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Show A3 DAILY HERALD Sunday. September 26. 2004 Honda's catastrophic hurricane season is boon stormdesignin g proof houses engnprs Matt Gwiso!JyS:li trededto the enrage, where 1 Fla. :1 At4" ay &e bant6j)rajr. glapoeiyouUnevelai tot," 1 KdtfellsBrevatL'Tm thanking wi :POtmdiwt this dace fast 1 pitJtoOTte .pjQiBgEEZE, fat r $ 4.4'. God ta ihyjtonees wnen a nurncane makes, KJhree days after Hurricane m 5jane of the onetory $ & tchousestathis nebor. f' a hntf Wy,2 frnrtt tiut ' 4 I am atye.". ,' - .r 4 - , yA - - h ; ' " ' -- . continental United . . 7 , . atestPrevattandhiscoi-- i ' jTiiln mfhe Florida Coastal wmer iHve si paicnes oi onitoring Program are out , ' raluatint; which construction 4 ddttMliie J meinoas Dest protect, names toceabrsi V1 brand'cul de sacs. BirJ T2. fjorfl the tremendous wind yerybody's wiqdw art Vv'liftrSW the storms deliver. Th6r ? progrtanis sj)pjisored by thr fact, the spindly trees arqflp-jFlorida Depajtaient of right and kids art! Pitying in ' ' c ryIdoprQentandstaffed Then Mary Kort throws oped I bjr scientists fromX3emson, the , ofFfcHda, Florida In- hrfro; Tor jykh flourish.'-JLtfnwer-arJiiic 4 iine that would vternatkmaMmjjfersityandthe''' v 'i Iristitutefor Business and Home cable TV" perkiest- - fe;er uxtut makeover queen cataton-fe- f Safety, ah insurance industry Slabs of soggy ceiling sit in research center in Tampa. "If we can define the wind thmiMerf trie Bving room. I insulation teats eyery- forces, then as engineers we believe we can design something adrsliversof sun- DAVID J. PHIUIPAssociated Press ; that will withstand these the 'i; b , forces," says Tim Reinhold, vice JoAnna Wallb teoks throulicr grandmother's home, which was damaged by Hurricane Ivan in "ftieWkrhfe would hap- president of engineering at the Gulf Breeze, Fla., near Pensacola, on Sept. 17. Institute for Business and pen," says Kort. "It's trashed" Dave Prevatt smiles ruefully Home Safety. seven-yea- r and shakes his head. He's heard Established after Hurricane direction in all three dimenpickup, then extended the four history. In past words like those before. steel legs that can keep the sions. Three of the program's Andrew socked an unprepared years the engineers have been 6,000-poun-d A professor of civil engineerSouth Florida in 1992 with an tower from topfour portable weather stations hicky to see one hurricane-strengt-h h winds. They estimated $26 billion in damage, pling in also have two smaller towers storm hit the U.S. ing at Qemson University, Prevatt is here to see which houses the program sets up portable in- tested the instruments and that are set 50 and 100 feet mainland, but so far in 2004 withstood the tremendous struments along stretches of winched the tower up to its full from the main one in order to there have been three. forces of Hurricane Ivan, and coast where hurricanes are h 3Woot height. determine how much territory First Charley, a compact how they differed from the Towers like this one can measudden gusts cover. whirlwind that hit Floripoised to come ashore. Engiones that didn't. neers erect weather towers that sure wind motions in much The monitoring program has da's west coast communities of . Unlike many of her neighmake detailed measurements of greater detail than standard mealso wired up more than 30 Punta Gorda and Port Charlotte the hurricane's winds. They homes along Florida's coast so with enough force to damage bors, Kort stayed put the night teorological instruments, exIvan rolled through. So she can learn about the forces that 12,000 homes. After that storm plained Kurt Gurley, a professor they can be quickly outfitted tell Prevatt exactly how this houses are subjected to by of civil engineering at the Uni-- . with rooftop pressure sensors the researchers were relieved that measure the forces exerted to see that homes constructed happened putting pressure sensors on versiry of Florida. When meteoWith her husband and a since Florida's most recent on the buildings during the their roofs. rologists talk about a storm's For the research team, the maximum wind speeds, they're storm. In return for their hospi-- . building code revision suffered friencvhe watched Ivan's winds accelerate to more than hours before a hurricane are a little or no damage. The 2001 citing readings of the air's horitality the homeowners get free zontal flow taken in a single lohurricane protection retrofits, code requires nailing instead of