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Taking Shelter From The Storm
Every year, tornadoes, hurricanes, and other extreme windstorms injure and kill people, and damage millions of dollars worth of property in the United States. Even so, more and more people build houses in tornado- and hurricane-prone areas each year. Having a shelter, or a safe room, built into your house can help protect you and your family from injury or death caused by the dangerous forces of extreme winds. It can also relieve some of the anxiety created by the threat of an oncoming tornado or hurricane. This publication gives specific design criteria and information to assist in making the decision on whether a saferoom makes sense for you.
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In-Home Protection Against High Winds Decision Guide
This decision guide is designed to assist you in making reasonable decisions about protecting you, your family, and your possessions against high winds. It can be used in assessing options in an existing home or in building a new one. It addresses the three primary options: fortifying the entire house for property protection and improved personal safety; building a Safe Room for protection for you and your family against the most extreme winds; or making a strong area for relatively inexpensive improved safety against the most probable winds in the North Carolina region.
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In Home Protection Against High Winds - Construction Details This manual is a companion to the Decision Guide. It is designed to assist builders, architects and engineers in making the right decisions on construction details in high wind areas. Every home is unique and there are no general recommendations that are universally applicable to all homes. This is not an exhaustive reference; users are encouraged to consult additional documents, especially those referenced at the end of this manual. If hazards other than wind threaten a particular site, the users are encouraged to seek references on how to construct buildings resistant to all local hazards.
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Safe Rooms Survey Report Far less than 1% of the United States population has made the decision to purchase or build a safe room for tornado protection, although a large portion of the population is in an area where tornados may occur. The goal of this report is to educate the public about what’s available to purchase and what criteria a person should consider in making a purchase of a manufactured safe room or the decision to build a shelter.
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Pitt Community College Project This report details a construction design project conducted at Pitt Community College. Two houses were built during the 2002-2003 school year and sold to the public that included hazard resistant and universal desing features suggested by Blue Sky Foundation through information and technical presentations.
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Cape Fear Community College IBHS Fortified - Universal Design Home, Fall 2005 Cape Fear Community College – Fortified and Universal Design Project: The builder training program at the college built an IBHS Fortified for Safer Living home. They also built a standard house of the same dimensions for comparison. The Fortified home included a “Strong area” for additional high wind protection and Universal or wheelchair ready features as well. Read the interesting story, see the picture details, and learn about the relatively low cost to achieve the results.
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Reroofing? Ready to Re-roof brochure: This brochure details how to take advantage of the opportunity to improve the roof wind performance when it is time to have shingles replaced. It prescribed how to improve connection of the roof deck to the rafters, how to sealing deck seams and the proper nailing patterns to use.
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Not Ready to Re-Roof? Not Ready to Re-roof brochure. This brochure provides a step-by-step process on how to improve wind performance of existing roofs using adhesives. The system developed and tested by Clemson University makes the improvements from inside the attic space without having to take apart or put holes in the existing roof.
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Window and Door Protection Window and Door Protection Brochure: This brochure provides a step-by-step decision guide on how to protect windows and doors during high winds as well as what to protect them with. Tips are provided for making your own shutters as an option.
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Blue Sky Residential High Wind Construction Manual This manual will serve as a reference for builders and engineers constructing residential structures in high wind areas. Information from the FEMA Coastal Construction Manual, the 2001 Wood Frame Construction Manual, and the SBCCI 10-99 Standard for Hurricane-Resistant Construction is synthesized in an easy-to-use format. Topics discussed include roof systems-sheathing attachment, underlayment, and shingles-as well as opening protection for windows and doors, light frame (wood and steel) construction, masonry buildings, and foundation systems. This manual is designed to assist builders; architects and engineers make the right decisions on high wind resistant construction. Every home is unique and there are no general recommendations that are universally applicable to all homes.
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2002 North Carolina Sustainable Building Design Competition: Winning Design The 2002 North Carolina Sustainable House Design competition winning design plan book is 32 pages of housing specifications and drawings. It details the solar, energy-efficient, “green” products, universal/limited mobility accessibility as well hazard resistant features in plans ready for builders and homeowners to implement. This home was designed for the Greenville area of North Carolina and is the competition winning design as modified by a team of design professional to make the plans ready for construction.
