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Author Topic: A timely gesture following Hurricane Charley
Jughead
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posted 14 August 2004 11:53 PM      Profile for Jughead     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Call me crass, but it seems like a good-will gesture of, say, 10 semi-trailers of 2 X 4s and another 10 or so of plywood towards Florida might help out some people who are in a pretty bad spot right now, particularly if they were accompanied by some people who knew how to put up houses. Crass because it might also draw some attention to softwood lumber duties which have devastated a number of towns up here.

[ 15 August 2004: Message edited by: Jughead ]


From: uhuh | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Hephaestion
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posted 15 August 2004 08:00 AM      Profile for Hephaestion   Author's Homepage        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Crass, hell! I LOVE it, Jughead! Yer a genius! You should send your idea in to National Office and have Jack or someone suggest it. (Simply 'coz I'd hate to have Weyerhauser or Gordon Campbell get credit for it.)

Great thinking!!


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skdadl
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posted 15 August 2004 08:11 AM      Profile for skdadl     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I like it too, Jughead.
From: gone | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Jughead
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posted 15 August 2004 04:59 PM      Profile for Jughead     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Personally, I think it's obvious that the lumber companies have to be involved. Consider that the idea was posted here first. Hopefully some union types will pick it up and give the idea the momentum it needs. With (at the least) the NDP and the Liberals onside the lumber companies would surely anti up the wood. At the end of the day, everyone's happy.
From: uhuh | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Jingles
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posted 15 August 2004 05:11 PM      Profile for Jingles     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Great idea. Replace all those cheap, shoddy wood-frame structures that were destroyed by the annual hurricane with more cheap, shoddy wood-frame structures that will be destroyed in the next annual hurricane. After all, there are lots of trees just going to waste in those forests.
From: At the Delta of the Alpha and the Omega | Registered: Nov 2002  |  IP: Logged
Jughead
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posted 15 August 2004 05:39 PM      Profile for Jughead     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Hmm, that's a pretty good point there jingles. Maybe we should build them some all-concrete bunkers with recycled tires to form the inner walls, and suspended ceilings made of old bike frames held in place with the snot of free-range bison.

(Environmental concerns aside, 2 X 4s and plywood are the mainstay of pretty much all construction, hurricane proof or otherwise.)


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Jingles
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posted 15 August 2004 06:04 PM      Profile for Jingles     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
That's right. There is no alternative to wood frame construction. None whatsoever. Don't even try to think of something stronger, less wastefull, and safer than rot-prone, insect-infested firewood.

2 x 4s may be the mainstay, but that is only because of their cheapness, and because of the gutlessness of municiple governments to change building codes lest they infuriate the developers.

In earthquake-prone areas, builders must use certain materials and certain structural adaptations in order to meet code and be earthquake-proof. But not in areas prone to hurricane or tornadoes?

I guess you think concrete can't withstand the wind.


From: At the Delta of the Alpha and the Omega | Registered: Nov 2002  |  IP: Logged
James
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posted 15 August 2004 06:27 PM      Profile for James        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
As for the truckloads of donated lumber, they would never get across the border. Most of the reconstruction will be insurance funded, and you ca bet that the U.S. building material giants are already licking their chops at the inflated prices and increased profits attributable to "unforeseen demand". As for the poor uninsured and destitute, you don't think Dubya's gonna let anyone dilute this golden opportunity to influence a key battleground state with very generous federal disaster relief, do you ?

As to better building regs, if you've been through the Keys or other hurricane prone areas, you will see that all recent construction is raised on steel and concrete pylons.

And how the hell do you build mobile homes out of concrete ?


From: Windsor; ON | Registered: Mar 2004  |  IP: Logged
paxamillion
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posted 15 August 2004 11:06 PM      Profile for paxamillion   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Back in the 70s, we had a widowed aunt who lived in Lively, near Sudbury. A tornado damaged her house and pulled a guest cottage in her back yard right off its foundation (not a piece of it was ever found).

Shortly after, Mennonites from Waterloo County turned up in their wagons, repaired her house, and built her a new guest cottage. They had their own construction materials, and would take nothing more than water, lemonade, and the odd sandwich as payment.


From: the process of recovery | Registered: Jul 2002  |  IP: Logged
Jughead
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posted 15 August 2004 11:47 PM      Profile for Jughead     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by JamesR:
As for the truckloads of donated lumber, they would never get across the border. Most of the reconstruction will be insurance funded, and you ca bet that the U.S. building material giants are already licking their chops at the inflated prices and increased profits attributable to "unforeseen demand". As for the poor uninsured and destitute, you don't think Dubya's gonna let anyone dilute this golden opportunity to influence a key battleground state with very generous federal disaster relief, do you ?



Actually, this is the main reason I characterized the idea as "crass". It's pretty clear that some people who would stand to profit from the disaster would get uppity about freebies from soviet canuckistan. And as for home-builders tagging along, US border guards have been known to refuse entry to, as one example, a guy who was taking his tools down to the states to fix his mom's plumbing. (He woulda been stealing work from a yank.)

Then again, sometimes "gestures" like this really do help people out and really do create lasting ties. Didn't Boston pretty much rebuild Halifax after the Halifax explosion?


From: uhuh | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged

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