CHARLESTON, S.C. - A hurricane approaches and
interstates turn into parking lots as fleeing motorists crawl along,
taking hours to cover a few miles. It happened this week in Texas
with Rita just as it happened six years ago this month in South
Carolina as Floyd approached.
"It cannot make sense to have 2 million people stuck on a
highway," said Clemson University civil engineering professor David
O. Prevatt.
"One thing wind engineers have thought about is there is a
greater risk of people being injured in one of these storms if they
are on the highway and a storm changes track," he added.
This busy hurricane season has brought new attention to the need
to keep people out of harm's way.
People in storm surge areas need to get out, but requiring better
building elsewhere so structures withstand strong winds could mean
many more people could shelter in their homes or nearby buildings,
Prevatt said.
One never hears of massive traffic jams as people try to escape
typhoons in the Far East, said Prevatt, who is director of Clemson's
Wind Load Testing Facility.
"We should look abroad to Hong Kong and Japan where there are
millions living in coastal areas. You don't see or hear of people in
Hong Kong doing anything other than going to their high-rise
buildings and staying until the storm passes," he says.
When Hurricane Floyd approached in 1999, Interstate 26 between
Charleston and Columbia was jammed and a trip that usually takes two
hours took as long as 15. There were similar scenes in Texas this
week.
When hurricanes hit, Prevatt and colleagues from the Florida
Coastal Monitoring Program are out evaluating how construction
withstood the winds.
The program is sponsored by the Florida Department of Community
Development and staffed by scientists from Clemson, the University
of Florida, Florida International University and the Institute for
Business and Home Safety, an insurance industry research center in
Tampa, Fla.
Scientists deployed portable wind towers to measure wind speeds
in Hurricane Katrina and will have three deployed as Rita comes
ashore.
The 30-foot towers can withstand winds of 200 mph and measure
winds at heights of 33 feet and 15 feet, heights that would affect
coastal construction.
Community memories of a disaster seem to fade in about a decade.
"After that, people go back to building as they did before," Prevatt
said.
In a decade's time, many new people have moved in, including
builders who come from other areas and have not seen serious storms,
he said.
It's been 16 years since Hurricane Hugo smashed into the South
Carolina coast as a Category 4 storm with 135 mph winds.
State emergency planners warned this week that, should a similar
storm hit, wind damage alone would rival the almost $6 billion
damage caused by Hugo.
About 5,000 homes would be destroyed and 4 percent of the
buildings in South Carolina would be affected by winds, said John
Knight, the state's risk assessment coordinator.
Prevatt hopes this year's busy hurricane brings more attention to
the need for better construction.
"I would hope it would establish the idea that we need policies
to create more disaster-resistant communities so people can shelter
in their homes from the wind," he
said.
