streets back from the beach; after Hugo it was beachfront property.

        My dumbass boss (a Rush Limbaugh fan, no surprise) had it torn down despite its being in perfect condition because it was too small (it was “just” a two-bedroom, two-bathroom, one-story layout). He built a much larger, conventional foundation house on the lot, which was apparently badly damaged by Hurricane Matthew in 2016, although it apparently survived and has been repaired. Just a matter of time …

      • DaPorkchop_@lemmy.ml
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        I always wonder what’s going on in the heads of Americans when they go to an area notorious for being hit by hurricanes or tornadoes and then decide they should build their house out of basically toothpicks with some plaster. Here in Switzerland, pretty much everything except for maybe a garden shed is poured concrete, and I guarantee that if the folks in Florida or Oklahoma did the same the “devastation” would be comparatively tiny.

        • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
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          Europeans never understand why houses are made out of “flimsy” materials in the US.

          The simple answer is that your brick and mortar houses would also be completely destroyed by a hurricane or tornado or earthquake.

          They’re just way more expensive and take longer to rebuild.

          The scale of natural disasters in the US is and always has been such that we expect buildings to be demolished by nature from time to time. Europe is a very stable place. The US is not.

          • Bytemeister@lemmy.world
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            Having a house that is lighter and stronger per pound than brick makes a lot of sense too. Stick frame houses can twist and shift a considerable amount and recover. Twist a brick house and it crumbles.

            • Tja@programming.dev
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              22 hours ago

              Japan builds skyscrapers that resist 8+ magnitude earthquakes. They are not made of sticks.

            • HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world
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              We have 3.2+ earthquakes, well, the rate I get alerts I’d estimate every other month on average. 4-5 times a year in a hundred mile radius (what I’ve got alerts set at). You are correct. Brick is used at most as a facade around here.

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                We don’t even issue alerts for anything below magnitude 5. Below 4 can barely be felt, we wouldn’t even call that an earthquake here.

                • HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world
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                  I would only find out on half of them because folks on reddit, mostly new arrivals to the area, would be freaking out “DID YOU FEEL THAT” and those of us who grew up here would be like “what, a truck?”. Then I set up the google alert and you know.

            • bradorsomething@ttrpg.network
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              It’s an overpressure problem. A tornado causes a sudden vacuum, and the house can’t withstand the pressure. Brick will fly just like wood in these conditions.

        • LustyArgonianMana@lemmy.world
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          How arrogant of you.

          Florida is a little different than Switzerland, not least due to weather and poverty. There indeed ARE fully concrete and hemp-crete type homes (many styles of homes), but they are unpopular (but becoming more popular) because they trap damp (Florida is extremely humid, unlike Switzerland), grow mold, don’t breathe, and cause sickness. Since 2005, all newly built homes are required to have concrete and rebar at certain areas including windows and doors.

          https://www.etr-aw.com/full-concrete-homes/

          They also are prone to cracking due to shifting. The lower blocks can absorb water, either through these cracks or cracks in waterproofing like paint, and then leak with every heavy rain. Cement (a component of concrete) is one of the largest CO2 emitters in its production, and cement dust is carcinogenic. Concrete houses that are flooded (eyewitnesses report up to 25-50feet of water height) will have to be gutted and possibly torn down anyway once flooded, since the flooding itself ruins everything and makes it unsafe. Since you’ll have to gut the whole thing anyway, may as well use wood which can be replaced more easily.

          Tornados (since you mentioned Oklahoma) can punch a 2x4 board through a concrete wall. Concrete isn’t a Kevlar vest house against all weather types and it isn’t an ideal material either for building in every climate.

          If the people who were flooded had stayed because they had concrete houses, even more would have died, but instead drowned in a concrete box. This was a storm that needed evacuation.

