Built to Last

Annual losses from natural hazards have increased several fold over time—costing the nation $573 billion in crops and property since 1960. Americans are turning even routine storms into full-blown disasters by settling where they strike. Then, when vulnerable infrastructure is swept away, people have exhibited a steadfast commitment to rebuilding it.

There have been six manned U.S. moon landings (between 1969 and 1972) and numerous unmanned landings, though no soft landings have occurred since 1976. The United States' Apollo 11 was the first manned mission to land on the Moon, on 20 July 1969.

In 1976 the two American Viking probes entered orbit about Mars and each released a lander module that made a successful soft landing on the planet's surface. The two missions returned the first color pictures and extensive scientific information.

On August 14, 2012, NASA's rover Curiosity successfully carried out a highly challenging landing on Mars, transmitting images back to Earth after traveling hundreds of millions of miles through space to explore the red planet. "This is a stunning achievement. The engineering went flawlessly," said Scott Hubbard, who was the first Mars program director at NASA headquarters and is now a consulting professor at Stanford University. The 10 science instruments aboard Curiosity are in "perfect health," and testing and calibration are under way, NASA said.

Some rover team specialists analyzed the data from the landing, while others prepared Curiosity for exploring Gale Crater, where it landed, NASA said. On its first full day on Mars, the rover is tasked with raising its high-gain antenna, enabling it to communicate directly with Earth at higher data rates. The primary method of transmitting data is through the orbiters, because that is more energy-efficient.

President Barack Obama weighed in on the historic moment: "The successful landing of Curiosity -- the most sophisticated roving laboratory ever to land on another planet -- marks an unprecedented feat of technology that will stand as a point of national pride far into the future," Obama said in a statement congratulating the NASA employees who had worked on the $2.6 billion project.


Meanwhile, here on Earth  $100s of  billions are lost and populations of millions evacuate coastal regions due to hurricane seasons every year. America’s technological acumen could be guided toward developing a system of sea walls stretching from the northern tip of Maine to the southern-most shoreline extremities in Texas to save lives and protect property. This would be something of more tangible and practical value for all Americans.

Year after year Americans endure hurricane seasons that erase traces of an advanced civilization and momentarily hurl affected areas into the Middle Ages, Dark Ages or the Stone Age depending on the ferocity of the storm and the measures taken by the authorities to minimize casualties.

Oddly enough, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is responsible for emergency management and directs Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The Department of Homeland Security is a cabinet department of the United States federal government, created in response to the September 11 attacks, and with the primary responsibilities of protecting the United States of America and U.S. territories (including protectorates) from and responding to terrorist attacks, man-made accidents, and natural disasters.

The natural disasters are the ones to worry about. There’s hasn’t been a terrorist attack comparable to the smallest hurricane since record keeping on the weather began.

Hurricane Irene

On August 15, 2011, a tropical wave exited the west African coast, and emerged into the Atlantic, characterized by distinct low-level cyclonic rotation and deep tropical humidity.

By August 20, the National Hurricane Center noted that tropical cyclone formation was imminent as the wave neared the Lesser Antilles, and a reconnaissance aircraft confirmed the presence of a small surface circulation center just southwest of a burst of vigorous convection and unusually high sustained winds, indicating sufficient organization for the cyclone to be upgraded into Tropical Storm Irene at 23:00 UTC that day.

With Irene's projected path fixed over much of the United States East Coast, over 65 million people from the Carolinas to northern New England were estimated to be at risk. Due to the threat, state officials, as well as utilities, transportation facilities, ports, industries, oil refineries, and nuclear power plants, promptly prepared to activate emergency plans; residents in the areas stocked up on food supplies and worked to secure homes, vehicles and boats. States of emergency and hurricane warnings were declared for much of the East Coast, including North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine.

Tropical-storm-force winds began to affect the Outer Banks hours before landfall, producing waves of 6–9 ft (1.8–2.7 m). In addition to the gales, Irene spawned several tornadoes early on August 27, while approaching the coast. No regular weather station or buoy, however, measured sustained hurricane-force winds from the storm, with the highest winds officially recorded at 67 mph (107 km/h) by a buoy near Cape Lookout. Precipitation totals from Irene in the region were particularly high, ranging between 10–14 inches (250–360 mm); Bunyan recorded a peak amount of approximately 14 inches (360 mm).


The large hurricane left extensive damage in its wake and produced tornadoes that damaged homes and overturned vehicles. Following the touch down of a potent tornado, at least four homes were demolished in Columbia, while up to three others sustained significant damage. The hurricane caused multiple flooded areas and uprooted trees along coastlines; in Nash County, a snatched tree limb struck and killed one person. Prior to the storm, a resident in Onslow County suffered a fatal heart attack while applying plywood to his house. Two people in Pitt and Sampson Counties were additionally killed by falling trees, as were two others in Goldsboro and Pitt County in traffic accidents. A man also drowned in the flooded Cape Fear River. In all, over 1,100 homes were destroyed. The estimated $71 million in damage did not include agricultural losses.



