Building Codes Not Enough for Public Buildings Affected by Hurricane Charley
There are no Country Walks in Hurricane Charley's wake, no whole subdivisions blown away because of flimsy materials and shoddy workmanship. Structural engineers, surveying the multibillion-dollar swath of damage, have pinpointed a new and troubling pattern of construction problems.
There are no Country Walks in Hurricane Charley's wake, no whole subdivisions blown away because of flimsy materials and shoddy workmanship. Structural engineers, surveying the multibillion-dollar swath of damage, have pinpointed a new and troubling pattern of construction problems, Knight Ridder Newspapers reported.
Some of the most alarming destruction — aside from predictably splintered mobile homes — happened in places where it can least be tolerated: hospitals, airports, fire stations, even a brand new metal-framed agricultural center that was designed as a hurricane shelter.
Construction experts are raising concerns about construction practices and building codes at many public facilities that bore the brunt of Charley. Do Florida's new wind standards, enacted by the Legislature in 2001 after a decade of wrangling with the powerful building industry, go far enough?
Some examples:
• Charlotte County Medical Center in downtown Punta Gorda, where a roof collapse forced doctors and nurses to treat hurricane victims in tents in the parking lot next door. Pistorino said some of the exterior walls were built with a polyurethane foam system that looks like stucco but is much lighter and cheaper.
• The Charlotte County Sheriff's Office complex — now doubling as the emergency operations center — where nearly a third of the metal-framed roof peeled off. Initial search and rescue efforts were done around roof repairs.
• Charlotte County Fire Station 12, north of Port Charlotte. A sign after the storm read: "THE ROOF IS GONE BUT THE FIREMEN AREN'T."
• The new Turner Agri-Civic Center in Arcadia, a 28,000-square-foot steel-frame arena, where 1,200 evacuees watched in horror as the roof above them sheared off as one wall buckled and crumbled.
Men, women and children formed a human chain and braved high winds to escape to the high school, 500 yards away.
The $7 million center, built in 2002, was planned as a hurricane shelter and designed to tolerate winds up to 140 mph, according to the company hired to build it.
A half-dozen engineers on the ground in Southwest Florida agreed the most severe problems centered on some types of specialized commercial building systems — steel-frame structures, metal roofs, sprayed foam applications, which are common in South Florida.
The engineers acknowledge it is too early to know whether the failures were the fault of the systems themselves, inadequate codes, construction shortcuts or simply the power of Mother Nature.
The state and federal probes of any construction failures in Charley's wake will start against a backdrop of more than a decade of battles to strengthen Florida's building codes after Andrew in 1992, the most costly hurricane disaster in American history.
In 1994, Broward and Miami-Dade counties adopted the nation's toughest wind-speed codes, forcing new construction to withstand gusts up to 150 mph. It took another seven years of negotiations with building industry lobbyists to enact a somewhat watered-down version with significant upgrades largely confined to coastal areas.
Building industry leaders argued for less regulation for several reasons — primarily risk and expense.
Along most of the coast, including Charlotte and Lee counties, the new code calls for 130-mph protection, the strength of a Category 3. It's 10 mph less in neighboring DeSoto County, home to Arcadia, and another 10 mph less in Orlando. Charley exploded on the coast like a 145-mph bomb.
Alan Douglas, executive director of the Association of General Contractors, said myriad factors could play a part in building failures beside the code — the age of buildings, poor design, shoddy materials, sloppy craftsmanship and, of course, Charley's unexpected power.
The consensus among engineers who support tougher wind standards is that the more restrictive post-Andrew building codes probably saved property and lives.
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