More on Mobile Homes
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More on Mobile Homes
Today's Sarasota Herald Tribune has a story that seems to verify what the witnesses I have spoken with have told me--that mobile homes built according to the post-Hurricane Andrew standards survived Charley quite well. I can probably post the site if needed but I bet that most of you can get to it faster than I can post it.
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GalvestonDuck
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http://www.newscoast.com/apps/pbcs.dll/ ... 80653/1385
Newer mobile homes fared better against Charley's winds
BY ALLEN G. BREED THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
PUNTA GORDA -- Joan Marie Gilbert and her 15-year-old daughter moved into a mobile home because they couldn't afford anything else. James and Jean Burns bought one because it was the cheapest way to claim their slice of Florida paradise.
One was humble, the other posh. But Hurricane Charley didn't discriminate: Few mobile homes can withstand 145 mph winds.
Mobile homes are plentiful in Charlotte County, where more than a third of the population is 65 or older. They're cheap to buy and live in, and they make ideal winter residences for Northern retirees -- which also means many were vacant when the storm blew in Friday.
Most people understand the risk involved in trailer-park life, but it had been so long since a hurricane struck southwestern Florida -- Donna blew through in 1960 -- that many are willing to take the chance.
"They roll the dice," said Bob Stroh, a professor in the University of Florida Rinker School of Building Construction and director of the Shimberg Center for Affordable Housing. "It's sort of like, 'It will never happen to me.'"
That's what Gilbert thought.
The 45-year-old disabled lab technician lost her home after a messy divorce. Three weeks before Charley hit, she began renting the gray trailer on the edge of Punta Gorda's Baileyville neighborhood from a church friend.
Sitting in a red 1975 Mustang and waiting for someone from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to come look at the trailer, which looked as if a giant had tried to cut it in half with a blunt knife. Her teenage daughter, Jerica Nichols, fidgeting nearby in a pair of borrowed shorts and a tank top, blamed her mother for the loss of her things.
"She is dumb for living here," said Jerica, her left hand crowded with the scribbled phone numbers of friends she can no longer reach. "Anybody who lives in one is stupid."
"That's not very nice," her mother retorted. "Some people don't have a choice."
The Burnses had a choice, and they chose manufactured housing. But Windmill Village, founded in 1970, is a far cry from Baileyville.
The "55+ community" of 465 units has a swimming pool and clubhouse, and blue herons land in a marina connected by canals to the Alligator River and Charlotte Harbor.
James Burns, 74, a Royal Air Force veteran and retired California attorney, says he saw no point to pay exorbitant property taxes to "prop up a corrupt government" when he could live comfortably in a trailer.
"That means I can spend all the rest on riotous living," he said with an impish grin.
Life in Windmill is anything but a riot now.
Palm trees that weren't blown down are wrapped in ribbons of white aluminum siding. In one house, a golf cart's taillights flash eerily.
About 80 percent of the homes here are a total loss -- including the Burnses'.
But several homes remained intact, gleaming incongruously amid the wreckage. These are the post-Andrew mobile homes.
As the result of Hurricane Andrew in 1992, mobile-home construction standards were tightened. The new federal rules required construction materials to withstand 100- to 110-mph winds. Stricter foundation standards were enacted by the state in 1999.
Frank Williams, head of the Florida Manufactured Housing Association, said homes built to the new standards could -- and did -- stand up to Charley's 145-mph winds. Many of the mobile homes claimed by the storm were built in the 1960s and '70s, with some dating to the '50s.
"It doesn't compare at all to today's standards," Williams said. "They weren't designed for this kind of wind loading."
Jean Burns, 71, marvels at a home along the canal, just a few hundred yards from her ruins. Aside from some minor peeling, the house is utterly unscathed.
"I figure the damage he got was from debris from the older houses hitting his," she says, a hint of envy in her voice. "That IS impressive to me."
Much of Punta Gorda and Charlotte County will have to be rebuilt to the new standards, and many residents will return to stronger -- but still vulnerable -- mobile homes.
Gilbert is on a fixed income and figures she'll have to return to a trailer -- even though an elderly couple a few streets over died when Charley demolished theirs.
The residents of Windmill plan to rebuild.
"This whole park, it's our family," says Jo Mogle, 73, a retired sailing instructor. "The people in this park make it home, not the buildings."
Jean Burns says the community's board has been trying for years to make Windmill Village a five-star trailer park. Thanks to the upgrades Charley has forced on Windmill, she says, "It's going to make it a four-star, if nothing else."
