I think there comes a time in every person’s life where they realize it’s time to go hard or go home. To take the bull by the horns or stay on the sidelines. To offer help when things heat up or to get out of the kitchen. You get the idea.
If you’ve been through one of these moments yourself, you can understand how excited I was when I was asked if I would like to be a central part of a new effort by Engineering Express to help serve the victims of Hurricane Sandy by offering expert storm damage evaluations on a level never seen before. When my boss first asked if I would be okay with traveling to New York and New Jersey and keeping to an intense schedule of coordination for myself and almost 15 people, it was a no-brainer. I grew up on hurricanes. They are intrinsically a part of me. Yes, Frank, of course I’m game for a new venture to help with Hurricane Sandy and those people most affected. Of course I would love to find a way to create a digital inspection system and create a scalable inspection/engineering business model along with the rest of our gifted and talented team members. Where do I sign up? I remember my first – Hurricane Erin – a Category 2 hurricane which made landfall in Pensacola, Florida, on August 3, 1995 with wind gusts up to 82 mph. My family chose to ride out that one, and I remember as a little boy being so intrigued (and a little scared) by the storm raging outside.We lived in Fort Walton Beach, FL, just 37 miles from where the eye came ashore. We hunkered down in my Mom and Dad’s small wood-frame house while we heard flying debris slam against the side of the structure. I clearly remember a moment when my Granddad (more on him and his house later) walked me to the front door and opened it right after one of the scariest parts of the storm. What in God’s name was he doing? The door opened, and I saw the front face of it plastered with debris, but it had become instantly quiet. We were in the middle of the eye, the center of the action and the swirling winds, but it was unbelievably silent. It was like being under a pool of water with ear muffs on. There were no birds, no cars, no people, not a single sound. He pointed out into the yard at the neighbor’s trampoline that now sat upside down in the flooded cul-de-sac, and explained how the hurricane’s constant winds had gotten underneath the fabric and sent it flying. After the eye had passed and we had made it through the remaining winds, we assessed the damage. No power, a few trees down, lots of minor debris everywhere, but mostly everything was intact. We remained without power for 12 days, during which time my British Grandma would continuously and hourly make a “cuppa” tea using our gas grill to boil water. We grilled all of the food in our refrigerator, and we did chore after chore after chore to clean up. Within a month everything was pretty much back to normal and the story became less about the storm and more about how the family simply got to spend time with each other for a few weeks.
Hurricane Erin, 1995 – Ft. Walton Beach indicated
Hurricane Opal, however, was quite a different story. It made landfall just 62 days after Erin, as a Category 3 with wind gusts of 140 mph, in practically the SAME SPOT – actually, this time it was to land on Santa Rosa Island, just 35 miles from my grandparent’s home. Seriously, how does this happen? We were literally going to get pounded just weeks after we had cleaned up. The first time it was interesting, but now I was absolutely intrigued by this thing called a hurricane. We started to get ready for “another mild one” while we watched the storm approach us from the Gulf of Mexico, but I vividly remember the panic in my Dad’s voice when he called to tell us it had ramped up from a weak Category 1 to a record-breaking intensification up to near-Category 5 with 150 mph winds almost overnight. Even worse, the storm was only 200 miles away at this point. When my Dad said “you all need to get your things, pack a suitcase, and GET OUT NOW!” I remember literally being scared for my life. He was a lieutenant at the Police Station and my Mom was a paramedic for the city; they both had the inside scoop and we had less than 2 hours to pack and evacuate with my sisters and Grandparents, leaving my Mom and Dad behind. Even now I still get a little choked up thinking about the fear that little 10-year-old Troy must have had at the time. It was scary as hell; this hurricane thing was no longer fun.
NOAA Comparison of Erin and Opal’s Path. It was practically a double blow.
