Protection against hurricanes

ronks

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Aug 13, 2003
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I have been tuning into the weather news for some years and have the northcoast on my list, since it always seems to get hit by hurricanes. My question is how do you expats protect yourselves from these potentially lethal storms? I would hope that you would plan to overbuild in preparation for the inevitable event. So, I would be interested to hear some stories as to your experiences during these storms and how your homes fared. I am an architect here in the US and have always designed buildings with seismic events in mind, far beyond the minimum code standards. Actually, here in the US, wind often dominates over seismic so I am well aware as to how to design for high wind areas. What do you do in the DR to protect your homes? I have thought about working in the DR on just such projects to insure that your investment in your home is well protected by following structurally sound practices. And I am more than willing to offer some guidance in this area.

Ron
 
Jan 17, 2009
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Uhhh? This is a surprise to me. I thought no major hurricane has hit the north coast of the DR in over a decade. Yeah, maybe the odds are against us now.
 

ronks

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Aug 13, 2003
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Excuse me if I am mistaken. I have tracked hurricanes for some 10 years, because I used to live in Cuba and always followed their tracking, so I thought that the north coast go hit as frequently as other areas of the DR.
 

Chip

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Jul 25, 2007
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Santiago
First, I think the DR is peculiar that it doesn't get hit as often as other places in the caribbean. No doubt this is due to the central mountain range which is over 10,000 feet high. This has a tendency to either push the storm to the north or south. Second, well built homes here in the DR are made out of concrete block and reinforced concrete and are much, much stronger that homes and even commercial buildings in the States. Also, typically the foundation is deeper and the roofs are concrete reinforced. I don't know what the wind load resistance is but it certainly has to be more than anything a hurricane cane muster.

As far as flooding goes here this can be a problem. I doubt they have done any studies to calculate the storm surge elevation in the coastal area, but 10 to 12 feet above msl should be more than enough, and relatively easy to manage in most areas given the natural topography.
 

GringoCArlos

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Jan 9, 2002
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I too have tracked hurricanes in the Caribbean for the past 16 seasons. A rule of thumb is that if a storm passes below Puerto Rico, it will continue into the Caribbean below the DR and on to Cuba. If it passes to the north of P.R. it will go on to the Atlantic, the Turks and Caicos, Bahamas, etc. but away from the North Coast.

The DR has mountain ranges that steer these storms. The Nortrh Coast is in the shadow of these mountains, and the ocean currents in the Mona channel beteen P..R: and the DR push them farther north.

Why don't you use your seismic knowledge here in the DR? As much as Hillbilly and others promote Santiago as paradise, hasn't hte entire city been completely levelled 3 times in its history? That reason alone was enough to disinterest me from living there - I had enough earthquake experience living in Los Angeles in my past.

Poor materials and poor construction methods already lead to overbuilding in the DR in buildings of any size. Ther would be opportunities for you here for your knowledge.
 

Lambada

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Mar 4, 2004
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What do you do in the DR to protect your homes?

In the last 45 years 10 hurricanes have come close or actually impacted a part of the DR. On the north coast the greater damage tends to come from rain than wind (mainly they come from the east & will have lost some strength by the time they get to the north coast). Thus tropical storms, particularly those that stall out, can be every bit as problematic, because of rain damage. We have boards to board up glass windows (didn't need to bother in the old wooden house we first had, because it had shutters) against flying objects. Plus all the other usual precautions when a storm is bearing down. We put 12 foot of rubble before we built to make us higher than the surrounding land so that rain would run off, rather than form ornamental ponds :cheeky:.

Our house was subjected to a 6.2 earthquake on the Richter scale (epicentre about 12 miles distant) in 2003 plus a number of aftershocks (the north coast being conveniently situated between 2 fault lines........). Superficial plaster cracks resulted plus some external tile cracks, nothing structural, fortunately.
 

ben jammin

Well-known member
Aug 3, 2007
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here are some pics from isabel at my house in north carolina from a few years ago. it was a cat 5 until a day or so before hitting and a cat 2 or 3 at impact. we had actually cleaned up some before these pics. the eye passed over us and it was the swell from the back side that did the most damage. notice the big rocks from our seawall in the yard :( Picasa Web Albums - Mark - hurricane isabel
 

Joey Doughnuts

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Nov 26, 2006
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I believe the concrete construction here doesn't pose no structural risk. The roofs typically are just as secure.

I haven't ever seen a hurricane awning nor a shutter.

3d has a protective film you can add to glass. I imagine an awning can be installed on the inside for locations where the moisture and salt spray would otherwise reduce their useful life dramatically.
 

Hillbilly

Moderator
Jan 1, 2002
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Gringo Carlos: Santiago, at it's present location has never been leveled by anything other that a fire back in the 1860s that was started to keep the Spanish for getting anything.
The North Coast has yet to be really bothered by a hurricane, although I suppose it could happen at any time.
However, there are 100 year old wood structures there, tin roofs and all.
My place over at Punta Rucia is more than 45 years old and nothing yet.

The East and the South are the two places that reallyget hit. I saw a beautiful place in Casa de Campo built with some very open spaces, that was supposedly built to withstand 100 mph winds...

And my friends, a builder and an architect, have lived there nearly 40 years with no damage to their houses..(Not on the beach)...

In Santo Domingo, the poor housing, the low-laying barrios and the really poor neighborhoods are the places that get damaged the most if a hurricanes hits the city.

HOWEVER, we have yet to see the effects of a "big" one on the dozens of highrises that have sprung up over the years...That will be the test...

