Ultimate Catastrophy

Let's assume the terrible combined catastrophe - Tidal Waves, Category 5 Hurricane Winds, Earthquakes, Fire from the Sky.

Tidal Waves:

Move to safe ground several hundred miles away from tidal waves, and out of coastal and piedmont areas.

 

Category 5 Hurricane Winds:

Select an area that is nestled between two small hills, up off the bottom, to avoid flooding, but away from the crest so that the winds tend to pass over. This should drop the wind to Category 3. Structure the house with enough weight to avoid lift or push over, and without any edges to lift of roofs. While its always nice to have forest nearby, this site needs to be on an open hillside. The winds might easily ignite a forest fire, considering the drought conditions possibly existing, and the Fire-from-the-Sky as indicated below. The hill site should face west or west-southwest. Wind direction will change to east or north east.

 

Earthquakes:

Choose a site which will not have major quake or volcano incidence. Choose a site which has not had earthquakes since 1500 AD. This should limit quakes to 6 to 7 on the Richter scale, but not the ones which will be above that. Structure the house to be rigid enough to not come apart in quakes, but not connected to the ground, so that it will ride on possible waves of quakes which could run in the 7-9 on the Richter Scale, but proably below that because of the choice of site.

 

Fire from the Sky:

Once again, this will depend on site and luck. The cave would give the most protection here (unless hit by a large meteor when you'd need a real cave.) The structure of the outside skin will be made of corrigated steel. This would be on the roof and sidewalls. The deck (an extension of the foundation) would use simple galvanized steel. One cannot be sure whether this would be enough protection. It will be important not to be close enough to trees so that one would in effective be burned up in a forest fire. Remember, having any foresting nearby might result in an inferno whipped by the rising winds.

Offered by Eric.

It is not sufficient to use the Richter scale to design structures, for the local geography maximum forces on all axes need to be quantified. The idea of having a structure laying loose on top of the ground may be useful for decoupling horizontal shaking, but if vertical displacement forces are over 1g the structure will be dashed to bits as it is repeatedly tossed into the air and slammed into the ground.

Offered by Steve