The Effects of Hurricane Irene in New York were the worst from a hurricane since Hurricane Agnes in 1972. Hurricane Irene formed from a tropical wave on August 21, 2011 in the tropical Atlantic Ocean. It moved west-northwestward, and within an environment of light wind shear and warm waters. Shortly before becoming a hurricane, Irene struck Puerto Rico as a tropical storm. Thereafter, it steadily strengthened to reach peak winds of 120 mph (195 km/h) on August 24. Irene then gradually weakened and made landfall on the Outer Banks of North Carolina with winds of 85 mph (140 km/h) on August 27. It slowly weakened over land and re-emerged into the Atlantic on the following day. Later on August 28, Irene was downgraded to a tropical storm and made two additional landfalls, one in New Jersey and another in New York. The storm quickly began to lose tropical characteristics and became extratropical in Vermont.

Irene produced heavy damage over much of New York, totaling to $296 million (2011 USD). The storm is ranked as one of the costliest in the history of New York, after Hurricane Agnes in 1972. Much of the damage occurred due to flooding, both from heavy rainfall in inland areas and storm surge in New York City and on Long Island. Tropical storm force winds left at least 3 million residents without electricity in New York and Connecticut. Ten fatalities are directly attributed to the hurricane.

As officials in North Carolina reportedly ordered more bodybags for locals refusing to leave what may be Hurricane Irene's first U.S. landfall zone, the menace has managed what nothing else has been able to do further north -- shut down the city that never sleeps.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg  announced the first ever mandatory evacuation of low-lying waterfront areas of the city. Those areas include parts of the financial district in Lower Manhattan, as well as sections along the Hudson and East rivers. The "danger" zone, which includes 250,000 people, was ordered emptied by 5 p.m. Saturday.  In fact, up and down the East Coast more than 2 million people were told to evacuate.

Mayor Bloomberg also ordered that the city's sprawling subway and bus system -- Gotham's lifeline -- be shut down from Saturday afternoon until Monday. Closing down the transit system will paralyze a city in which most people don't drive cars. A spokesperson for the MTA said that the entire subway system has only been shut down twice in recent memory, on Sept. 11, 2001, and during a strike in 2005.


After it became clear that the subway system would be shutdown, the Broadway League declared that all weekend Broadway performances would be cancelled, and the New York Mets canceled Major League Baseball games scheduled for Saturday and Sunday.  Five New York hospitals began to evacuate and transfer patients.  Bloomberg warned New Yorkers to not be fooled because "the sun is shining." He said Irene is a "dangerous storm," and "it's heading basically directly for us." President Obama signed an emergency declaration for New York and urged people in the path of the storm to heed evacuation orders.

Are ordering annual evacuations during hurricane season the best response for the country that has plans for sending men to Mars? People don’t want to evacuate every year because of hurricane season. They also don’t relish cleaning up wreckage left in the aftermath. This is an opportunity for  regional planners, Department of Homeland Security,  architects,  engineers and general contractors to design and build structures that protect the eastern shore, Gulf Coast and central plains from losses of life and property every year due to severe storms.

The climate experts have said Hurricane Irene was a once in a hundred year event. Other experts estimate a Hurricane Irene could appear once in 30-years. This should send red flags up to city, state and regional planners everywhere. Who would want to rebuild in an area where Hurricane Sandy-like superstorms are predicted every hundred years, much less every thirty years? It’s like leaving your descendants a curse, a pile of rubble and possible violent deaths for an inheritance.

Should anyone be allowed to build beach front property that is guaranteed to be submerged by hurricane storm surge or rising sea levels before the next century unless infrastructure is upgraded to protect it?

 

Hurricane Proof

One of the formidable challenges of architecture and general contracting is developing construction that can withstand the elements.

 
Hurricane Sandy was the deadliest and most destructive hurricane of the 2012 Atlantic hurricane season, as well as the second-costliest hurricane in United States history. Classified as the eighteenth named storm, tenth hurricane and second major hurricane of the year, Sandy was a Category 3 storm at its peak intensity when it made landfall in Cuba. While it was a Category 2 storm off the coast of the Northeastern United States, the storm became the largest Atlantic hurricane on record (as measured by diameter, with winds spanning 1,100 miles (1,800 km)). Preliminary estimates assess damage at nearly $75 billion (2012 USD), a total surpassed only by Hurricane Katrina. At least 285 people were killed along the path of the storm in seven countries. The severe and widespread damage the storm caused in the United States, as well as its unusual merge with a frontal system, resulted in the nicknaming of the hurricane by the media and several organizations of the U.S. government "Superstorm Sandy".

 


 





Sandy developed from a tropical wave in the western Caribbean Sea on October 22, quickly strengthened, and was upgraded to Tropical Storm Sandy six hours later. Sandy moved slowly northward toward the Greater Antilles and gradually intensified. On October 24, Sandy became a hurricane, made landfall near Kingston, Jamaica, a few hours later, re-emerged into the Caribbean Sea and strengthened into a Category 2 hurricane. On October 25, Sandy hit Cuba as a Category 3 hurricane, then weakened to a Category 1 hurricane. Early on October 26, Sandy moved through the Bahamas. On October 27, Sandy briefly weakened to a tropical storm and then restrengthened to a Category 1 hurricane. Early on October 29, Sandy curved north-northwest and then moved ashore near Brigantine, New Jersey, just to the northeast of Atlantic City, as a post-tropical cyclone with hurricane-force winds.