We ended up evacuating west towards Louisiana, only 6 hours ahead of the storm. Traffic was backed up for hundreds and hundreds of miles. My uncle George (a hilarious, no-holds-barred British man) had to pee on the side of the road and we laughed when he got scolded by my Grandma. It wasn’t so funny when the storm’s outer bands started pounding against our van windows while we sat like sitting ducks just a hundred miles from the storm’s epicenter. I was mostly scared for my Mom and Dad back home. Would they be called out in the middle of the wind and debris to help others? Would they have to climb through dark houses and flooded roads to help those that stayed behind? It’s incredible now looking back, how my family has always been involved with helping others (my grandmother and two aunts are nurses, plus my Dad is a retired Chief of Police and my mom a retired paramedic). I cried when we stopped at a rest area and watched the radar. CNN was in MY hometown, showing images of the event and the radar signatures. There were deep reds and even purples that swirled over the map I called home, and for the first time in my life I wondered if my parents were going to be safe. The winds were gusting at 115 mph, with a record-shattering 140 mph gust measured just 15 miles from mine and my grandparent’s house as a Category 3 storm, and we were all worried what would happen next.
A boat resting on the main road in my hometown
Fast forward to two days later, and we were on our way back after staying in hotels and living on the road like traveling gypsies with the other evacuees. At first we started seeing minor damage – a few McDonald’s signs busted, some tree branches in the road. But almost as soon as we crossed the Florida state line it was another world. Huge billboard signs were blown down and snapped like twigs. Every light pole was snapped in half, with the top half resting on the ground but somehow still connected by the thin electrical wires to the main trunk, almost like an injured bird at an obtuse angle. There were boats – BOATS, people…. in the ROAD. Last time I checked, that’s literally the exact opposite of where they’re supposed to be. Hurricane Opal had been so powerful that the 15-ft storm surge not only ripped miles of the highway into the gulf, it brought thousands and thousands of boats and sand inland. They. Were. Everywhere. There were yachts sitting on top of bigger yachts, buildings torn apart by sailboats smashing into them, jet-skis rammed into the sides of convenience stores, and we even saw anchor marks in the road as the boats which were ripped from their moorings dragged their heavy steel ballast and destroyed everything they touched.
My grandparents house, December 2012 – still standing!
At that time, my Grandparents lived on a barrier island – “Okaloosa Island” to be exact. When they evacuated they fled from the home they had built with their own hands and we were worried if it survived. Surely, with all of this devastation, the house was gone. Fortunately my Grandfather was one smart cookie and wisely built his dream home on top of stilts, or pilings. Thus, the “real” home was actually on the second floor, with some minor storage and a small studio apartment downstairs. My Dad received special permission from the police force to ride along with the National Guard, fly over the damage, and land near my Grandparents house. What he reported was intense. Their yard was littered with debris: bibles from the nearby hotels, mattresses, clothing, and believe it or not, a fully intact carton of eggs resting amongst the mess! He made his way underneath the house and through the piling supports, where two large picnic tables had been slammed into the two now-totalled vehicles my Grandparents owned. He crawled up and over the tables, over the cars, and made his way to the second floor stairs and into the structure. What he saw was incredible – the house had not only withstood 84 mph winds and 115 mph gusts for over 4 hours, as well as 4 feet of raging floodwater, but there was not even a single picture frame that had tilted or fallen off the wall. The next door neighbors with their single-story house weren’t so lucky. They had about 4 feet of sand inside their living room. My Grandmother’s best friend was even worse off. Her entire house of belongings, almost all of her earthly possessions, were grabbed by the voracious ocean and were never seen again. I remember her and my Grandma crying while we stood in the wrecked structure. The sadness was intense.