Newer mobile homes fared better against Charley's winds
BY ALLEN G. BREED THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
PUNTA GORDA -- Joan Marie Gilbert and her 15-year-old daughter moved into a mobile home because they couldn't afford anything else. James and Jean Burns bought one because it was the cheapest way to claim their slice of Florida paradise.
One was humble, the other posh. But Hurricane Charley didn't discriminate: Few mobile homes can withstand 145 mph winds.
Mobile homes are plentiful in Charlotte County, where more than a third of the population is 65 or older. They're cheap to buy and live in, and they make ideal winter residences for Northern retirees -- which also means many were vacant when the storm blew in Friday.
Most people understand the risk involved in trailer-park life, but it had been so long since a hurricane struck southwestern Florida -- Donna blew through in 1960 -- that many are willing to take the chance.
"They roll the dice," said Bob Stroh, a professor in the University of Florida Rinker School of Building Construction and director of the Shimberg Center for Affordable Housing. "It's sort of like, 'It will never happen to me.'"
That's what Gilbert thought.
The 45-year-old disabled lab technician lost her home after a messy divorce. Three weeks before Charley hit, she began renting the gray trailer on the edge of Punta Gorda's Baileyville neighborhood from a church friend.
Sitting in a red 1975 Mustang and waiting for someone from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to come look at the trailer, which looked as if a giant had tried to cut it in half with a blunt knife. Her teenage daughter, Jerica Nichols, fidgeting nearby in a pair of borrowed shorts and a tank top, blamed her mother for the loss of her things.
"She is dumb for living here," said Jerica, her left hand crowded with the scribbled phone numbers of friends she can no longer reach. "Anybody who lives in one is stupid."
"That's not very nice," her mother retorted. "Some people don't have a choice."
The Burnses had a choice, and they chose manufactured housing. But Windmill Village, founded in 1970, is a far cry from Baileyville.
The "55+ community" of 465 units has a swimming pool and clubhouse, and blue herons land in a marina connected by canals to the Alligator River and Charlotte Harbor.
James Burns, 74, a Royal Air Force veteran and retired California attorney, says he saw no point to pay exorbitant property taxes to "prop up a corrupt government" when he could live comfortably in a trailer.
"That means I can spend all the rest on riotous living," he said with an impish grin.
Life in Windmill is anything but a riot now.
Palm trees that weren't blown down are wrapped in ribbons of white aluminum siding. In one house, a golf cart's taillights flash eerily.
About 80 percent of the homes here are a total loss -- including the Burnses'.
But several homes remained intact, gleaming incongruously amid the wreckage. These are the post-Andrew mobile homes.
As the result of Hurricane Andrew in 1992, mobile-home construction standards were tightened. The new federal rules required construction materials to withstand 100- to 110-mph winds. Stricter foundation standards were enacted by the state in 1999.
Frank Williams, head of the Florida Manufactured Housing Association, said homes built to the new standards could -- and did -- stand up to Charley's 145-mph winds. Many of the mobile homes claimed by the storm were built in the 1960s and '70s, with some dating to the '50s.
"It doesn't compare at all to today's standards," Williams said. "They weren't designed for this kind of wind loading."
Jean Burns, 71, marvels at a home along the canal, just a few hundred yards from her ruins. Aside from some minor peeling, the house is utterly unscathed.
"I figure the damage he got was from debris from the older houses hitting his," she says, a hint of envy in her voice. "That IS impressive to me."
Much of Punta Gorda and Charlotte County will have to be rebuilt to the new standards, and many residents will return to stronger -- but still vulnerable -- mobile homes.
Gilbert is on a fixed income and figures she'll have to return to a trailer -- even though an elderly couple a few streets over died when Charley demolished theirs.
The residents of Windmill plan to rebuild.
"This whole park, it's our family," says Jo Mogle, 73, a retired sailing instructor. "The people in this park make it home, not the buildings."
Jean Burns says the community's board has been trying for years to make Windmill Village a five-star trailer park. Thanks to the upgrades Charley has forced on Windmill, she says, "It's going to make it a four-star, if nothing else."
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Thanks for posting the site, GDuck!! Do you note how the article still takes a "potshot" at mobile homes, even the newer ones? Did person reporting this article take the time or make the effort to compare survival rates between these newer mobile homes and site built homes (either built before or after Andrew)? I doubt it but the article nonetheless implies that living in a mobile home in somehow inherently less safe than living in a site built home. That may not be accurate.
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