The news tonight showed images of hurricane Isabel beating the east coast of the US. While I hope that the damage is minimal and that nobody gets hurt, I have one question on my mind, a question that occurs to me every time I see images of hurricanes (or earthquakes) in the states:
Have americans not heard of bricks? Why do they build their houses out of plywood? Every time that something like this happens we are treated to footage of houses having their walls blown away, whole blocks lying in heaps of wood and plastic... Why don't they use durable materials to build their homes? This isn't Bangladesh, after all.
Still, I have no experience in the matter, so I can't give an informed opinion. I just think that if we had that kind of weather here in Europe, we could handle it by just bringing in anything that could fly away and covering the windows with something hurricane-proof. Minimal destruction, except maybe for tiled roofs (not a big issue in Madrid) ;).
It just seems odd...
Posted by Dave at September 19, 2003 01:14 AM