lOOmph. Around that time the frenzy of driving and speedy screen enclosure on the back of construction. As Ivan's outercation at intervals. including storm shutters and stapling roof shingles, reinthe house ceased to be. most fringes blustered into MoBut in a hurricane, the most sometimes even new roofs. forced connections between a "It was, like, scooped up," For Ivan, the program's engihome's roof and walls, and feabile, Ala., four researchers damaging winds are gusts that Kort says, her eyes wide. This were scrambling to put up a last a few seconds or less. They neers mounted pressure sentures such as hurricane shutters is clearfy a woman who is don't come in a smooth horizonsors on 10 homes along the Gulf or shatterproof windows to deportable weather tower along thankful just to be alive. the city's industrial waterfront. Coast from Seaside, Fla., to the tal flow, but in localized fend against flying debris. Water started leaking After cruising around lookdowndrafts or swirling Alabama line. Then they sped "The new Florida building eddies that might demolish one east on Interstate 10 in a mad codes have really helped ining for a suitable spot, they setthrough the windows and then the ceiling. Kort and her comtled on an open area just outside house without touching the one dash to get out of harm's way. crease the safety and decrease fence surroundnext door. the chain-lin-k "With all this storm chasing the amount of damage overall," panions started putting buckets and trash cans under the leaks, To capture all that chaotic we've been doing, we've just ing the Mobile airport. For the says Jason Smart, a project ennext hour they were all socket but soon there were too many about had it," Gurley says. motion, the engineers mount gineer with the Institute for to keep up with. wrenches and screwdrivers. two sets of gauges on their towThis year is by far the busiest , Business and Home Safety. AfThe men unhitched the trailer) When pieces of the ceiling ers at heights of 16 and 33 feet hurricane season in the Florida ter Charley, he adds, "we saw a started coming down they re-lot of failures of old structures that measure wind speed and Coastal Monitoring Program's they'd been pulling behind a x-ii- . j J.it -- r . v' .I Cominu-Kieiryard- s. j. fehtJipgTn rv?;'"-;- 200-mp- 145-mp- . ' one-minu- te SHOP SUNDAY 12PM-6P- and by old I mean 15 years that wouldn't have failed if they'd used nails" to attach the shingles. Frances, a less powerful but wetter storm than Charley, came next, causing at least $4 billion in damage as it swept across the state from east to west. Engineers found the same pattern as Charley homes built in the last few years fared far better than even slightly older ones. Then Ivan, a storm that combined Charley's ferocity with Frances' deluge. The storm barreled ashore with winds of 130 mph and sustained much of its power even miles inland Because the program started after Andrew, this was the first time the researchers have been able to study the impact of such a powerful storm in such detail And this weekend, another hurricane, Jeanne, was threatening the beleaguered state's CclSt COLSt "We'll be there," Reinhold says. All of this season's information the damage surveys, the rooftop pressure readings and the detailed meteorological obwill prove useful servations in a number of ways, Prevatt says. It will help improve the accuracy of equations that engineers use to calculate how the forces exerted on a house grow as wind speeds increase. Right now those calculations assume smooth air flow without accounting for the turbulence of hurricane winds. ' The data can also be used td improve wind tunnel tests, said Prevatt. At his Qemson laboratory, he is trying to build models of entire neighborhoods to see how the distance between houses and other factors influ-- , d ence wind damage. The information he's collecting in Florida will help improve the accuracy of those models. This research will also help engineers find the most ways to prevent houses from failing during a hurricane. If they find, for example, that lost shingles are the main cause of damage, there's no point in spending thousands of dollars making a house's walls stiffen real-worl- M T FALL W "3 S SALE jj ITSNEW! ITS EXCITING! ITS0NSALE! mi Kconrr n kmc stok, ukf sum i coos, murE Fourunoe, m I com, naurERiuntnoK, imb, n wawEAi i nura cumm, mn,l KCOOtr M hues, MO DISCOUNT on Fine Watches, Best i : . 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