Game of Floods - Windy Point
Summer Homeowner
Assignment: Read the role assignment and background reading below, then answer the questions at the end.
Role Assignment:
You recently purchased a waterfront home in your dream neighborhood: Windy Point. This is your second home. You worked hard to get to this point in your life, and now you are looking forward to enjoying the beach with your family every summer! Like anyone living on the coast you know that storms are a danger, but Windy Point has been there for a long time – you aren’t too concerned.
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Your summer house
Background Reading:
Refusing to Abandon Their Home, Homeowners Rebuild With Flood Risk in Mind
When Superstorm Sandy plowed up the Eastern Seaboard in 2012, it left Andrew Rosenman’s home in Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey, in ruins.
“It looked like a bomb had exploded. The flood line on the wall of our house was at 52 inches high, and floodwaters ruined everything inside,” Rosenman says. “I knew it was bad when the Weather Channel parked its truck a block away and broadcast there for days.”
Every year, more than 90 percent of disaster-related property damage ($3.3 billion in 2017 alone) in the United States is caused by floods, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Like the thousands of other homeowners whose houses have been destroyed by flooding, Rosenman and his wife had two choices: pack up and move on, or stay and rebuild to withstand the next flood.
They Chose to Stay
That marked the beginning of a rebuilding odyssey for the Rosenmans, who are among the estimated 41 million Americans who live in a 100-year flood zone. For homeowners living in these areas, rebuilding higher or retrofitting homes to withstand more frequent flooding is the new reality.
A 100-year flood is an extreme flooding event that has a one percent chance of occurring in any year.
The Rosenmans’ house was originally set on cinderblock (which formed a narrow crawl space underneath), and water inundated the home during the storm. The couple knew a significant renovation would be required to make the home habitable again. What they didn’t anticipate: a yearlong wait before they could start work, and a change in building codes that required raising the home 11 feet.
Physically elevating a home can be the most effective method to reduce the risk of flood damage, but it can also be very expensive. For some homeowners in flood hazard areas, raising — or abandoning — their home may be their only choices. If they don’t elevate the home, they can’t qualify for federal flood insurance and won’t be allowed to rebuild.
“Fixing the flood damage was an undertaking, but that alone would have been relatively simple,” says Rosenman. “We had to wait more than a year for FEMA and Atlantic Highlands to update building codes before we could start renovating.”
In Atlantic Highlands, all new buildings or buildings damaged by Sandy would need to be raised to the new Base Flood Elevation — the height of flooding that might be expected in a 100-year flood. To comply with new building codes, the Rosenmans had to build a concrete slab foundation and raise the house 11 feet.
"We thought we might need to elevate the house, but never imagined it would be 11 feet."
—Andrew Rosenman
In hindsight, the Rosenmans are grateful they waited 13 months before starting to rebuild. “Some of my neighbors rebuilt before FEMA issued its new standard for base flood elevation. Houses rebuilt too low to the ground wound up being ineligible for discounted flood insurance.”
The Rosenmans’ home was well suited for raising because of its simple, rectangular shape, size (1,100 square feet) and construction (wood frame, single story). His general contractor hired a company to detach the house from its foundation, then raise it on hydraulic jacks. While the house was perched on the jacks, masons built an 11-foot, closed cinderblock foundation wall around the perimeter of the new slab. Flood vents near the bottom of the wall allow floodwater to flow under the house instead of building water pressure around the wall, which could cause it to collapse.
He estimates the entire project cost about $100,000: $20,000 to lift, $30,000 for the masonry, $40,000 for new electrical and plumbing, and roughly $10,000 for new appliances. The space beneath the house is now a garage — a small perk for the price, but one the Rosenmans appreciate.
Estimated Cost of Elevating 1,100-Square-Foot-Home
Lift $20,000
Masonry $30,000
Electrical and Plumbing $40,000
Applicances (estimate) $10,000
Total $100,000
Questions:
1. What destroyed Andrew Rosenman’s house?
2. Why did the Rosenmans need to elevate their house when they rebuilt it?
3. If there is another storm, will floodwaters flow under the rebuilt house, through it, or around it?
4. Answer this question in character as a Windy Point homeowner (see the role description at the top). If a storm destroyed your house, do you think you would rebuild, or give up and leave? Explain your reasoning.
Once you have answered the above questions, move on to Part 2 here.