Cordially,

HB
 

dv8

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Sep 27, 2006
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i think the major problem is the windows. dominicans seem to put them in niches (or whatever is the suitable word) that are completely square. in poland the bottom part of the niche is kind of tilted so the water does not stay in place to seep inside the house.
i don't know if i expressed myself clearly enough but i am sure lambada know what i mean :)
 

Lambada

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Mar 4, 2004
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i think the major problem is the windows. dominicans seem to put them in niches (or whatever is the suitable word) that are completely square. in poland the bottom part of the niche is kind of tilted so the water does not stay in place to seep inside the house.
i don't know if i expressed myself clearly enough but i am sure lambada know what i mean :)

Absolutely I do. They don't slope the window sills down away from the window so that rain running down the window can also run off the window sill. Thus it sits at the base of the window on the sill and eventually mounts up & will find an entry point into the house........:ermm: Getting this corrected is not done by sander/grinder but good old fashioned hammer and elbow grease, so it is noisy & time-consuming. Better to get it right the first time by standing over the builder & being .........firm :).
 

MikeFisher

The Fisherman/Weather Mod
Feb 28, 2006
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Originally Posted by ronks
I have been tuning into the weather news for some years and have the northcoast on my list, since it always seems to get hit by hurricanes.
Ron
several years??
and in several years of observations and research you found out the dominican northcoast get's that often bashed by hurricanes and other areas of the country, too?

what a waste of time.

a 20 minutes search box use on any mayor meteorological webpage would have provided you with the facts and saved years of valuable lifetime.

with very few exceptions tropical disturbances like TD/TS/TW/Hurricanes move westwards and northwards and any combination of both directions.
then more north from the equator they run than bigger they can grow up.

very most systems near the dominican republic come from the east of the lesser Antilles.
with puerto rico straight on line there and the Mona Channel between us the very most of the few who approach the Channel get turned northwards to pass close or over Samana and towards the Bahamas/Florida etc, or they stay like the big ones so often on a straight western track when approaching the lesser antilles and wander straight into the caribbean sea, bouncing on their mostly occuring WNW turns Haiti, Jamaica, Cuba, or reach Yucatan and enter the gulf of mexico.

what effects us here on the island once in a while is when a big powerful system passes by close, so we get sme nice windforces and a huge share of rain.
most of bother we receive anyways from smaller systems, the so named vaguadas, mostly no wind involved, very slow moving or even stationary for hours, so such is causing flooding and mudslides.

windforces i never saw as a problem in a good 14 years living on the east of the Isle. in the worst scenario some palmtrees fly and some electricity poles go down, such is back to normal within a couple days for most of the area, and such does not happen every couple years or such.

to the OP's years long research/observations,
didn;t those observations bring up the name Luperon Marina to ya??
a lil hint:
located on the dominican northshore that luperon marina is one of the well known hurricane holes in the caribbean.
Mike
 

Olly

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Mar 12, 2007
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Ronks,
If you look at this site you can find out all the hurricans that have past by the DR since records began.




" + theTitle + "

Just enter the lat/long - for us 16.9 and -69.2 and it will generate a map of the tracks.

Georges in 1998 was the last Cat 3 that came through, with another one in 1899 that was offshore to the north of Cabarete but wasn't named.

I haven't looked a below Cat 3 as I am sure there are more.

It is a usefull site. We looked at it before we decided to live here on the north coast.

HTH
OLLY
 
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J D Sauser

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Nov 20, 2004
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Florida homes being damaged or destroyed by WIND usually have their roof decked off by superficial wind or blown (lifted) off by air pressure penetrating thru openings like collapsing garage door, shattered windows or doors. Usually the later will even see damage outer CBS walls as they are usually only perimeter walls with NO poured concrete beams, columns or girts.

Most Dominican concrete homes however, will hold up pretty well against the power of hurricane strength winds as most boast a concrete FRAME construction and a thick poured concrete roof which comes to form an integral part of the structure... a set of fundamental differences to US-style building, even those built according to newer Dade, Broward and Palm Beach County codes. Hence, many home owners will put less emphasis on protecting wall openings from flying debris as the the wind's damage potential from inside the structure is much less than with Florida style building.

The main issues here are water related. Bad water evacuation design of the roofs is typical even in upper scale homes. Bad development, not taking neighboring rivers which often DO flash flood several times a year being ignored and bad or nonexistent drainage paired with a poor choice of building locations regularly lead to losses every year... some in a repetitive, almost predictable cyclical manner.
Most who fear the power of wind, fail to recognize the lethal power of weather and the velocity in which a "dry" river can turn into a valley engulfing stream and back to apparently dry.

I urge all my clients to especially take water, flood and drainage issues into account when looking at properties around this country. Dominicans have "learned" to live with these issues to such extent that they seem to take them as part of life, urbanism, home ownership... until the predictable is being topple by disaster... and then, it's all blamed on the bad government again. Most who will come here from a developed country will not enjoy theses experiences.


Plywood is readily available in the country, to adapt some "hurricane" shutters, in other words window protection.
There slowly is a limited supply of accordion hurricane shutters popping up here and there on the market, mostly in the two main cities Santo Domingo and Santiago... but at high prices.

I have not noted a major rush on food, bottled water and supplies just BEFORE a storm like we'd see in the States where supermarkets get "plundered" by hysteric residents... usually, only afterward do some items become rare, mostly only as supply chains or production seems limited or even interrupted.
Tap water, believe it or not, almost always tends to be short of supply, especially after floods.

... J-D.
 
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