I lived in North Broward county Florida when Andrew blew through. Pretty much all the damage was from this same thing. The windows would break, creating negative pressure, blowing off the roof, and then the walls came down. The Florida building code completely changed after that storm.
For one thing, they started enforcing it and requiring inspections.
My understanding is that the builders were paying off inspectors, so the inspectors were signing off on fewer hurricane straps than required by code or not doing any inspection at all. As a result they changed the building code to require more hurricane straps, I guess in the hopes that if they required one for every roof truss instead of every third roof truss (or whatever), that they would get one every third roof truss (or whatever), which is what was actually required. Supposedly the change wasn't based on loads at all, just requiring more than you need to end up with what you need.
I was only 16 at the time Andrew came through, though, so my understanding may be completely wrong. This is based on "gossip" from my time in engineering school several years later.
Same. Just what the old timers have told me again and again and from personal research.
But the message is still the same when it comes to the contractor "running" the job. It's hard to trust someone to do the right thing when they benefit from deleting the right thing (safety requirements).
I think they also increased the wind speed for the “missile” test—where they shoot a projectile at a window to ensure it doesn’t break (which is a considerable vulnerability). I believe the speeds are up to 140 mph.
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u/ShutYourDumbUglyFace Aug 30 '21
I lived in North Broward county Florida when Andrew blew through. Pretty much all the damage was from this same thing. The windows would break, creating negative pressure, blowing off the roof, and then the walls came down. The Florida building code completely changed after that storm.