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by kaliqt
871 days ago
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For Floridians, Cat 5 is scary but not that scary, Florida's one crazy state with sturdy buildings and only very select areas get leveled in major storms. There definitely needs to be a better way of rating hurricanes, for strength AND area of damage. Hurricanes are extremely area focused, and they lose power FAST. It can miss you at the last second and not even knock a shingle off your roof, while leveling a trailer park 50 miles south of you. |
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Michael did confirm that the new building codes were effective -- structures built prior to 2002 suffered much worse damage. From an early reconnaissance report [0]: "However, roof cover and wall cladding damage was still commonly observed even in newer structures. Failures were frequently observed in both engineered and non-engineered buildings."
Michael also highlighted that no matter how much you strengthen the building code, that means nothing for old buildings that haven't been updated, or for infrastructure (downed power lines and transmission towers, washed out roads and bridges, etc).
Would a Category 5 hurricane be more damaging if it struck Manhattan rather than Miami? Absolutely. IMO that's a consequence of climate change we should be worrying more about than peak storm strength -- more places (that don't necessarily have the same historical awareness) are going to be affected by stronger storms (and more frequently! 2020 saw two back-to-back Cat 4s make landfall in Nicaragua 15 miles and 2 weeks apart).
To say that Cat 5 isn't that scary in Florida is underestimating how incredibly rare these are, and overestimating the building code's coverage / efficacy.
[0] https://www.weather.gov/media/tae/events/20181010_Michael/St...