• Treczoks@lemmy.world
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    1 hour ago

    Originally they thought that Helene would be a cat 3, too.

    But the Democrats aim with the Hurricane machine proclaimed by MTG is getting better. Maybe the third try actually turns Mar-a-Lago into a pile of rubble.

  • LillyPip@lemmy.ca
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    11 hours ago

    Saw an article yesterday interviewing a couple who says they’ll now have to rebuild their beachfront house for the third time, and that their second rebuild wasn’t even finished when Helene sent their house surfing down the street. That their insurance won’t cover it.

    I’m flabbergasted that anyone would even consider rebuilding there. You’re lucky to even have insurance – most insurance companies have been fleeing the state.

    Here’s a radical idea: don’t rebuild there. This is only going to get worse.

    • WoodScientist@lemmy.world
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      3 hours ago

      Or more to the point. If you have the money to build a beachfront house, why are you not building it to be virtually indestructible? Like one of those indestructible monolithic dome homes.

      We can build concrete structures that will laugh at hurricanes. We can build them with their living areas raised well above the ground so water can simply flow underneath and around them. Sure, it’s more expensive to build this way, but it can be done. And really, I would argue that if you can’t afford to build such a home, you simply cannot afford to live right on the beach.

      • Dainterhawk999@lemmy.world
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        1 hour ago

        Even in UK, houses are made of brick and concrete which have the ability to withstand flood and hurricane to a certain level

      • DaPorkchop_@lemmy.ml
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        3 hours ago

        I always wonder what’s going on in the heads of Americans when they go to an area notorious for being hit by hurricanes or tornadoes and then decide they should build their house out of basically toothpicks with some plaster. Here in Switzerland, pretty much everything except for maybe a garden shed is poured concrete, and I guarantee that if the folks in Florida or Oklahoma did the same the “devastation” would be comparatively tiny.

        • LustyArgonianMana@lemmy.world
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          45 minutes ago

          How arrogant of you.

          Florida is a little different than Switzerland, not least due to weather and poverty. There indeed ARE fully concrete and hemp-crete type homes (many styles of homes), but they are unpopular (but becoming more popular) because they trap damp (Florida is extremely humid, unlike Switzerland), grow mold, don’t breathe, and cause sickness. Since 2005, all newly built homes are required to have concrete and rebar at certain areas including windows and doors.

          https://www.etr-aw.com/full-concrete-homes/

          They also are prone to cracking due to shifting. The lower blocks can absorb water, either through these cracks or cracks in waterproofing like paint, and then leak with every heavy rain. Cement (a component of concrete) is one of the largest CO2 emitters in its production, and cement dust is carcinogenic. Concrete houses that are flooded (eyewitnesses report up to 25-50feet of water height) will have to be gutted and possibly torn down anyway once flooded, since the flooding itself ruins everything and makes it unsafe. Since you’ll have to gut the whole thing anyway, may as well use wood which can be replaced more easily.

          Tornados (since you mentioned Oklahoma) can punch a 2x4 board through a concrete wall. Concrete isn’t a Kevlar vest house against all weather types and it isn’t an ideal material either for building in every climate.

          If the people who were flooded had stayed because they had concrete houses, even more would have died, but instead drowned in a concrete box. This was a storm that needed evacuation.

    • Sir_Kevin@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 hour ago

      I was just driving around the beaches of Pinellas County (Tampa Bay area) today. Entire neighborhoods are destroyed. Beach front condos, restaurants and stores, also destroyed. In many areas, anything ground level got flooded/wrecked by storm surge. I saw several boats in places there are not supposed to be boats.

      If Tampa Bay takes a direct hit right now it’s going to be really fuckin bad for a lot of people.

      What’s also scary is that right now everyone has been piling up debris, ruined appliances and all manor of belongings outside for disposal. Piles ten feet high along every street. All this shit is about to be flying around in hurricane force winds and storm surge. Is a recipe for disaster.

      • yeahiknow3@lemmings.world
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        7 hours ago

        Huston is one of the most populated cities in the US and it’s built on a swamp. Everyone acts super surprised when it floods semi-annually, like it’s some kind of tragedy as opposed to basic physics.

        Next thing you know Arizona will start complaining that they’ve run out of water. I mean, yes? You’re in the desert. Your choices were to fix the climate, move, or die. Instead you’ve built a gigantic parking lot of a city.

        There should be no aid whatsoever for natural disasters that strike predictably on a regular basis. Human beings aren’t dumb animals. We can communicate. Also Florida, Louisiana, and Texas literally voted for global warming. They got what they voted for so what is the issue?

        Actions have consequences. We failed to act for a century. That’s how long we’ve known with absolute certainty that the climate was fucked. We put people on the moon, and we went to war with Iraq, but heaven forbid people stop eating meat, driving their precious cars, or taking pleasure cruises. Zero. Pity.

    • Rhaedas@fedia.io
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      10 hours ago

      They also had sunk all their savings into that rebuild. How do you think about trying a third time when you have nothing to even work with?

      • solsangraal@lemmy.zip
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        10 hours ago

        this might be a shock, but: in florida there are a lot of stupid people with a lot of money but don’t know what the fuck they’re doing with money

        these people likely also bought spray painted gold sneakers not too long ago

        • yeahiknow3@lemmings.world
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          7 hours ago

          The best way to prepare yourself psychologically for the next fifty years of ecological catastrophe is to cling to this fact and save your pity for people who matter.

