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People need to start building like we do in hurricane country – block walls with at least every window side, door side, every 4′ on walls without a window or door, poured solid to the floor, and a poured concrete lintel. I think the new code in Fla. is every cell poured solid. Even if the roof is gone, ain’t no tornado taking those walls down, and concrete block homes can’t be that much more than wood, go buy one lousy stud and see what I mean.
I have been in new home construction for 36 years up here in Wisconsin. Believe it or not we have to build to the same hurricane standards that you East coastal boys do. A few years back the insurance industry paid off a few well connected politicians, along with the well known company that produces all the expensive hardware needed to meet the hurricane code standards. This adds about $5000 to the cost of building a new home in Wisconsin. It was to protect against Tornado damage. The insurance companies were whining because they had to pay out to much money in damages.
Well… About 6 years ago a large Tornado tore through a small town in Wisconsin called Eagle. A few hundred homes were lost or damaged severely. The insurance companies were now faced with the rebuild costs on these homes. The FIRST thing they did was go crying to the state legislature about the cost to rebuild all those homes under the new hurricane standards. The Wisconsin legislature granted them immunity from the new codes they lobbied for due to the financial hardship it would cause the poor insurance companies. Then Governor Jim Doyle signed off on it and all the tornado damaged homes were rebuilt to non hurricane standards. The insurance companies saved untold millions of dollars, and Governor Doyle got a nice big cash dump into his campaign fund.
And people wonder why some of us do not trust our Government.