 

In Jamaica, winds left 70% of residents without electricity, blew roofs off buildings, killed one, and caused about $100 million (2012 USD) in damage. In Haiti, Sandy's outer bands brought flooding that killed at least 54, caused food shortages, and left about 200,000 homeless. In the Dominican Republic, two died. In Puerto Rico, one man was swept away by a swollen river. In Cuba, there was extensive coastal flooding and wind damage inland, destroying some 15,000 homes, killing 11, and causing $2 billion (2012 USD) in damage. In The Bahamas, two died amid an estimated $700 million (2012 USD) in damage. In Canada, two were killed in Ontario and an estimated $100 million (2012 CAD) in damage was caused throughout Ontario and Quebec.






 

In the United States, Hurricane Sandy affected 24 states, including the entire eastern seaboard from Florida to Maine and west across the Appalachian Mountains to Michigan and Wisconsin, with particularly severe damage in New Jersey and New York. Its storm surge hit New York City on October 29, flooding streets, tunnels and subway lines and cutting power in and around the city. Damage in the US is estimated at over $71 billion (2012 USD). It forced the release of over 10 billion gallons of raw and partially treated sewage 94% of which went into waters in and around New York and New Jersey.


This week Oklahoma had a close encounter with a massive tornado that tore through Oklahoma City suburbs that has been upgraded by the National Weather Service to EF5, the strongest rating.  Rescue workers on Tuesday were going building to building in Moore, Okla., in search of victims. At least 24 people are confirmed dead; thousands of survivors were homeless. Emergency workers pulled more than 100 survivors from the rubble of homes, schools and a hospital, and around 237 people were injured. Cadaver dogs sniffed through the scattered planks and bricks of ruined homes on Tuesday.

 

The 2-mile wide tornado ripped through Moore on the outskirts of Oklahoma City on Monday afternoon, trapping victims beneath the rubble and tossing vehicles about as if they were toys. On block after block of residential neighborhoods, there was nothing left but mangled debris.
 





In 2011, New York City escaped the worst of Hurricane Irene. In 2012, the "frankenstorm" combination of Hurricane Sandy and other storm systems are bearing down on the Northeast. Back in 2011, using U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' calculations, Popular Mechanics (PM) magazine examined how much damage a direct hit by a hurricane could cause to New York City. Here's what super storms are made of—and how the whole country can prepare for the worst.

 

 

The hurricane churning east of New Jersey seems destined for the mid-Atlantic. Then a cold front descending out of Canada nudges the Category 2 storm northwest instead—setting it on a worst-case course for New York City.

 

 New York Harbor has often sheltered the city, dissipating energy from violent gales that start at sea. But now it plays an opposite role: It turns an otherwise moderate hurricane into a disaster. As the eye of the storm passes over Staten Island, the 100-mph counterclockwise winds shove 500 million tons of seawater directly into the harbor. The narrowing shorelines and shallowing sea bottom cause the mass of water to build. By the time the storm surge washes over the shores of Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan, it towers 11 to 15 feet high.

 

 Water flows through New York's financial district and reaches 2 miles into southern Brooklyn and Queens, flooding 2900 miles of roads. Impromptu rivers gush into subway stations and pour through hundreds of sidewalk gratings.

 


In Manhattan, the lower levels of Penn Station and Grand Central fill with water. The subway floods within 40 minutes—paralyzing the city's chief form of public transportation. Three of the four automobile tunnels linking Manhattan to the outer boroughs and New Jersey also flood, submerging hundreds of cars stranded in traffic jams during evacuation. A million people lose electricity and phone service as floods shut down 10 power plants and the emergency generators powering cellphone towers.

 

 While this scenario may sound like yet another apocalypse-in-New York summer blockbuster, it was produced using calculations from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers—and it's been given serious attention from government planners. That 1995 Army Corps report and a 2006 analysis by the Department of Homeland Security predict that a Category 4 hurricane scoring a direct hit on New York City would inflict $500 billion worth of damage—quadruple that wrought by Category 5 Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

 

A third study, released this September by New York state, predicts that an even milder, Category 1 hurricane or winter nor'easter could inundate the city's subway and cause $58 billion in losses. Experts don't consider such disastrous flooding a mere possibility; they believe it's a certainty—a one-in-100-year event. Sea level rise will upgrade it to a one-in-35-year event by 2080.

 "We've been very, very lucky because we haven't had that [direct hit]," says Cynthia Rosenzweig, a climate-impact scientist at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York who has helped guide the city's storm- and climate-­planning effort. "But the potential vulnerability for that is very high."

 

Every region of the U.S. is subject to catastrophic storms of one type or another. While the severe floods and tornadoes that devastated large swaths of the country this spring surprised many people, there's no reason they should have. Annual losses from natural hazards have increased severalfold over time—costing the nation $573 billion in crops and property since 1960. Americans are turning even routine storms into full-blown disasters by settling where they strike. Then, when vulnerable infrastructure is swept away, people have exhibited a steadfast commitment to rebuilding it.




 "There are more people living in what we might consider to be high-hazard areas," says Susan Cutter, a disaster scientist at the University of South Carolina in Columbia. These include coastal areas, floodplains and places especially prone to tornadoes and landslides. By 2040, 70 percent of the U.S. population—which should then number 400 million—is expected to concentrate in 11 megaregions, seven of which occupy coastal counties.

 

 If New York—part of the Northeast megaregion—suffers a direct hit, workers will spend weeks pumping a billion gallons of brackish water out of its subway and train tunnels. The salt will corrode power lines, transformers and thousands of brakes and switches that control the trains. Some subsystems could take a year or more to restore.

