Why Did This Florida Home Survive Michael While Those All Around Are Gone?

The "Sand Palace" that nice blue Mexico Beach, Florida house in the
foreground, survived Hurricane Michael nicely while all those
around it were destroyed. The home was designed to withstand
the worst hurricanes. 

The New York Times had an interesting story this weekend about a beachfront house in Mexico Beach, Florida that survived Hurricane Michael with barely a scratch.

The entire story is a great read. But I'll summarize here.

You might have seen the video taken from helicopters or drones: All the houses around are gone, except for one happy blue house that looks ready for a beach party today.

The house, dubbed the "Sand Palace" was just built last year. It's owned by a guy named Russell King and his nephew, Dr. Lebron Lackey. They wanted to make sure the house was hurricane-proof.

"We wanted to build it for the big one," Lackey said. "We just never knew we'd find the big one so fast."

Building codes for houses in the Florida Panhandle are not as strict as those in South Florida. If you build a house near Miami, it has to be able to withstand 175 mph winds. Build your dream house in the Florida Panhandle, it only has to withstand 120 to 150 mph winds.

Most buildings in Mexico Beach, where Hurricane Michael came ashore, didn't stand a chance against the wind and epic storm surge.  The surviving "Sand Palace," on the other hand, was built to withstand 250 mph winds.

According to the New York Times:

"The house was fashioned from poured concrete, reinforced by steel cables and rebar, with additional concrete bolstering the corners of the house. The space under the roof was minimized so that wind could not sneak in underneath and lift it off. The home's elevation, on high pilings, was meant to keep it above the surge of seawater that usually accompanies powerful hurricanes"

The stairway to get into the Sand Palace were ripped away by Hurricane Michael. That was by design. If the stairs easily go, they wouldn't rip off part of the house with them. That helped preserve   the house's strength against the storm. King, Lackey and the New York Times gained access to the house via a ladder.

In the end, the Sand Palace suffered a tiny bit of water damage and one cracked window. That's it. Repairs to the structure would take a month, at most, and not cost much.

Of course, all this reinforcement costs money, and many people don't have the means to protect their homes like King and Lackey did with their Mexico Beach vacation home.

A beach house on a lovely sandy ocean shoreline is not a necessity. But houses belonging to people who live and work in the area are prone to storms like Michael. We know that homes well inland from the beach were destroyed by wind and storm surge.  How can people afford to protect their property from the next Michael?

I surely don't have an answer. I don''t think anybody else does either. As storms get more ferocious as the climate changes, this is becoming a more and more important question.

All these hurricane protections are not flawless, either. One design mistake and the whole house goes. Most houses around the Sand Palace were completely gone. One next door was still sort of there, but its roof and many of its walls had caved in. That badly damaged house was also supposedly built to withstand big hurricanes.

Ominously, there were two renters in that largely destroyed house. While the New York Times interviewed King and Lackey in the Sand Palace,  FEMA searchers were going through the wreckage of that next-door house. Nobody knows if those two people fled, survived and can't yet be found, or died in the storm.