MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
People on Florida's Gulf Coast spent the holiday weekend picking up the pieces from the one-two punch of Hurricanes Helene and Milton. They also took solace from the damage that did not happen, thanks to decades of practice and preparation. NPR's Martin Kaste has this report.
MARTIN KASTE, BYLINE: Scott Gast lives in Madeira Beach, a community on the barrier islands near St. Petersburg. It's a place that in the last couple of weeks has seen both a storm surge and 110 mph winds.
SCOTT GAST: The surge of water just pushing things over, fences over, all the people's trash. As far as wind goes - and this last one was the high wind - we actually fared pretty well.
KASTE: Roofs are mostly intact. Windows look good. And he attributes this to Florida's tough building codes. He owns a local company called Gulf Beach Development, but he's also built houses in the Midwest.
GAST: Up north, we might go through five or six building inspections. Down here, we go through 27 on average per house - inspections.
KASTE: Florida's building codes have become progressively tougher since the devastation of Hurricane Andrew back in 1992. He says it affects almost everything in a house from hurricane thickness glass to a minimum number of nails driven into metal joist connectors.
GAST: If the construction techniques from up north were down here, we would probably see at least 50% of these buildings have major structural damage or collapse because they are not designed to handle the wind and the water.
KASTE: When it comes to water, new low-lying houses have to be elevated, which can mean a garage on the ground floor and living spaces upstairs. But you can't just jack up a whole building such as Tampa General Hospital.
(SOUNDBITE OF POWER WASHER RUMBLING)
KASTE: Cleanup crews at the hospital are working around a watertight barrier called AquaFence. The interlocking panels are 9 feet high, and they're bolted to the asphalt.
CHAYLA RODRIGUEZ: Nothing was flooded up here where the fences were at.
KASTE: Chayla Rodriguez (ph) is waiting for her ride after being in this hospital for both hurricanes. She gave birth to twins. She credits the fence sections for keeping this hospital functioning.
RODRIGUEZ: I was skeptical because the way they look, but they were great. So whoever thought of that idea was really smart.
KASTE: AquaFence is a product from Norway, but the person who thought to get this one is Dustin Pasteur, the hospital's vice president of facilities. He bought it back in 2019, but he says Helene was the barrier's first really serious test. He recalls inspecting the fence as the waters of Tampa Bay rose halfway up the other side.
DUSTIN PASTEUR: It did sound kind of eerie to be there with the water kind of booming on the backside.
KASTE: This fence cost about $1 million, and when a hurricane approaches, it takes 60 workers three days to put it up. Then they leave it up for the rest of hurricane season with entrance gates opened between the storms.
PASTEUR: You just know it's a matter of time before you're going to get a major storm surge, which this year has happened twice. We have to expect that this is going to become more common.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHAINSAW BUZZING)
KASTE: Down the coast in Englewood, retiree Eddie Pardo's (ph) cinderblock house remains solid, but it's soaked. He's lost almost everything, including family photos.
EDDIE PARDO: See the photo album? My daughters and son when they were 3, 4 years old.
KASTE: But then he bucks himself up.
PARDO: That's OK. I'll be back.
KASTE: Because he's already got plans to stormproof his house even more, starting with teak furniture and polycarbonate cabinets.
PARDO: And then I'm just going to make it as saltwater-proof as I can. And the next time it floods, I'm going to make it so I can open the back door and just power wash it out the back door and get on with my life.
KASTE: Another Floridian learning from the last storm to prepare for the next.
Martin Kaste, NPR News, St. Petersburg.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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