 

 To avoid such a scenario, New York state recommends the city invest well over $100 million a year in storm protections. City planners are already experimenting with dozens of low-tech fixes, says Adam Freed, deputy director of the Mayor's Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability. These include raising subway vents above sidewalks, installing several-inch-high barriers around subway entrances and using porous pavement. They've also considered building lips around rooftops to slow the percolation of water into streets and sewers, because every inch of rain that falls on New York translates to a billion gallons of storm water that must be managed.

 




Some observers, such as Malcolm Bowman, an oceanographer at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, have even suggested that four massive barriers be built across the waterways surrounding the city. The arms would swing shut during severe storms—much like those of the Maeslantkering, a barrier that protects the Port of Rotterdam from surges in the North Sea.

The Hurricane Effect

The NY Post reported on May 16, 2013 that hundreds of city Hurricane Sandy evacuees still in hotels won’t be put out on the street until they find permanent housing, a Manhattan Supreme Court judge ruled yesterday. About 395 families are still living in hotels, and were set to lose those rooms after May 31.

A source familiar with the damaged areas left by Hurricane Sandy stated that hardly anything is being done of significant scale in restoration and reconstruction of ravaged public and private property.

  

In research by an international general contracting firm several years ago it was said:

Due to the devastating damage from Hurricanes Dennis, Katrina and Rita, there will be a significant amount of rebuilding in the Southern United States in the near future.  This widespread destruction of residential and commercial buildings opens an opportunity for structural mitigation against future-hazard events, and therefore, potentially reduces future damages.  In addition to the recent hurricanes, the 2004 hurricane season and the Indian Ocean Tsunami have led to shortages of many essential building materials.  Due to the shortages, construction costs will be rising, both for in-kind replacement and alternative coastal construction. 

Hurricane Dennis

The effects of Hurricane Dennis in Florida included 14 deaths and $1.5 billion (2005 US$) in damage. The tropical wave that became Hurricane Dennis formed on June 29, 2005, and proceeded westward across the Atlantic Ocean. It became a tropical depression on July 4, a tropical storm on July 5, and a hurricane on July 7. Dennis rapidly intensified to attain Category 4 status on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale, and made landfall in Cuba where it weakened to Category 1 status, before re-emerging in the Gulf of Mexico and re–intensifying. The storm made landfall as a Category 3 hurricane on Santa Rosa Island on July 10.

As Dennis was impacting Cuba, the outer rainbands affected the Florida Keys causing moderate wind gusts peaking at 87 mph (140 km/h) on Sombrero Key. In central Florida, Dennis produced numerous tornadoes, one severely damaging a house. In Punta Gorda, three people were found dead in a car submerged in a ditch flooded by heavy rain. Dennis made landfall in the Florida Panhandle, causing moderate damage, although not as severe as previously predicted. Wind gusts peaked at 121 mph (195 km/h), and maximum rainfall reached 7.08 inches (180 mm). Storm surge of --15 ft (-0.91 m) inundated parts of St. Marks and nearby locations. During the height of the storm, approximately 236,000 customers in the Florida Panhandle were without electric power.

Hurricane Katrina

Hurricane Katrina was the deadliest and most destructive Atlantic hurricane of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season. It was the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States. Among recorded Atlantic hurricanes, it was the sixth strongest overall. At least 1,833 people died in the hurricane and subsequent floods, making it the deadliest U.S. hurricane since the 1928 Okeechobee hurricane; total property damage was estimated at $81 billion (2005 USD), nearly triple the damage brought by Hurricane Andrew in 1992.

Hurricane Katrina formed over the Bahamas on August 23, 2005 and crossed southern Florida as a moderate Category 1 hurricane, causing some deaths and flooding there before strengthening rapidly in the Gulf of Mexico. The hurricane strengthened to a Category 5 hurricane over the warm Gulf water, but weakened before making its second landfall as a Category 3 hurricane on the morning of Monday, August 29 in southeast Louisiana. It caused severe destruction along the Gulf coast from central Florida to Texas, much of it due to the storm surge. The most significant number of deaths occurred in New Orleans, Louisiana, which flooded as the levee system catastrophically failed, in many cases hours after the storm had moved inland. Eventually 80% of the city and large tracts of neighboring parishes became flooded, and the floodwaters lingered for weeks. However, the worst property damage occurred in coastal areas, such as all Mississippi beachfront towns, which were flooded over 90% in hours, as boats and casino barges rammed buildings, pushing cars and houses inland, with waters reaching 6–12 miles (10–19 km) from the beach.

The hurricane surge protection failures in New Orleans are considered the worst civil engineering disaster in U.S. history and prompted a lawsuit against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), the designers and builders of the levee system as mandated by the Flood Control Act of 1965. Responsibility for the failures and flooding was laid squarely on the Army Corps in January 2008 by Judge Stanwood Duval, U.S. District Court, but the federal agency could not be held financially liable due to sovereign immunity in the Flood Control Act of 1928. There was also an investigation of the responses from federal, state and local governments, resulting in the resignation of Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) director Michael D. Brown, and of New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) Superintendent Eddie Compass.