          • Daemon Silverstein@thelemmy.club
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            16 hours ago

            they trap damp (Florida is extremely humid, unlike Switzerland), grow mold, don’t breathe, and cause sickness

            Hi. Brazilian here. A very humid country where I live. Here, almost all houses are made of brick and concrete, even near the seashore. There are even entire concrete buildings near Brazilian beaches (such as Rio de Janeiro, Santos, Salvador, Recife, Porto Alegre, Florianópolis and so on) as well as near rivers (such as Manaus and even at the capital, Brasília). Indeed, mold is a thing, a thing that needs constant cleaning. Wall painting does a role in protecting from mold buildup.

            We don’t exactly have hurricanes (because it’s scientifically a thing from the northern hemisphere) but we do have tornadoes and strong winds very often. We have hailstorms. However, there are very old houses and buildings still standing since 1800, centennial houses.

            • LustyArgonianMana@lemmy.world
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              That’s fine and perfectly allowed, but constant mold cleaning fyi isn’t good for your health in general compared to minimal or no mold cleaning. The concrete holds moisture, and the paint is what keeps it at bay, sure. But there are likely other materials that can be developed that might not do this. And there’s also the impact to the environment to consider, as well as health impacts of what could be getting offgassed in our paints and walls, especially when mixed with cleaners because they are constantly being moldy.

              It’s not that I personally think concrete houses are bad anyway. I personally think housing variety is important and that housing standards are also important as we learn more about civil engineering. I think concrete has limitations as a material, which is long established in material sciences, that no material is a “perfect” material for everything. There are risks and flaws and benefits to every choice. Therefore again, to answer the question of “well why not all full concrete houses?” It’s mainly the 25 FEET OF FLOODING that makes it irrelevant as a solution in this case.

          • Dainterhawk999@lemmy.world
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            Florida is extremely humid, unlike Switzerland, grow mold, don’t breathe, and cause sickness.

            Concrete houses are still being made in the humid regions near the equator and will still be made in the long future… As for the mold problem, the houses are made such that water seepage is minimised heavily.

            Don’t wooden houses have the problem of termites making big joint families of their siblings?

            • bluewing@lemm.ee
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              6 hours ago

              Termite infestations are rare. And they can be easily eliminated through pesticide control if you should be that unfortunate.

            • LustyArgonianMana@lemmy.world
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              And full concrete houses are made in Florida currently. But the original question was why do some people prefer wood houses to concrete in Florida - and I gave a long list. Yes there are pros and cons to many materials. That’s not really the original question though, which was asked pretty insensitively and condescendingly in a thread about a very recent, ongoing disaster where they are still finding bodies.

              • Tja@programming.dev
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                Maybe in proper houses they would be fixing broken windows instead of finding bodies.

                “it’s not the time to discuss solutions to this” seems to be the American way of dealing with any disaster, from hurricanes to mass shootings.

                • LustyArgonianMana@lemmy.world
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                  A proper house won’t save people from fucking 25 FEET (7.6 meters) to 50 FEET of flooding in a hurricane. A ship can’t even save them because it’ll get knocked into houses. Same thing with a sub. There’s weather you can’t survive.

                  it’s not the time to discuss solutions to this

                  I never stated that. I am just unwilling to go over every building material pedantically when the problem - overwhelming climate events - isn’t going to be fixed with fucking concrete blocks.

        • ours@lemmy.world
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          I’ve lived in the Caribbean. Well-off people lived in reinforced concrete buildings not in flood areas. Worst that usually happened is some broken window.

        • ayyy@sh.itjust.works
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          Yes I’m sure you know better than the engineers who write building codes for a living.

      • Dainterhawk999@lemmy.world
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        Even in UK, houses are made of brick and concrete which have the ability to withstand flood and hurricane at a certain level

      • yeahiknow3@lemmings.world
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        Huston is one of the most populated cities in the US and it’s built on a swamp. Everyone acts super surprised when it floods semi-annually, like it’s some kind of tragedy as opposed to basic physics.

        Next thing you know Arizona will start complaining that they’ve run out of water. I mean, yes? You’re in the desert. Your choices were to fix the climate, move, or die. Instead you’ve built a gigantic parking lot of a city.

