Just a week ago, Hurricane Beryl hammered the Texas coast and Houston area, leaving a trail of destruction, power outages, and anger in its wake. Some of the hardest hit areas were down along the coast, including the Galveston Island area. Hurricane Ike in 2008 showed the destruction to be had on places like the Bolivar Peninsula and the West End, which were flattened by heavy wind and storm surge.
Beryl was not Ike, but it still packed a ferocious punch. But it did provide the first test for some newly built beach homes in the Galveston area, and they passed with flying colors. That was specifically in the Seahorse Estates community on Follet Island. All were left standing, with minimal damage done to them.
Jim Dutton of KTRH's Texas Home Improvement show says this boils down simply to new building codes put into place.
"They put in wind load codes, and all these other new codes to strengthen the structures so they can withstand the winds," he says.
Many of them have sheet metal roofs, which combats roof damage you would otherwise see with shingles. The structures did not move an inch, and people there, minus a lack of power, had their lives almost untouched by Beryl's force.
These are newly built homes, which allowed these stronger codes to be put into place. There are things you can add to a current home to help out a bit with hurricanes, but it is a challenging concept.
"As they are being remodeled, and you open up walls, hurricane straps and things can be added...but to retrofit these new codes into existing homes is cost prohibitive," he says.
Basically, your best option if you are on the coast is to leave, because installing these new codes is just not practical.
You can always go buy a new build home as well, but these new codes also come with consequences.
"All this advancement and extra things you do to make it stronger, also add to the cost of it...so it is a give and take," says Dutton.
Since Hurricane Ike caused such massive storm surge and destruction in 2008, there has been talks of an 'Ike Dike' in Texas City. It would be a huge dike near Galveston to help assist in preventing storm surge flooding, beach erosion, and more property damage.
But so far, that has been a pipe dream, with no real progress made on the project in 16 years. Dutton says though we do not even need the dike, as there are other actions that can be taken.
"The beach erosion and things can be better controlled by how we manage the beaches...some places go to their beaches yearly and replace soil on there to stop erosion...we are not really doing that," he says.
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