 

Hurricane Rita

Hurricane Rita was the fourth–most intense Atlantic hurricane ever recorded and the most intense tropical cyclone ever observed in the Gulf of Mexico. The eighteenth named storm, tenth hurricane, and fifth major hurricane of the 2005 season, Rita formed near The Bahamas from a tropical wave on September 18 that originally developed off the coast of West Africa. It moved westward, and after passing through the Florida Straits, Rita entered an environment of abnormally warm waters. It rapidly intensified to reach peak winds of 180 mph (285 km/h) on September 20. After steadily weakening and beginning to curve to the northwest, Rita gradually weakened and made landfall on Sabine Pass, Texas with winds of 120 mph (195 km/h) on September 24. It weakened over land and degenerated into a large low-pressure area over the lower Mississippi Valley on September 26.

In Louisiana, the storm surge from Rita inundated low-lying communities near the coast, worsening effects caused by Hurricane Katrina less than a month prior. The surge topped levees, allowing water to surge further inland. Lake Charles suffered from severe flooding. Areas in Texas suffered from extensive wind damage. Nine counties in the state were declared disaster areas after the storm. Electric service was disrupted in some areas of both Texas and Louisiana for several weeks. Texas reported the most deaths from the hurricane, where 113 deaths were reported.

Moderate to severe damage was reported across the lower Mississippi Valley. Rainfall from the storm and its associated remnants extended from Louisiana to Michigan. Rainfall peaked at 16.00 in (406 mm) in Central Louisiana. Several tornadoes were also associated with the hurricane and its subsequent remnants. Throughout the path of Rita, damage totaled about $12 billion (2005 USD, $15 billion 2013 USD). As many as 120 deaths in four U.S. states were directly related to the hurricane.

Clearly hurricanes are storms of such enormous dimensions affecting regions across state and national boundaries that although the federal government is uniquely resourced to initiate relief to these areas affected, it seems nowhere is there expertise in the public or private sectors to implement and manage a program that automatically encompasses the logistics, materials, labor and costs for services providing disaster recovery, emergency relief through reconstruction and restoration across the different jurisdictions.

 The international general contracting firm concludes:

Hurricanes Dennis, Katrina and Rita passed over the Southern United States in August and September of 2005.  Although these storms weakened in the hours before they made landfall (Katrina and Rita from a Category 5), major beach erosion, storm-surge flooding, over wash, torrential rains and high-wind damages occurred along a stretch of shoreline extending from the

Florida panhandle to the Texas coastline, a distance of some 800 miles.   The damages from Katrina were considered the worst in US History, eclipsing all other disasters in American history by more than an order of magnitude.  Media sources have reported that private insurance estimates were varying from $100 to $200 billion.  Devastating storm surge from 10 to 30 feet above normal tide level washed over southern coastal areas and inundated coastlines, including the central business districts of Biloxi, MS and Gulfport, MS.  High-water levels of nearly 30 feet were measured locally in Biloxi Bay.  About fifty percent (50%) of the housing stock in the coastal counties sustained major damage or was destroyed.  Eighteen-thousand wooden power poles were wrecked by winds and downed trees in New Orleans alone, about one hundred thousand collectively from Texas to Florida.

 

Obviously, hurricanes are known to cause damage due to high wind and high-velocity water.  However, areas such as Mobile, AL, Biloxi, MS and New Orleans, LA will likely have a large number of homes destroyed by slow flooding.  Unlike the high winds and fast-moving waters, the slow floods did not rip off roofing, destroy walls or cause immediate structural damages.  However, many homes will be permanently uninhabitable because the water carried contaminants that that cannot be removed easily from wooden structures.  Long-term submersion in fresh water will make most structures un-repairable.  This is a likely scenario for a large share of the two-hundred thousand homes in the Crescent City, New Orleans.  In Mississippi, reports indicate that more than eighty percent (80%) of the estimated one-hundred seventy-one thousand homes on the coast were heavily damaged or destroyed completely.

Many parts of the country have dealt with frequent hurricanes.  After major events such as Hurricanes Andrew, Camille, Charley, Frances, Hugo, Ivan, some areas were able to enact more-stringent building-code standards.  In an ideal world, at the minimum, hurricane standards should be based on the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) 7-1998 standards.  Still, realistically, building codes are often the minimum standards that are the maximum politically feasible.  They may fall short of standards like those of the ASCE.  However, this is a substantial improvement over having no codes.

 

One example of improved building code is when homeowners may be required to meet the increased wind standards by using impact-resistant doors and windows that use laminated glass similar to that found in car windshields.  This type of building code improvement can be also achieved by persuading contractors and homeowners to build structures to these higher hurricane standards or by getting local officials to adopt part or all of the higher-performance standards.  Building codes may not and do not restrict people from building stronger.

 

 

 

The CT/NY/NJ tri-State area has the same exposure to hurricane forces as the Gulf Coast. The population has even higher degree of exposure because Mid-Atlantic and New England have a higher total population, aggregate property values and a colder climate.  Further studies on the best land use of the shoreline might determine its suitability for habitation in terms of cost, safety, and sustainability.

Safety First

There had been reports about construction site injuries upstate and in Manhattan, but hardly anything about construction site injuries in areas hit hard by Hurricane Sandy until NY Daily News on  Sunday, April 28, 2013 printed a story on page 8 about thousands of safety violations at construction sites in New York City, New Jersey and Long Island.

Thousands of construction workers descended on hurricane-ravaged areas just weeks after Sandy left tracks across the northeast. The question arises whether or not there is enough professional construction management and safety inspectors in the region to safely manage the influx of thousands of skilled tradesmen and unskilled laborers.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/cleanup-workers-put-risk-post-sandy-cleanup-article-1.1329336

The NY Daily News reported that

1.     At the height of the Sandy cleanup, workers without protection fell from roofs, were shocked by exposed wires and injured by chemicals, records show.

