TIED DOWN HOUSE IS HURRICANE PROOF (Mar, 1933)
I’d say these people drastically underestimate the power of a hurricane.
TIED DOWN HOUSE IS HURRICANE PROOF
Even the force of a hurricane will not unroof the house of one Florida home owner, or sweep it from its foundations, for the house is tied down. After witnessing the disastrous experiences of some of his neighbors in wind storms, this man passed steel cables over his roof and anchored their ends securely in the ground. Turnbuckles provided a means of taking up the slack in the cables and making them taut. The photograph above shows the owner putting the finishing touches to his installation.
Right……. that will work. Not.
People still use that method in the Caribbean. It helps in some cases, for a cabin or a bungalow for example. I’ve seen it used last year in Guadeloupe when hurricane Dean was approaching the island.
I’ve seen this done with a two story house in my Florida Keys neighborhood, except the house owner used very large ratchet straps.
I can see how this would make a difference, since a large part of the upgrades to construction codes to help homes resist hurricane force winds was straps to more strongly connect the roof edges and overhangs to the walls.
Unfortunately, much of the damage from a hurricane comes from water. Many houses did fine through Hurricane Wilma’s winds, but were destroyed when the water surged and flooded.
This is really not a lot different than the tie down straps you can get for new house construction, though it is not nearly as good. See http://www.fema.gov/pla… for some more stuff about storm sheltering.