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2001 Field Evaluation of 110 North Carolina Manufactured Homes in North Carolina: Setup and Occupation Data Report North Carolina has been inundated by many hurricanes since 1996. The North Carolina Department of Insurance and North Carolina Manufactured Housing Industry have made commitments to strengthening manufactured homes in North Carolina as a result. In collaboration with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the State of North Carolina, the Blue Sky Foundation of NC Inc. initiated research on manufactured homes in coastal counties in North Carolina in 2001. Field analysis of 110 manufactured homes was done to determine vulnerability, focusing on determining how well homes were being set in place. The report also includes an occupant survey regarding hazards and things they do to protect themselves.
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2001 Field Evaluation of 110 Manufactured Housing - Procedures Manual This report is designed to document the forms, processes and protocols for fieldwork the Blue Sky Foundation did on manufactured homes in North Carolina during the summer of 2001. It is anticipated the gathered data will affect the way homes are set up and inspected in North Carolina, and perhaps throughout the United States. The gathered air infiltration and moisture data on 16 of the homes will become part of a larger data set on energy and moisture analysis in manufactured homes being conducted nationally by the Manufactured Housing Research Alliance. This report is designed to prepare for follow-up research on set-up and with these 110 homes in anticipation of future hurricanes.
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Evaluation of Energy Efficiency and Moisture Retention in Manufactured Homes in Three North Carolina Counties The Blue Sky Foundation of North Carolina Inc., in coordination with the Florida Solar Energy Center (FSEC) and the US Department of Energy, conducted an evaluation of energy efficiency and the accumulation of moisture in 16 North Carolina homes in the summer of 2001. The Blue Sky Foundation proposed that the field evaluation of energy and moisture focus on the integrity of the building envelope, duct systems and the moisture impact of un-vented space heaters. All of the homes were manufactured models located in three coastal North Carolina counties: Carteret, Dare, and New Hanover. This report details the methods used and raw data gathered. The NC results were made part of a larger study coordinated by FSEC, which analyzes this and other similar efforts.
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Final Report - Hurricane Isabel impact on 110 NC Manufactured homes The purpose of this manufactured housing evaluation project was to analyze the impact of Hurricane Isabel on 110 pre-examined North Carolina manufactured homes. This study was initiated September of 2003 to determine if any catastrophic failures may have occurred and if so, if the failures may be associated with the set-up deficiencies found in a previous 2001 field survey. The research also included a questionnaire to determine attitude or behavior of occupants during Hurricane Isabel. This occupant data was gathered to compare and validate a quantitative phone survey conducted in 2000.
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Survey of NC Residents About the Saferoom and Fortified Home Concept November through December 2000, the Survey Research Laboratory of East Carolina University evaluated the North Carolina public's opinion on two new building concepts, the safe room and the fortified or wind resistant house. A questionnaire was designed to assess the hazard conditions that concern people the most, and the special precautions they take to prepare for such events. The survey also asked specific questions regarding saferooms and wind resistant housing to scientifically assess the public's interest and consumer interest for these two new building concepts. A final analysis of the 701 completed interviews is compiled in this report.
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Saferoom / Fortified House: A Qualitative Investigation: October of 2000, MLN research conducted 4 focus groups across North Carolina for Blue Sky Foundation on the concept of safe rooms and wind resistant (fortified) homes. These focus groups were conducted to determine attitudes and perceptions regarding natural hazards, consumer reaction and preferred characteristics for the concepts of saferooms and fortified homes, demographics of most interested groups, and value proposition and price elasticity of the concepts. This work also helped determine the quantitative survey conducted by East Carolina University.
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Showcase States Workshop Showcase States for Natural Disaster Resistance and Resilience is a national model developed by the Institute for Business and Home Safety for state wide hazard protection. It is a framework for states to create public/private partnerships and engage communities in protecting people and property from natural disasters. The workshop results in North Carolina provides a working plan on how to proceed for any public/private partnership.
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A Cost-Benefit Analysis of Fortified Homes in North Carolina Owing to their size and intensity, hurricanes are a major source of property damage in North Carolina. One way to mitigate this damage is to “fortify” or strengthen homes. This paper analyses the costs and benefits of fortified homes in North Carolina. For the purposes of this paper, a fortified home can withstand F2 tornados and category 3 hurricanes (130 mph sustained winds) with minimal damage. It finds that from a social point of view, fortifying homes in the eastern part of the state is economically viable: where the benefits of fortifying homes exceed its costs.
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