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There's also political pressure in the opposite direction, from the construction industry. I heard a lecture once by a structural engineer who had worked in hu

There's also political pressure in the opposite direction, from the construction industry. I heard a lecture once by a structural engineer who had worked in hurricane alleys in Florida. He said there was a cycle of tightening up rules (for instance on the number of nails needed to hold down a roof) after big storms, then relaxing them as the years went by. Without a big storm to remind people just why the rules were tightened up, there was inevitable pressure to relax them in order to make it cheaper to build. This is more off-topic, but another interesting thing he said was that you could get a sense of maximum local wind speeds by looking at airstream-type trailers. They are, as you might expect, extremely well engineered to resist the sorts of wind pressures you get at highway speeds, so winds of 60-80mph don't tend to rip the hide off them. But you get above a certain threshold, and they all tend to give way at once.

OstiaAntica 16y ago
Florida is an interesting example. If development patterns there were left to market forces, the coasts of Florida would not be as significantly developed. Insurance costs would prohibit it. But the state's insurance regulations control prices and force inland homeowners to subsidize the insurance rates of coastal homeowners. Even worse, as insurance companies flee this distorted market, the state stepped in and now runs its own insurance company, which is building a massively underfunded risk portfolio. Literally the state of Florida is at risk of bankruptcy if another hurricane Andrew hits. Another factor is, if the storm is big enough, the feds step in with FEMA and bailout people who are underinsured. People living in Florida's hurricane alley pay nowhere near the cost of the risk of living there, and the result is overbuilding, and catastrophic property losses when the big one eventually does hit.
- sbov 16y ago
  Sorta like earthquakes in the SF bay area. Humans aren't rational. Considering relatively few people actually get earthquake insurance in California, I'm sure theres some level of the cognotive dissonance by many of those who agree with the main thrust of your point.
  - dantheman 16y ago
    They are rational in this case. They are getting others to cover the expense of their lifestyle. If someone is going to bail you out why would you bother not living as you'd like.
stretchwithme 16y ago
Which is also counteracted by simple self interest on the part of people that don't want to die in their homes. Some of us, even those who rent, do consider what might happen in a disaster and choose to live in sturdier structures. Its true that government standards get tightened and relaxed, just as they do in banking. Which is probably a good reason not to rely upon them. They are dumbed-down, lowest common denominator standards anyway.
- electromagnetic 16y ago
  I'm from the UK where virtually all houses are double-brick walls. I moved to Canada and even though (or rather especially because) I work in the siding industry (side note: the irony of a man who had never seen 'siding' being a competent siding installer has been pointed out many times) I have a rule that I'll only live in a brick-walled house for the simple reason that everywhere has ridiculously large and old trees. These trees tend to fall in big storms. In the past year I've seen ~5 houses where a tree has fallen and is resting on the 1st story brick wall and I can only hope no one was in the bedrooms at the time. In a recent storm I saw a tree that had visibly fallen against a fully brick house and had merely slid down the wall. The house stood almost immaculate (aside from the smeared wall), with a broken window and a crushed fence. I have noticed that roofers here in Ontario are rather lax in competency here. My in-laws townhouse just got re-shingled and they lost an entire shingle sheet (it had never been touched by a nail). Their neighbour in the building lost two shingles, one above the other, on a joint in the plywood and above the black-paper. They're lucky the management company got on the ass of the roofers and got it fixed as we got hit by about 50mm that weekend. It's not just roofers. We've done a lot of runs out to repair siding jobs. We've seen entire siding sheets that had been installed with a single nail. They'll do like 2-3 rows with barely more than a nail per sheet and then nail an entire row properly, but because there's so much weight on the row that's nailed correctly that heavy-winds can cause the sheets to stretch and then when a big gust hits it can pop the sheet out of the lock.
  - ovi256 16y ago
    B-b-b-but the shards from the broken window could have hurt you just as well! Seriously, being used to solid reinforced concrete or brick buildings, building shoddy wood structures covered with paper-thin siding in tornado or hurricane alleys and then crying your eyes out when the inevitable happens is almost funny.

OstiaAntica 16y ago

Florida is an interesting example. If development patterns there were left to market forces, the coasts of Florida would not be as significantly developed. Insurance costs would prohibit it. But the state's insurance regulations control prices and force inland homeowners to subsidize the insurance rates of coastal homeowners. Even worse, as insurance companies flee this distorted market, the state stepped in and now runs its own insurance company, which is building a massively underfunded risk portfolio. Literally the state of Florida is at risk of bankruptcy if another hurricane Andrew hits. Another factor is, if the storm is big enough, the feds step in with FEMA and bailout people who are underinsured. People living in Florida's hurricane alley pay nowhere near the cost of the risk of living there, and the result is overbuilding, and catastrophic property losses when the big one eventually does hit.

sbov 16y ago
Sorta like earthquakes in the SF bay area. Humans aren't rational. Considering relatively few people actually get earthquake insurance in California, I'm sure theres some level of the cognotive dissonance by many of those who agree with the main thrust of your point.
- dantheman 16y ago
  They are rational in this case. They are getting others to cover the expense of their lifestyle. If someone is going to bail you out why would you bother not living as you'd like.

stretchwithme 16y ago

Which is also counteracted by simple self interest on the part of people that don't want to die in their homes. Some of us, even those who rent, do consider what might happen in a disaster and choose to live in sturdier structures. Its true that government standards get tightened and relaxed, just as they do in banking. Which is probably a good reason not to rely upon them. They are dumbed-down, lowest common denominator standards anyway.

electromagnetic 16y ago
I'm from the UK where virtually all houses are double-brick walls. I moved to Canada and even though (or rather especially because) I work in the siding industry (side note: the irony of a man who had never seen 'siding' being a competent siding installer has been pointed out many times) I have a rule that I'll only live in a brick-walled house for the simple reason that everywhere has ridiculously large and old trees. These trees tend to fall in big storms. In the past year I've seen ~5 houses where a tree has fallen and is resting on the 1st story brick wall and I can only hope no one was in the bedrooms at the time. In a recent storm I saw a tree that had visibly fallen against a fully brick house and had merely slid down the wall. The house stood almost immaculate (aside from the smeared wall), with a broken window and a crushed fence. I have noticed that roofers here in Ontario are rather lax in competency here. My in-laws townhouse just got re-shingled and they lost an entire shingle sheet (it had never been touched by a nail). Their neighbour in the building lost two shingles, one above the other, on a joint in the plywood and above the black-paper. They're lucky the management company got on the ass of the roofers and got it fixed as we got hit by about 50mm that weekend. It's not just roofers. We've done a lot of runs out to repair siding jobs. We've seen entire siding sheets that had been installed with a single nail. They'll do like 2-3 rows with barely more than a nail per sheet and then nail an entire row properly, but because there's so much weight on the row that's nailed correctly that heavy-winds can cause the sheets to stretch and then when a big gust hits it can pop the sheet out of the lock.
- ovi256 16y ago
  B-b-b-but the shards from the broken window could have hurt you just as well! Seriously, being used to solid reinforced concrete or brick buildings, building shoddy wood structures covered with paper-thin siding in tornado or hurricane alleys and then crying your eyes out when the inevitable happens is almost funny.