Highway 98 (my favorite road and where all the sand dunes were) was completely washed away
I remember the agony that followed. Roads shut down. Extreme heat with no power. Toiling day after day after day after day in my Grandma’s yard, trying our best to untangle the mess of crap now stuck in the sea oats around their house. Shoveling tons and tons of sand out of my Granddad’s beloved pool. The Red Cross even came by three times a day to feed us, since we literally had nothing on the island. Wikipedia noted that “Sand dunes along the stretch of US-98, normally 25 feet high, were removed by wind and surge. Where once the ocean was obscured from view by the dunes for miles, a flat open space opened up along U. S. Highway 98.” My beloved sand dunes – the ones my grandma, sisters, and I would slide down on cardboard boxes, were gone. All of this was such a big event in my life because it affected so much around me. Even my elementary school teachers had to be transported from their homes to our school for months by a high-speed tourist boat because there was no other way. I’ll have to admit it was funny seeing their hair all messed up every morning, though!
Eventually, the mess was cleaned up and everything went back to normal. I actually found out a few months ago that Hurricane Opal was such a shock to the community that it was the catalyst that helped to create the current Florida Building Code. The governor realized that a proper building code was sorely needed for the entire state of Florida, not just Miami and Broward, who at the time had the South Florida Building Code. I really like how David Bush put it in his book Living With Florida’s Atlantic Beaches: “Hurricane Andrew (1992) taught a hard lesson in regard to ignoring wind-resistant construction and contributed to Florida’s insurance crisis in the 1990’s. Hurricane Opal (1996) provided the complementary lesson of buildings’ vulnerability to storm surge, waves, overwash, and flooding. These two great storms… and Hurricane Erin (1995) led to the reform of Florida’s building codes with the passage of the statewide Florida Building Code in 2001 and its implementation in 2002. And the learning process continues.”
You’re darn right the learning process continues! I was hooked. These storms needed to be analyzed, picked apart, studied, and whatever information that could be found out needed to be shared with the community. Hurricanes were the source of so much devastation that I had witnessed in my life, but they could also pave the way for me to attain an enjoyable career designing and assisting for the rebuilding efforts in these neighborhoods as well as through code enforcement and offer any guidance and encouragement I can provide to those not as fortunate.
Now, as I sit on a flight on my way up to the regions most affected by Hurricane Sandy, I once again recall how I felt as a young 10-year-old kid. I remember why I became a structural/civil engineer in the first place. I’m fully realizing that one of the world’s leading Building Codes which now provides so much structure in my life is actually the direct product of a hurricane that started my entire journey in structural engineering. Long ago I decided I wanted to be the man who would be able to help those affected by natural disasters. I wanted to be the guy that could walk into a building and tell the owner exactly what needed to be done to keep it sound and safe. I wanted to ensure that NOBODY would have to go through what I went through: the fear of evacuating so quickly, the anxiety thinking about my family’s safety, and the sadness I felt from my friends that had lost everything.
They say regarding the phrase “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” that life relies on doctors, liberty relies on lawyers, but engineers – structural engineers in my opinion – provide the freedom for the pursuit of happiness. What a responsibility! My ultimate mission is to provide for others what was never really provided for those that I loved – an expert eye to protect them long before a storm hits, and sincere dedication to making things right once it does. I’m looking forward to putting everything I can offer on the table, to provide for those in need, and to help Engineering Express provide a disaster response service like no other. I can promise you that this nation can be a better place and will be better protected as long as we ensure proper legislation and enforcement of Building Codes with trained Professional Engineers and related professionals. Just like the Florida Building Code, sprung from the new data found after Hurricane Opal, I’m excited to see what improvements can be made now that we’re analyzing the trends from Sandy. And I’m just thrilled that I’m lucky enough to now be involved in a professional capacity.
Look out for new blog posts all this week, I’ll do my best to keep you up to date on the progress in the inspection circuit from Long Island to Brooklyn to Point Pleasant, NJ as Engineering Express (and our partner company, TSSA Storm Safe) work to ensure that the pursuit of happiness is never stalled. Not up here, and ESPECIALLY not in New York! Fuhgeddaboudditt!!
Original Article found on Engineering Express