2.     Federal inspectors patrolling flooded neighborhoods in New York City, New Jersey and Long Island encountered 3,100 instances of unsafe job conditions, removing some 7,900 workers from hazards, Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show.

3.       Although OSHA found thousands of cleanup workers doing jobs in unsafe conditions, almost no one was punished: OSHA issued violations in only 32 cases, imposing minimal fines between $1,000 and $11,600 that totaled just $141,934. In nearly every case, OSHA simply warned contractors to fix the problem and took no further action.

Do contractor and subcontractor bosses know how to secure the work area? If so, why are there so many violations?

Occupational Safety and Health Administration enforces safe work place regulations. According to OSHA’s website, a new initiative was started today to promote safety for temporary workers:

The U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration today announced an initiative to further protect temporary employees from workplace hazards. The announcement was made during a program at the department's headquarters marking Workers' Memorial Day – an annual observance to honor workers who have died on the job and renew a commitment to making work sites across the country safer.

OSHA today sent a memorandum to the agency's regional administrators directing field inspectors to assess whether employers who use temporary workers are complying with their responsibilities under the Occupational Safety and Health Act. Inspectors will use a newly created code in their information system to denote when temporary workers are exposed to safety and health violations. Additionally, they will assess whether temporary workers received required training in a language and vocabulary they could understand. The memo, which can be viewed at http://s.dol.gov/ZM, underscores the duty of employers to protect all workers from hazards.

"On Workers' Memorial Day, we mourn the loss of the thousands of workers who die each year on the job from preventable hazards," said Dr. David Michaels, assistant secretary of labor for occupational safety and health. "Many of those killed and injured are temporary workers who often perform the most dangerous jobs

have limited English proficiency and are not receiving the training and protective measures required. Workers must be safe, whether they've been on the job for one day or for 25 years."

The language barrier is a safety hazard. If anyone has been a member of a multilingual work force they will know that the management doesn’t repeat the work instructions a second or third time in  different languages. If the management is Anglo, typically the instructions are given once in English and unauthorized translations occur among the non-English speaking workers. Vice-versa, if the management is Hispanic, typically the instructions are given once in Spanish and unauthorized translation is given to non-Spanish speaking workers. Working in hazardous conditions multiply the hazards by having linguistic deficient labeling of caustic or acidic chemicals, radioactive substances, inflammable materials, electrical, toxic, and biological hazards.

Occupational Safety and Health Administration offers affordable training at their Online Campus on the Internet. There is a ten-hour courses in Construction Training and another ten-hour course in General Industry training. There are also thirty-hour courses for Construction and General Industry. There courses aren’t free, just under $200, but they certainly would cost less than fine, a law suit, plus legal fees and bad publicity.

http://www.oshacampusonline.com/10-hour-osha-training-courses.html?gclid=COGd25f58LYCFUWK4Aodq2UAqg

 A lot of handymen around the country have not had OSHA training. I’ve worked construction sites before going through OSHA training. It’s the cost of doing business. Unskilled labor, inadequate safety equipment, management and regulators not following the law and not enforcing the law have been a perennial problem since before 9/11, when EPA said it was safe to breathe the air at Ground Zero without protective masks and hazmat gear.

How much does safety cost?

Hard Hat are probably the most important piece of equipment construction workers have. They are not expensive. There several brands available for less than $50. Most of these are less than $20.  Google “hard hat brands” and you will find a wide assortment for cranial protection.

Steel-toed work boots are the other important pieces of protective equipment necessary for safety on a construction site. Some manager won’t  allow workers on the site without them.  A quick Internet search for steel-toed work-boots uncovers some very interesting products. There are steel-toed sneakers for about $110. Florsheim and Timberland have a casual steel-toed shoe for under $140 for the general contracting executive who is going from the board meeting in midtown to a construction site on the Upper East Side. Heavy-duty steel-toed boots that cover mid-calf are around $200.

Work gloves are very important for safety, too.  Gloves protect the hands from the cold, heat. Work gloves protect the hands from work. They are made from a variety of materials from cloth, cloth rubberized for fingers and palms, insulated rubber gloves for electrical work, insulated leather for high temperatures. The prices range from $1 to over $60.

Goggles are important for eye safety. They protect the eyes from dust, chemicals, sparks, sand, grit,  and smoke. There are inexpensive over the glass goggles for available for under $5 on up to $75. Googling goggles uncovered safety glasses that are less cumbersome to wear than goggles.

Ear plugs may safely  protect the ear from loud noises that could cause injury. For added protection there are safety ear muffs that may also include AM/FM radio. There may be Bluetooth ear muffs to provide a channel for music CD and DVD players. There is 30 dB protection for under $30 without a radio. With a tunable AM/FM radio there is 26 dB protection for about $100. There is less protection available at a lower price, 22 dB safety ear muffs for about $75.

Protective masks vary in purpose from keeping dust out of the nostrils to covering the entire to protect face and eyes from blinding light and searing heat from arc welding, acetylene torch showering hot metal sparks, or toxic fumes from fires to prevent smoke inhalation. There also safety masks for dust, safety masks for chemicals, and safety masks for asbestos.
A surgical mask is about $8.  More advanced safety filtration masks are about $20. A welder mask prices are in the range under $200 to over $300.  Gas masks can cost from $30 to $300. Firefighters masks price are within this range but usually are less than $100.