        There should be no aid whatsoever for natural disasters that strike predictably on a regular basis. Human beings aren’t dumb animals. We can communicate. Also Florida, Louisiana, and Texas literally voted for global warming. They got what they voted for so what is the issue?

        Actions have consequences. We failed to act for a century. That’s how long we’ve known with absolute certainty that the climate was fucked. We put people on the moon, and we went to war with Iraq, but heaven forbid people stop eating meat, driving their precious cars, or taking pleasure cruises. Zero. Pity.

        • Clinicallydepressedpoochie@lemmy.world
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          There are probably some cases where it’s true it was irresponsible to build somewhere. For most people though, they may have been born there. They may have had to move there for work. Denying pity to people who have suffered a tragedy without ever knowing their circumstances is heartless. The world you want to live in would step over you in a minute the moment you fucked up.

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            people who have suffered a tragedy

            Global warming is not a tragedy. It’s a highly predictable FAFO moment. We decided, as a civilization, to do this to ourselves. It’s not an anomaly. We voted for it. People were asked “do you want hurricanes to wash away your houses?” and they said, “yes, please!”

            Of course, that’s not true for children and animals, and I have so much sadness for them. But the adults? No. I watched them choose this.

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              Global warming is a tragedy. The greatest tragedy of our time.

              My point is our culture needs more empathy. Outrage and anger, there’s enough of that. Empathy, even for those who made a mistake.

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                Uhh, you want me to have empathy for the people who actively attempted (and in the long term probably managed) to end all sentient life on this planet? I’m good.

                • Clinicallydepressedpoochie@lemmy.world
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                  … no I want you to have empathy for people who just lost their homes. It’s OK though. I have no problem letting you go off in your hate filled tizzy. I know nothing I do or say can get through to you. We will see you on the otherside, though. When the, “it could never happen to me” turns into “why doesn’t anyone care?”

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          Arizona will start complaining that they’ve run out of water

          https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jan/27/arizona-scottsdale-water-cut-off-rio-verde-foothills-drought

          Little community refused to connect to the public utility grid. Wanted to live the libertarian, no government, get eaten by bears ideal. Local government they were mooching off for water said “Hey, we actually need this for our community. No more mooching.” They could fix the problem by incorporating, but instead they went to the news media.

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            Worse is the Supreme Court not honoring centuries old treaties in water rights cases for native tribes. These people were promised the land and now the government wants to say the right to water was not part of it.

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      They also had sunk all their savings into that rebuild. How do you think about trying a third time when you have nothing to even work with?

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        this might be a shock, but: in florida there are a lot of stupid people with a lot of money but don’t know what the fuck they’re doing with money

        these people likely also bought spray painted gold sneakers not too long ago

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          The best way to prepare yourself psychologically for the next fifty years of ecological catastrophe is to cling to this fact and save your pity for people who matter.

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        Yeah, I don’t get it, except the couple I saw (maybe you saw the same interview, there seem to be several of these) acted like this is just a bad year for weather and they ‘don’t want to think’ about climate change. They at least seem the type who don’t think it’s real.

        I feel for rescue units who can’t leave, and who will likely be rescuing these stubborn cunts when the next massive storm of the year hits them.

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      I don’t know if this is the case for that couple, but a lot of insurance requires that you rebuild on the same location. We need to change laws so that this isn’t the case anymore. It is a massive problem.

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      I mean, you can probably build a house that can reliably survive the conditions there. It’s just gonna be really expensive and may not look all that pretty.

      It’s gonna have to handle water up to a certain height and wind-blown debris smashing into it.

