People Who Built On Texas Sand Dunes Might Be Unable To Replace Hurricane Ike Damaged Homes On Eroded Beaches

[Harbourmaster]

Linda Young - AHN Editor wrote:
A common-sense Texas law might prevent some owners of beachfront homes affected by Hurricane Ike from repairing or replacing those houses.

And Hurricane Ike swept away most traces of the communities of Gilchrist and Crystal Beach along the Bolivar Peninsula. It pushed the Gulf of Mexico inland destroying homes, Galveston's beach along the Seawall is gone and the coastal highways have collapsed.

Under the 1959 Texas law, the Texas Open Beaches Act, the strip of strip of beach between the average high-tide line and the average low-tide line is considered public property, and it is illegal to build anything there.

http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7012354898

[JoeBob]

There are minimum setbacks in NC as well, so many feet back from the high tide mark.
Can't build on the dunes here, if your grandfathered home is destroyed, you better hope your property is deep enough to meet the setbacks.

[ztirffritz]

When I was 12 I went with my parents to Destin Florida for vacation. It was great. Our hotel as on the beach and we just walked out the back door and ran to the water. I took a girlfriend there about 12 years later and it was now 2 blocks from the water. Apparently one or more storms had changed the coastline pretty dramatically.

[mikebw]

common sense strikes again

[Monster]

shouldn't have been built on to begin with.

[Marc Anthony]

A partial solution for all these tornado and hurricane prone places is to rebuild with only monolithic dome housing; the shape is structurally resistant to gale force winds. They can still be flooded, but they won't blow apart as easily as all the houses on sticks. Places like Galveston could really benefit from them.

[DP]

How about an insurance caveat like in southern California: You build here we don't insure you.

[MacMagus]

> A partial solution for all these tornado
> and hurricane prone places is to rebuild
> with only monolithic dome housing

Bucky houses leak and blow off their foundations in storms.

[threeprong]

DP wrote:
How about an insurance caveat like in southern California: You build here we don't insure you.

It used to be that in NC, you got a lower rate for flood/hurricane insurance if you were 1500 ft from the high tide mark. But since many NC beach homes are on large , flat islands that are only 10 feet or so above sea level, the entire island goes underwater pretty much as a whole.

There are many stories of home owners being offered $30,000+ /year rates for hurricane insurance...

No beach rental income on a standard beach home can accommodate that plus property taxes.

So beach homes are now the huge risk that they really are....

[Carnos Jax]

MacMagus wrote:
> A partial solution for all these tornado
> and hurricane prone places is to rebuild
> with only monolithic dome housing

Bucky houses leak and blow off their foundations in storms.

I think what Marc is referring to a non-faceted continuous dome made out of one material. They are open on the bottom so the storm surge can go right through them...kinda like the one in this picture (the garage doors are designed to give way, or remain open):

http://www.offbeathomes.com/wp-content/u...dome-1.jpg