Most volunteers who want to help in Hurricane Sandy damaged areas thinking they should show up with a mop, broom and shovel, would not be adequately protected from potential hazards on the ground, inside buildings moldering, stagnant water harboring microorganisms, raw sewage, other forms of chemical and biological contamination.

The cost of the essential protective gear is prohibitive for most laborers to pay out of pocket. Hard hats, steel-toed boots, safety glasses, work gloves, face masks total nearly $400. Gloves and masks are expected to wear out before the contract ends. A general contractor may spend $500 on protective gear on a contract every two months. This is probably why a lot of workers are not adequately protected.

 

Tale of Two Cities - Dark Secret

New York City’s advanced technological edge that is the pride of this financial, communication and media capital proved no match for Hurricane Sandy and the forces of nature. The storm victims are almost speechless, shaken by storm’s ferocity and feeble response on every level by the authorities. Six months after the storm New Yorkers are still in the dark about their future. The government has taken the responsibility for a situation that is the moral equivalent of war. It is doubtful that the hurricane victims, the affected cities and States will be ready for the next hurricane season.

What will the construction industry, architects and general contractors learn from the rubble and ashes remaining after public, commercial and residential properties have been obliterated by the winds, fires and floods? One handy man who has not been on the ground in the affected areas estimated a house could be rebuilt in one month. The pace of things since October 2012 suggest it will take much longer to rebuild these failed communities.

The federal government's current plan to compensate victims of Hurricane Sandy allocates funds for Long Island residents hoping to repair their homes, while forgetting to reimburse those affected within New York City limits.

The New York City government was given $1.8 billion in federal grants but, because of federal restrictions, private home and business owners whose properties were damaged by the October 2012 storm can only be given financial aid for future projects, not cash for repairs. Long Island, which received $1.7 billion, is not required to adhere to the same standard.

In a letter to Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan, New York Senator Chuck Schumer called for common sense in distributing the federal funds.

"There needs to be consistency between New York City and the New York State's action plans to ensure that all homeowners in New York can access the same type of assistance," he wrote. "A homeowner in Rockaway Beach will not be eligible for the same benefit that a homeowner in Long Beach, just 10 miles away, will be able to access."

A spokeswoman for the city told the New York Daily News that the current plans are only preliminary, which is cause for a cautious optimism among the many New Yorkers who were without flood insurance when the storm hit. This disbursement is just the first part of a $50 billion package that was reluctantly approved by Congress.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced in February that $720 million would be spent on rebuilding destroyed homes, $185 million on investing in struggling businesses and another $140 million on improving still-damaged infrastructure, although it’s unclear if the mayor's plan accounted for the language of the federal grant.

At the end of March it was announced that hundreds of people still displaced from their homes because of Sandy would be moving from hotels into New York apartments paid for by the federal government. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) said it would pay rent for the apartments and all other administrative costs. FEMA has spent more than $60 million on the program, according to the Wall Street Journal, while the city has spent $25 million.



If your community has dumpsters to dive into that's better than having everything you own under several feet of sea water or washed out to sea or turned to cinders. A dumpster with edible garbage means there is food that can be donated before it has turned into garbage if someone cares enough.




Not too cruel. Hoarded storable food and water is of little use if high water submerges them under 10 feet of water, when the ocean surf reclaims all of your possessions that disappear beneath the waves, along with any emergency food that had been stored for months. People who could find refuge among friends residing far away from flooded, powerless areas fared better than those who were living in cold, soggy homes, without heat and power, in essence without shelter but having canned goods and bottled water they couldn’t all take with them.

What should general contractors expect from Hurricane Sandy economic stimuli?

Where is the recovery and reinvestment support from the private sector? The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) (Pub.L. 111–5) and commonly referred to as the Stimulus or The Recovery Act, was an economic stimulus package enacted by the 111th United States Congress in February 2009 and signed into law on February 17, 2009, by President Barack Obama.

To respond to the late-2000s recession, the primary objective for ARRA was to save and create jobs almost immediately. Secondary objectives were to provide temporary relief programs for those most impacted by the recession and invest in infrastructure, education, health, and 'green' energy. The approximate cost of the economic stimulus package was estimated to be $787 billion at the time of passage, later revised to $831 billion between 2009 and 2019. The Act included direct spending in infrastructure, education, health, and energy, federal tax incentives, and expansion of unemployment benefits and other social welfare provisions. The Act also included many items not directly related to immediate economic recovery such as long-term spending projects (e.g., a study of the effectiveness of medical treatments) and other items specifically included by Congress (e.g., a limitation on executive compensation in federally aided banks added by Senator Dodd and Rep. Frank).

The rationale for ARRA was from Keynesian macroeconomic theory, which argues that, during recessions, the government should offset the decrease in private spending with an increase in public spending in order to save jobs and stop further economic deterioration. Shortly after the law was passed, however, Keynesian economist and Nobel laureate Paul Krugman while supportive of the law, criticized the law for being too weak because it did not "even cover one third of the (spending) gap".