      Like, think of a lighthouse or flak tower or something.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lighthouse

      Sometimes a lighthouse needs to be constructed in the water itself. Wave-washed lighthouses are masonry structures constructed to withstand water impact, such as Eddystone Lighthouse in Britain and the St. George Reef Light of California. In shallower bays, Screw-pile lighthouse ironwork structures are screwed into the seabed and a low wooden structure is placed above the open framework, such as Thomas Point Shoal Lighthouse. As screw piles can be disrupted by ice, steel caisson lighthouses such as Orient Point Light are used in cold climates. Orient Long Beach Bar Light (Bug Light) is a blend of a screw pile light that was converted to a caisson light because of the threat of ice damage. Skeletal iron towers with screw-pile foundations were built on the Florida Reef along the Florida Keys, beginning with the Carysfort Reef Light in 1852.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flak_tower

      With concrete walls up to 3.5 m (11 ft) thick, their designers considered the towers to be invulnerable to attack by the standard ordnance carried by RAF heavy bombers at the time of their construction.

      The Soviets, in their assault on Berlin, found it difficult to inflict significant damage on the flak towers, even with some of the largest Soviet guns, such as the 203 mm M1931 howitzers.

      After the war, the demolition of the towers was often considered not feasible and many remain to this day, with some having been converted for alternative use.

    • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      At least don’t fucking rebuild it the same way, with the same materials, as the last half dozen times.

      Sink some footings down deep, cast the walls out of concrete (you can still put fancy shit up on the concrete to make it look nice, but the concrete will be a fuckton stronger against wind/water/etc)

    • RagnarokOnline@programming.dev
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      2 days ago

      I know some people from Clearwater and I think they’d just say “this is our community and our home”. It doesn’t make logical sense, but I’d say a lot about the town a person decides to live in is emotional over practical (unless you move somewhere for a job).

      • catloaf@lemm.ee
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        2 days ago

        Well it might be where you live but there ain’t gonna be any home or community there much longer

  • x00za@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 day ago

    Here in Europe we don’t get such hurricanes, but we still build very sturdy houses. Why don’t people in these American areas do this too?

    • RBWells@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      That’s a good question. We do, now. But most of us can’t buy a new house, so we live in an older house. We don’t have a stone quarry anywhere nearby, so no tradition of stone houses, more frame houses because it’s hot and there wasn’t air conditioning so we built ventilated lighter houses that were cooler in the summer, there are still a lot of them around.

      Yes, home hardening is one factor and even here in Florida, the building codes have been updated and the state provides matching funds for making improvements to existing houses (you apply, it can take some years to get to the front of the line) we got storm windows this way, and we got a strong metal roof when we needed to replace the roof covering. It just takes a really long time to change out or update the stock of houses.

      And also, even though it seems like houses are getting knocked down every 5 minutes, there are still houses in Tampa built around 1900, it’s not that common in most cities. I was born here, am over 50 and haven’t even had to evacuate yet, assume it’s coming eventually but is not a frequent event here. Last direct hit around 1925.

      People are so flippant about “just move” but I was born here, have seen the city get better, love it, have a good job, most of our kids still live nearby, its really expensive to move anywhere and pretty nice here most of the time still, and as a climatologist told my kid when they asked, probably will be ok through their lifetime.

      • Tja@programming.dev
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        23 hours ago

        Stone houses? Are you thinking of castles?

        In Europe most houses are made of brick and/or concrete, no need for a quarry anywhere nearby.

        Also, the heavier the house the better it does when it’s hot. In hot places of Europe, traditional houses had very thick walls, small windows and are painted bright colors to reflect light (and heat).

        • RBWells@lemmy.world
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          20 hours ago

          Honestly my image was of some Italian village posted yesterday on Lemmy that looked like it was made of stone. Or Osgiliath.

          I do also remember houses with thatched roofs in England though, those don’t seem like they would survive a storm.

          • RunawayFixer@lemmy.world
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            7 hours ago

            Those are historical buildings, this discussion was about new construction.

            Historically people used to use what was locally available. Most of Italy has plenty of stones, that were also easily accessible, so regular people could build out of stone. But in other regions of Europe there were no stones lying about, so cheap houses were being build out of mud + straw, more expensive ones out of brick and much more expensive ones from imported stones.

