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That's like saying one could expect New Orleans not to flood during hurricanes. There are problems. There is money you can throw at those problems. And there
by ethbr1 5mo ago
That's like saying one could expect New Orleans not to flood during hurricanes.
There are problems.
There is money you can throw at those problems.
And there are some problems that are rare & low impact enough that it's not worth throwing money at them.
See also: keeping snowplows in Atlanta.
- namibj 5mo agoYeah you can start by not building _more_ in the flood plain. And if you do, then don't build architecture that is incapable of just accepting the temporarily higher ground water. We know how to basement just make the basement high enough to tower over the flood. Oh, no cheap ground-level storefront windows? Welp, guess those have to be elevated above sufficiently voluminous drainage channels (the former streets).
- ethbr1 5mo agoOr in Florida's case, mandate hurricane ties on timber homes so they can't lift off their slabs. One of the things that annoys me most about non-engineering mindsets is not looking at problems from a multivariate optimization perspective. There are problems, and then there are always more variables to be balanced to optimally solve them than people expect. The critical additional ones, more often than not: time and money.
- mschuster91 5mo ago> Or in Florida's case, mandate hurricane ties on timber homes so they can't lift off their slabs. That doesn't mitigate much. The mass of a paper and matchsticks "house" just isn't enough to resist it getting torn apart - if not by the wind, then by debris. The only kind of structure able to survive a dead-on hit is steel bar reinforced concrete or very, very solidly built brick-and-mortar. But that is expensive to build.
- ndsipa_pomu 5mo agoIf people are going to build cheap houses, it makes sense to spend a little bit more on adding the hurricane ties (it's not like they're expensive or difficult to use). It might not be perfect, but it's surely better than just relying on gravity.
- cucumber3732842 5mo agoExplain to the class where the water is gonna get all that momentum from. Florida is flat. The storm surge goes up (and a whole bunch of water falls on top of it). The storm surge goes down. This isn't some river bursting it's banks. Between the requirements imposed by needing to resist hurricane winds and the slab ties it's "good enough" that there's a 99.9999% chance the building will stay on it's foundation long enough for something else to be the problem.
- jdmichal 5mo ago> The storm surge goes up (and a whole bunch of water falls on top of it). The storm surge goes down. This isn't some river bursting it's banks. FEMA has a flood rating specifically for exactly this situation: V. They have this because it carries additional hazards beyond normal flooding seen with storms. > Coastal areas with a 1% or greater chance of flooding and an additional hazard associated with storm waves. These areas have a 26% chance of flooding over the life of a 30‐year mortgage. And here's a video about researchers at the Oregon State University's Wave Lab studying this exact thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2HSFJOzQQ8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2HSFJOzQQ8