Construction can play a major role in the economic recovery. Home construction is starting to rebound six years after the mortgage bubble collapse. Women and minority general contractors should rise with the tide. The federal government provides incentives supporting women and minority owned business through federally funded projects. The rest of the economic recovery relies on the private sector to continue the support for women and minority general contractors. Hurricane Sandy created a demand for new construction. It also exposed dysfunction in local and regional authorities responsible for planning and management. The federal government has poured $50 billion into Hurricane Sandy relief. Where is the support from the private sector?




TD Bank, N.A., is a national banking institution in the United States (chartered and supervised by the federal Office of the Comptroller of the Currency) which offers banking, insurance, brokerage, and investment banking services in Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. The bank is a successor to the Portland Savings Bank, which started in Portland, Maine, in 1852, and later became Banknorth. The bank took its current name—TD Bank, N.A.—in 2008, through the acquisition and renaming of Commerce Bank and its subsequent merger with TD Banknorth, resulting in co-headquarters in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, and Portland, Maine. The company is a part of The Toronto-Dominion Bank, which operates as TD Bank Group (TDBG) and is based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The bank's "TD" initials, first popularized in Canada, are used officially for all American operations. The bank embraces a retail approach to banking; its branches are called "stores" and have extended operation hours.

Towering Accomplishments

Buildings have been getting taller and taller since the skyscrapers became a popular architectural form in the 20th century. Here is a review of the world's tallest buildings and their astonishing architecture.

New York City, the largest city in the United States, is home to 5,818 completed high-rises, 96 of which stand taller than 600 feet (183 m). The tallest completed building in the city is the 102-story Empire State Building in Midtown Manhattan, which was finished in 1931 and rises to 1,250 feet (381 m), increased to 1,454 feet (443 m) by its antenna. It also is the third-tallest building in the United States and the 22nd-tallest building in the world. The Empire State Building stood as the tallest building in the world from its completion until 1972, when the 110-story North Tower of the original World Trade Center was completed. At 1,368 feet (417 m), One World Trade Center briefly held the title as the world's tallest building until the completion of the 108-story Sears Tower (now known as the Willis Tower) in Chicago in 1974. The World Trade Center towers were destroyed by terrorist attacks in 2001, and the Empire State Building regained the title of tallest building in the City. The second-tallest building in New York is the Bank of America Tower, which rises to 1,200 feet (366 m), including its spire. Tied for third-tallest are the 1,046-foot (319 m) Chrysler Building, which was the world's tallest building from 1930 until 1931, and the New York Times Building, which was completed in 2007.

New York skyscrapers are concentrated in Midtown and Lower Manhattan, although other neighborhoods of Manhattan and the boroughs of Brooklyn, Queens and The Bronx also have significant numbers of high-rises. As of January 2011, the entire city has 228 buildings that rise at least 500 feet (152 m) in height, including those under construction, more than any other city in the United States.

Since 2003, New York City has seen the completion of 22 buildings that rise at least 600 feet (183 m) in height. Fourteen more are under construction, including the 1,776-foot (541 m) One World Trade Center, which will claim the title of tallest building in the city upon its completion. On April 30, 2012, this building officially surpassed the structural height of the Empire State Building with steel reaching to 1,271 feet (387 m), but construction is not scheduled to be complete until 2013. One World Trade Center is part of the complex that will replace the destroyed World Trade Center, which also includes three more under-construction skyscrapers: the 1,350-foot (411 m) Two World Trade Center, 1,240-foot (378 m) Three World Trade Center and 975-foot (297 m) Four World Trade Center. Overall, as of July 2012, there were 218 high-rise buildings under construction or proposed for construction in New York City.

Burj Khalifa (Arabic: برج خليفة‎, "Khalifa tower"), known as Burj Dubai prior to its inauguration, is a skyscraper in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and is the tallest man-made structure in the world, at 829.8 m (2,722 ft). This is nearly a thousand feet taller than the tower at One World Trade Center in New York City.

 

Construction began on 21 September 2004, with the exterior of the structure completed on 1 October 2009. The building officially opened on 4 January 2010, and is part of the new 2 km2 (490-acre) development called Downtown Dubai at the 'First Interchange' along Sheikh Zayed Road, near Dubai's main business district. The tower's architecture and engineering were performed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill of Chicago, with Adrian Smith as chief architect, and Bill Baker as chief structural engineer. The primary contractor was Samsung C&T of South Korea.

 

In March 2009, Mohamed Ali Alabbar, chairman of the project's developer, Emaar Properties, said office space pricing at Burj Khalifa reached US$4,000 per sq ft (over US$43,000 per m²) and the Armani Residences, also in Burj Khalifa, sold for US$3,500 per sq ft (over US$37,500 per m²). He estimated the total cost for the project to be about US$1.5 billion.

 

The project's completion coincided with the global financial crisis of 2007–2012, and with vast overbuilding in the country; this led to high vacancies and foreclosures. With Dubai mired in debt from its huge ambitions, the government was forced to seek multibillion dollar bailouts from its oil-rich neighbor Abu Dhabi. Subsequently, in a surprise move at its opening ceremony, the tower was renamed Burj Khalifa, said to honour the UAE President Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan for his crucial support.

 

Because of the slumping demand in Dubai's property market, the rents in the Burj Khalifa plummeted 40% some ten months after its opening. Out of 900 apartments in the tower, 825 were still empty at that time. However, over the next two and a half years, overseas investors steadily began to purchase the available apartments and office space in Burj Khalifa. By October 2012, Emaar reported that around 80% of the apartments were occupied.