      • LillyPip@lemmy.ca
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        10 hours ago

        Yeah, I don’t get it, except the couple I saw (maybe you saw the same interview, there seem to be several of these) acted like this is just a bad year for weather and they ‘don’t want to think’ about climate change. They at least seem the type who don’t think it’s real.

        I feel for rescue units who can’t leave, and who will likely be rescuing these stubborn cunts when the next massive storm of the year hits them.

    • YtA4QCam2A9j7EfTgHrH@infosec.pub
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      10 hours ago

      I don’t know if this is the case for that couple, but a lot of insurance requires that you rebuild on the same location. We need to change laws so that this isn’t the case anymore. It is a massive problem.

    • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world
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      8 hours ago

      At least don’t fucking rebuild it the same way, with the same materials, as the last half dozen times.

      Sink some footings down deep, cast the walls out of concrete (you can still put fancy shit up on the concrete to make it look nice, but the concrete will be a fuckton stronger against wind/water/etc)

    • tal@lemmy.today
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      10 hours ago

      I mean, you can probably build a house that can reliably survive the conditions there. It’s just gonna be really expensive and may not look all that pretty.

      It’s gonna have to handle water up to a certain height and wind-blown debris smashing into it.

      Like, think of a lighthouse or flak tower or something.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lighthouse

      Sometimes a lighthouse needs to be constructed in the water itself. Wave-washed lighthouses are masonry structures constructed to withstand water impact, such as Eddystone Lighthouse in Britain and the St. George Reef Light of California. In shallower bays, Screw-pile lighthouse ironwork structures are screwed into the seabed and a low wooden structure is placed above the open framework, such as Thomas Point Shoal Lighthouse. As screw piles can be disrupted by ice, steel caisson lighthouses such as Orient Point Light are used in cold climates. Orient Long Beach Bar Light (Bug Light) is a blend of a screw pile light that was converted to a caisson light because of the threat of ice damage. Skeletal iron towers with screw-pile foundations were built on the Florida Reef along the Florida Keys, beginning with the Carysfort Reef Light in 1852.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flak_tower

      With concrete walls up to 3.5 m (11 ft) thick, their designers considered the towers to be invulnerable to attack by the standard ordnance carried by RAF heavy bombers at the time of their construction.

      The Soviets, in their assault on Berlin, found it difficult to inflict significant damage on the flak towers, even with some of the largest Soviet guns, such as the 203 mm M1931 howitzers.

      After the war, the demolition of the towers was often considered not feasible and many remain to this day, with some having been converted for alternative use.

    • RagnarokOnline@programming.dev
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      10 hours ago

      I know some people from Clearwater and I think they’d just say “this is our community and our home”. It doesn’t make logical sense, but I’d say a lot about the town a person decides to live in is emotional over practical (unless you move somewhere for a job).

      • catloaf@lemm.ee
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        10 hours ago

        Well it might be where you live but there ain’t gonna be any home or community there much longer

  • solsangraal@lemmy.zip
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    10 hours ago

    as if you didn’t have enough reasons to get the fuck out of florida already. leaving that shithole state was the best thing i’ve ever done, not just for my mental health, but apparently physical safety also

    • frog_brawler@lemmy.world
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      7 hours ago

      My moving date was literally scheduled for this upcoming Friday… I pick up the u-haul on Tuesday, and my lease in Colorado starts on Tuesday of next week. This thing is trying to keep me here in hell.

  • Billiam@lemmy.world
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    9 hours ago

    Maybe if all those sinful woke communist homosexuals would leave Florida, God wouldn’t have to keep sending hurricanes to punish all the good God-fearing patriots for tolerating their iniquities! /s

  • TheTechnician27@lemmy.world
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    10 hours ago

    Climate change is a bitch, huh, Republicans who’ve spent thirty years denying it? (My heart goes out to all the people in the southeast who actually didn’t spend decades denying its existence and hampering efforts to slow it.)

  • assembly@lemmy.world
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    10 hours ago

    Wow that GOP rep that said democrats created the hurricane is going to have to start working overtime to sell the argument again. At some point the people in the red states must start to wonder why it’s so coincidental that the predictions from the left (science) keep coming true.

    • Treczoks@lemmy.world
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      1 hour ago

      Well, at least their aim is much closer to Mar-a-Lago this time. Maybe the next major hurricane gets the direction right, and then the Democrats will dial it up to a cat5 or better! /s

    • catloaf@lemm.ee
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      10 hours ago

      You presume that that information reaches them and that they’re willing to consider it.

  • LordCrom@lemmy.world
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    8 hours ago

    Well shit. I’ll have to put up the shutters 1 week after taking them down.

    My poor garden. All I can think of is all the fruit and veggies that are gonna get blown away

    • azimir@lemmy.ml
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      10 hours ago

      Gotta protect those gas stoves, oversized pickups, generally fucking everything up out of anger, and fighting culture wars instead of the class war keeping us all in the gutter.

  • vegeta@lemmy.world
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    10 hours ago

    Those damn democrats and their weather control devices are trying tontake out Trump.

    /s