Queston's about Ike?

[Coldwater Creek]

Now, that I don’t know. I live in Tenn., and my SIL wanted me to take care of some business for her. I didn’t even think to ask about gas. Check on mapquest. Zip code and you’ve got price and availability.

[gathersnomoss]

Will we, the people of the United States, be responsible for assuring that the remaining homeowners’ property assessment doesn’t go into the toilet? And if so, WHY???

I do not purchase high risk property. I do not want to pay for those who decide to take the HUGE RISK! See picture!

[Coldwater Creek]

I’m 67 years old, a fourth generation Texan.

We like our ice.

[Coldwater Creek]

Wonder if that house belongs there, or just one of those crazy things that sometimes happen in natural disasters?

[Nebr FAL owner]

Look carefully at that house . You can literally see the concrete pad that it was built on & it appears to be built on stilts because all the walls of the first floor are gone.

[ExGeeEye]

Superficially, seems to me somebody needs to dig up the plans for that house and build 'm all like that.

Could be some hidden damage, I suppose....

[null and void]

Yes. It looks like it was pretty close for even that house, the pad is significantly undermined.

[crazyhorse691]

From a distance, the house looks ok...zoom in and you can see that the house is a total loss(cement pad undercut, stairwell gone, nothing left on first floor but the “stilts” which are supporting the entire upper floors...obviously a great deal of thought went into it’s construction, but, the wind and surge were just too much. Shoot, even the street and sidewalks are gone.

[avacado]

It would be a good advertisement for the builder.

"Trust us to build your home right, or trust the other guys..."

[Travis T. OJustice]

Per new code requirements, houses in coastal zones have to be built on piles, and above some pre-determined level. The structure is not at all dependant on the “pad” (which in this case appears to be only a non-structural slab. The first floors of coastal homes are generally only ued for garages, etc. All heating/cooling, etc. equipment is above grade by about 1 floor level, typically.

All renovations must meet these new requirements, too, in coastal zones.

[Travis T. OJustice]

Any chance of finding a “before’ pic?

[Protect the Bill of Rights]

I thought the same thing.

How deep are the stilts that support a house on the beach? Anyone know?

[avacado]

I don’t have any before pics but here is video of Bolivar Penisula. Totally destroyed.

http://www.click2houston.com/video/17482113/index.html

[Constitutionalist Conservative]

You can literally see the concrete pad that it was built on & it appears to be built on stilts because all the walls of the first floor are gone.

It was built on stilts; it never had walls on the first floor. Standard building procedure for beach homes there. Most residents park their car(s) on the concrete pad under the house.

[BlueMondaySkipper]

[Travis T. OJustice]

Dependent on soil conditions, but (rarely) 20’ to well over 100’ on the other (also rare) end of the spectrum. 40-60 is the norm from what i’ve seen.

[Travis T. OJustice]

In other parts of the country, for similar construction, i’ve seen sacrificial, non-structural walls, that will tear away in a storm event.

[Constitutionalist Conservative]

In other parts of the country, for similar construction, i’ve seen sacrificial, non-structural walls, that will tear away in a storm event.

Okay, I suppose I've seen ones like that on Bolivar before also. The ones I remember seemed to be there to prevent the owner's cars from being sandblasted by the everyday seabreeze.

[texgal]

What’s the word on getting gas in Houston?

I live in Galveston County and evacuated to New Orleans after the storm passed, early Sunday morning, so I am not there.

My sister on the northwest side said there are some stations that have regained power, the lines are very, very long.

[blau993]

We were without power for a week after Tropical Storm Isabel slammed into our part of Maryland in 2003. Fortunately, we had redone our kitchen two years before and had installed a new SubZero refrigerator freezer. We used a portable generator to run our "Christmas refrigerator" (named for the only time of year we normally ever use it) in the basement and never opened the SubZero. When the power came back on, we finally opened the freezer door to find all of our frozen food still frozen and ice cubes in the bin.

Moral of the story: modern freezers will do a remarkable job for you if you can give them half a chance.