Yea it's not complicated. Joe - My $400k house got demolished. Insurance gave me $400k for it. Codes - Your new house will cost $600k. Joe - Welp.
Most of these houses are older and are 2nd family homes. Good luck getting all of the siblings to agree on throwing in thousands to renovate.
Another factor is that the houses built 30-50 years ago.........lasted 30-50 years without hurricane building codes. At this point in time, the only solution is to implement the tougher building codes. People will have to rebuild smaller houses. There's really not a good solution here.
I'm all for true new construction being forced to a certain code. Rebuilds should be grandfathered in though. Or at least somewhere in the middle.
Everyone looks at the houses 100 feet from the water and focus on those. Yes, those are nice big houses. Go 1000 feet inland and it's shacks and trailers. It's a very poor area overall.
A lot of those people will not rebuild in the area. My wife’s grandmother lost her house about 6 rows back outside Gulfport during Katrina and then bought a house 30 miles inland in nowhere MS. Still nothing on her old lot now.
yup. because they played Russian roulette for for 30-50 years and kept hitting blanks. Their luck ran out. When it comes to hurricanes in Florida, eventually everyone's luck runs out. great idea. Let's let everyone rebuild similar to what they just had. Then we can do this all over again next time a storm hits. I get it. Lower income families need affordable housing. So we are lax on the building codes but when a storm hits, all of their homes are destroyed along with anything they had in it. Now they have to start over with nothing, but let's put them right back into substandard houses that they can afford and just start the game of russian roulette all over again. At some point you have to do the right thing and require these homes to be built to withstand a hurricane. Yea, it will be tougher to afford and rent will be higher, but at least these people will be able to ride out a hurricane without worrying they will lose absolutely everything.
Most homes are built to codes that will have them withstand a hurricane. But a once a century type hurricane is something different.
What's your solution? Just have the people that have had homes there for 50 years forced to move out bc they can't pay a 50% increase over what they had their home insured for to rebuild it according a new code?
I get what you're saying, but in the grand scheme, less than 10bps of Florida had damage they can't afford to pay out of pocket. There's just not a really great solution. Subsidize the rebuilds? Lol Make everyone rebuild to code? Loss in local and state tax as people move and spend their money in other states.
It happened to thousands of people in SFL after Andrew. Guess what, we rebuilt and now we are ready for anything. Yes, some people will had to move, but now our homes are safe and if the big one comes again, you won't see images like the ones you have been seeing for the past week.
South Florida gets storms like this semi-regularly. The panhandle doesn't. Applying codes from one area to another bc they are in the same state is dumb.
cool. so let's keep playing russian roulette. Nevermind that the gulf of mexico is one of the warmest bodies of water around and a perfect breeding ground for "the big one"
Counterpoint: you make people build to a certain code after major storms regardless of who's doing it and eventually you won't have homes getting completely leveled.
It'll still happen. Because homes last a really really long time. Unless you want to to and knock them down in order to rebuild thwm.
This is dumb. The panhandle is at risk for hurricanes just as much as South Florida. Big ones hit all the time up and down the entire Gulf Coast.
It's like saying this part of Southern California is a little less likely to get major earthquakes so let's not worry about building homes to withstand major earthquakes that happen once every 30-50 years instead of once every 10-20 years.
I hear you, just know by doing it that the vast majority of the people that live there won't be able to rebuild. They'll be forced out and the land will sit empty for a while.
Is that the worst thing? It's terrible for those people, to be sure. But is it worse displacing some people because they can't afford to rebuild or allowing them to rebuild a structure (with maybe people inside) that will possibly to probably be destroyed again in their kids' lifetimes?
There are storms but they are much more spread out. Most storms cross South Florida before they get into the Gulf. From there they can go anywhere. South Florida gets hit way more often than any particular place on the Gulf Coast.
I mean, New Orleans still shouldn't even be a thing. Some places need to have higher standards to even be habitable or you're placing people in danger.
And it's not just the coast. We have as much data as we've ever had about natural disaster patterns. We shouldn't really ignore them anywhere.
Miami hasn't been directly hit by a major hurricane since 1992. Your statement is false. Ivan, Harvey, Camille, Rita, Dennis, Frederic,Opal, Charley all hit the Gulf Coast without crossing South Florida just off the top of my head.
Mexico Beach was habitable for those families for 100+ years but now it's not bc a once in a 100 years storm hit there and now you want them priced out of their land. That just doesn't sit well with me. Should they be built better than they wewre 50 years ago? Sure. Should they be forced to withstand a 250 mph storm? I think that's a bit much.
Are we just assuming the new construction homes can't take a reasonable hurricane because homes from 1965 got destroyed? Or do we have actual data on it?
I've had family live in Vero Beach for 50 years. Vero hadn't been hit by a hurricane until twice in the same summer in '04. Guess what codes are used now to rebuild.
I went to Pablo Escobar's house once and one time someone set off a couple hundred pounds of tnt underneath it and it took it like a champ. We should build them like that
then unfortunately they will have to live further inland or somewhere they can afford. Long term it is better then having them play russian roulette every summer until inevitably the gun goes boom. In my lifetime, Andrew devastated Homestead/Miami, Katrina devastated New Orleans, Harvey devastated Houston, and Matthew devastated the panhandle. I'm sure i'm forgetting others.
Why are we ignoring the fact that hurricanes are likely to increase in frequency and severity due to global warming?
The problem is how those homes are constructed. Wood frame homes with vinyl sidings are't built for hurricanes. Homes in Florida within a certain distance from the coast need to be cement block.
Are you in favor of every home in Houston and NOLA being built on stilts to avoid the flooding that may or may not come in 100 years?
those are the rules in the keys. If you are in a sure fire flood zone during a storm, stilts are a necessity.