A team in Miami is working to make homes more resilient to future hurricanes, 20 years after Hurricane Charley prompted changes in building codes.
"The engineers here were actually able to create a hurricane wind, hurricane conditions," said Erik Salna of the FIU Hurricane Research Center.
MORE : Complete Hurricane Week coverage
"It's a very rare facility that, through engineering, we're able to create a wind that would hit a structure, and now we can test it for its resilience," Salna said.
The facility, known as the Wall of Wind, allows wind engineers at Florida International University to simulate a Category 5 hurricane using 12 giant fans, each weighing as much as an African elephant.
In 1992, Hurricane Andrew exposed serious flaws in Florida's building codes, leading to significant changes. The Wall of Wind team now tests structures to see which can withstand hurricane conditions and which fail.
"We turn it around, and within a short amount of time…catastrophic failure," Salna said.
"So it showed that just the simple mitigation techniques at low dollar costs can make a big difference."
The team continues to innovate, even using wind to generate electricity with a horizontal wind turbine attached to the side of a roof.
"Ten years from now…looking back to say we saw it coming, but we didn't do anything about it," Salna said. "Well now we are, being proactive to stay ahead of the curve."
The ongoing research aims to protect homes and communities from the devastating forces of future hurricanes.
