“So we ended up having to jack the house from the second story and entirely rebuild the first story underneath.” Aesthetics, Storage, and Safety: Lattice or Louversįlood vents are fitted with mechanized floats that open them automatically, allowing floodwaters to enter and exit without damaging the walls. “The original wood framing had been exposed to flooding before and altered several times, and all of it was inadequate,” says Jack A. But, to complicate matters, work on the house itself-as with many period homes-has run into unforeseen challenges. The clay subsoil beneath the house is stable enough for concrete-block piles anchored to below-grade concrete footings. Traditional piersĪ more traditional method will be used to elevate Jed and Christine Laird’s 1890s home, in Bay Head, New Jersey, which is located on a narrow barrier peninsula between the Atlantic and Barnegat Bay. A few months later, they elevated the structure about 10 feet above grade on high-tech helical steel piles. Once the floodwaters receded, Carlos did all the remediation himself, tearing out the wallboard, dousing the stud walls with anti-mold agents, and running dehumidifiers to dry things out. The couple took steps to temporarily elevate the house right after Sandy had filled their living space with 5 feet of water. High-tech piersĬarlos and Maria Santos own a 1950s home, just steps from the waterfront in Point Pleasant, New Jersey, that is one of the three rebuilds being featured on TOH TV. To make sense of these changing regulations, FEMA recommends that homeowners work only with experienced engineers and contractors licensed in the homeowner’s state. Community-based regulations, which are drawn up using FEMA guidelines as minimum standards, are being revised as these new minimum guidelines are published. One reason that rebuilding after a storm can be so frustrating is that FEMA is presently revising its flood-zone maps in response to rising sea levels. In fact, in high-risk areas, proving that your house meets your local building authority’s base-flood elevation (FEMA’s 100-year-flood-zone determination) is often the only way for homeowners to qualify for insurance and building permits. Raising an existing house on piles (also called piers) so that the lowest level is safely above the flood stage sounds like a complicated job-until you stop to envision what it would take to rebuild a life after a total washout. Shown: One year later, the home is raised to its new height on temporary cribbing, awaiting permanent pile supports. And when it comes to flooding, it all starts with raising a house above the predicted danger zone. A look at the Jersey Shore rebuilding featured on the new season of TOH TV, which begins airing this month, highlights what experts are calling “layered” design features that can help homes and their occupants survive potential weather catastrophes. Keeping a home habitable after an extreme weather event is all about putting multiple protective measures in place, says Karen Durham-Aguilera, the director of contingency operations and homeland security for the U.S. That’s why many homeowners are bracing for the bad storms now, before the deluge. at risk for flooding will increase by as much as 45 percent by the end of this century.
In its 2013 report on the likely effects of climate change, the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) predicted that areas of the U.S. While coastal floods during hurricanes are relatively short-lived, inland river flooding, such as in Alberta, Canada, in June 2013 or in the aftermath of 2005’s Hurricane Katrina, can last for days or even weeks.Īnd things are likely to get wetter.
Fourteen months before last fall’s Superstorm Sandy shocked the Eastern Seaboard, inland communities in New Jersey, upstate New York, and Vermont experienced the damaging effects of encroaching waters from Tropical Storm Irene. And severe flooding-which has long plagued homeowners on the coasts and on the floodplains surrounding major rivers-is hitting homes situated along smaller waterways, too.
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