            Thatched roofs will survive storms without issue. The reason why they aren’t used anymore except by rich people is cost: very labor intensive to place and on top of that the thatching has to be replaced every x years. They made sense when labor was cheap and transporting heavy goods expensive.

        • x00za@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          19 hours ago

          We did indeed have a lot of brickyards many moons ago. And they required clay quarries which you can still see all over Europe.

      • x00za@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 day ago

        Thanks for the in depth answer. I hadn’t thought of there being no easy stone mines.

        I’m sad that I’m getting downvoted for simply trying to understand the current housing situation.

      • TokenBoomer@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        Be skeptical:

        Without adaptation strategies, the following conditions will likely incur substantial social and economic costs:

        • Flooding of streets, homes, businesses, hospitals, schools, emergency shelters, etc.,
        • Shoreline and beach erosion,
        • Impacts to the operations of coastal drainage systems,
        • Impairment of coastal water supplies and coastal water treatment facilities and infrastructure, and
        • Shifts in habitats and reduced ecosystem services. source

        Might be worth it to get a second climatologist opinion.

    • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
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      17 hours ago

      You answered your own question lol. Your “sturdy houses” would also get fucking wrecked by a hurricane or tornado or earthquake or wildfire. We expect our buildings to get destroyed every so often.

      • x00za@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        15 hours ago

        Yeah talking with you is not worth it. We’ve had very hard hurricanes and even earthquakes too. Just less strong.

      • RunawayFixer@lemmy.world
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        13 hours ago

        Relative to the cardboard houses in the usa, houses in Europe are indeed very sturdy. Our concrete houses might not be designed for hurricanes, but they would still fare way better than a house entirely build from stud walls. It’s always a bit of a wonder to us that in the usa, houses are being built in a manner that will not survive the next storm. And that that is allowed. The downside of the sturdier European houses is that they take longer and cost more to build, which is also why the average house is smaller.

        Here’s some obversations from an American engineer travelling in Europe: https://forstconsultingllc.com/blog/european-vs-american-home-construction/

        • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
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          9 hours ago

          Our concrete houses might not be designed for hurricanes, but they would still fare way better than a house entirely build from stud walls.

          You only think that because you have no experience with them. Hurricanes demolish concrete and brick buildings just the same as wood, and floods don’t care what the material is.

          • RunawayFixer@lemmy.world
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            8 hours ago

            Hmm, who to believe on this subject. You, or the constructional engineer that travelled on both sides of the pond. Tough call ;)

    • IMNOTCRAZYINSTITUTION@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      even cheapo plywood and cardboard houses cost a fortune so construction companies don’t build with stronger materials because no one would buy the house. that’s my armchair opinion at least.

      • Treczoks@lemmy.world
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        23 hours ago

        Funny, though, that cheap sticks and cardboard houses like they are common in the US are a rarity here in Europe. Reinforced concrete basements are the norm here, and the rest of any halfway modern house (from the last 80+ years) is brick and mortar. My house has 30cm walls made from concrete blocks, and this is no outlier.

    • Novi@sh.itjust.works
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      1 day ago

      They mostly don’t own anything. Either a rich person or a company owns where they live.

      • x00za@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 day ago

        No need to hate on capitalistic America that much. My question is also relevant for companies and landlords that would build houses for other people to live in.

        • Death_Equity@lemmy.world
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          18 hours ago

          They want cheap houses to rent because it means lower investment and faster time to profit.

          They have insurance, so they don’t care if a hurricane removes it or damages it because they can fix it up and charge more once it is fixed or rebuilt.

  • solsangraal@lemmy.zip
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    2 days ago

    as if you didn’t have enough reasons to get the fuck out of florida already. leaving that shithole state was the best thing i’ve ever done, not just for my mental health, but apparently physical safety also

    • frog_brawler@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      My moving date was literally scheduled for this upcoming Friday… I pick up the u-haul on Tuesday, and my lease in Colorado starts on Tuesday of next week. This thing is trying to keep me here in hell.