RAW INTERVIEW: Making your home safer during a hurricane

SAVANNAH, Ga. (WTOC) - A $40 million facility and team of researchers at the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety in Chester County, S.C., are recreating hurricane conditions; destroying homes, to strengthen yours.

The goal is straight-forward, to keep everything in-tact; making your structure - your home - sturdier.

“Once you lose a big opening - particularly a garage door - once that happens, there is almost always roof structure damage that comes with it. So, you kind of pop the roof that is right above the garage. Once that cascade starts happening, you’re almost at a total loss.”

Dr. Tanya Brown-Giammanco and her team at the Insurance Institute for business and home safety are not only identifying what can happen in a worst-case scenario, but also how to best-prevent it.

“The main thing that is important in the structural sense is connecting everything. It’s the connections. How do you connect the roof to the walls? How do you connect the walls to the foundation and how do you connect the first story to the second story walls? It’s all about the connections.”

Roof straps, hurricane straps, foundation bolts - just a few things you can do to better-protect your home from the next storm.

“The cost to go from standard to a more fortified style of construction varies by location and how big the house is and what kind of materials they’re made out of. But, kind of a good rule of thumb is maybe the three to five percent mark.”

The results of these studies are fairly straight-forward. For a three to five percent increase in the cost of developing a new home, you can keep you and your family safe and hopefully make your house a truly forever home.

Watch more of the raw interview with Dr. Tanya Brown-Giammanco:

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