Recently Myanmar was hit by a strong Cyclone, as today the death tolls is approaching 100,000 people. Watching from the television news, the scene and images remind us so much of the Hurricane Katrina disaster on August 28th, 2005.

Along the pacific coast, Typhoon is the official term for hurricane or cyclone, I grew up in Taiwan, which is an island and surrounded by ocean. What I had experienced in Taiwan from 1954 - 1979 is a good example how government can protect people's lives during nature disasters.

Before the KMT settled in Taiwan, 85% of building structure was wood frame construction under the Japanese governing. Every year during the Typhoon seasons, millions of people were likely homeless and over ten thousands people were likely to be killed. The only solution for Taiwan government to prevent this kind of life loss and catastrophic destructions is to strengthen the building code throughout the island.

RC reinforced concrete structure is the most resistant building structure to this kind of natural disaster. Taiwan government mandatory to set this restricted building code ever since the 50's. Today, 90% of the structure in Taiwan is RC reinforced concretes structures. The result is a significant reduction in typhoon disasters for the past 2 decades. The same year when Katrina hit New Orleans, Taiwan also was hit by a category 4 typhoon and the damage was very minimal [15 people missing, less than a hundreds home were damaged].

After the Katrina, I wrote several letters to senators to suggest them to change building code along the coast to protect people from hurricane disasters and of course never a single response direct to my suggestions. I goggled to several hurricane conference websites and finally find out that the major of the sponsors for this kind of conference are wood frame, traditional house builders. Several times I posted this message on the website, the response I got is that “American people are used to wood frame houses, they are not going to change to RC concrete structure, it is not the American style”

Years after years, Hurricanes after Hurricanes, we still see houses wiped out by the strong wind, people dying or missing… then we rebuild with traditional material in houses and buildings hoping that next year the hurricane will land somewhere else.

We totally ignored the experiences from other countries like Japan, Korea, Taiwan and even China we can learn, just exactly what we need to do for our government to protect our people from losing lives in this kind of natural disasters? When can we avoid the American wood industry lobbyist to stop our government from coming up new strong building materials to protect our homes and lives during natural disasters?

PS. I have been sending this message to news medias and never get one response. A friend of my in Louisiana helped me to get the message to a local newspaper, the editor was pretty much surprised to lmow there is a way to prevent this kind of disaster. However, most Americans are not aware of these types of building construction that many countries around the world have been doing for years and it really work.

It is not the role of the federal government to tell people what they can and can't do, what they can build their house with and what they can't build it with. If someone wants to live in a city on the Gulf of Mexico that is BELOW SEA LEVEL and risk their life and property, then they should have every right to. If they want their house to be built out of stray, sticks, stones, wood, brick or concrete, they should have every right to decide. Why people live in these places and re-build after each storm, I do not know. Why insurance companies even insure homes in these areas, I will never know. The government has no right to do what you want them to do, and we should never give the government the power to do it.

The state government has every right to set the Building Code to ensure people's safety in dangerous area, either ban for the building usage or come up with a restrict building code.
One of the responsibility to have a government is to protect people's life from danger.

Besides the coastal area, we have the entire south which is in a tornado watch zone every season. Where do you want those people to move to?

Just more ways to absolve people from personal responsibility, so that the nanny state can keep them all safe and secure.

Hey...if you don't want to experience hurricanes...move inland.

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Political Affiliation: Zod

"The mods won't let you call a moron a 'moron'." --" the former, BillyBobaganoosh

Yeah, and the government should make us wear our seatbelts, our helmets, set our thermostats, and tuck us in every night. Oh please Mr. government, protect me because I don't want to do it myself. Waaahhh

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"You are just stuck in a box."

--Zaro

You really need to travel around the world to understand how government really functioning in other countries. To set up a strong building code to protect citizen's lives is the government's responsibility. Our Lumber industry has so much influences in our politics; our government is reluctant to change. That’s why we keep on using tax payer’s money to rebuild houses in disaster’s area with more wood framed houses. This is not a solution. Wood framed houses just can not sustain the powerful force from the tornado or hurricane, it is commonsense.

Home builders is not going to volunteer to build RC concrete houses along the coastal area simply the building code does not require them to do so. The only way we can avoid disasters like Katrina and numerous tornado disasters is to come up with a safe and strong building materials to protect our people. And what's wrong with that?

People should build there own houses with CONCRETE. Are you saying that the government favors the wood industry over the concrete industry? Tax payer's money should not be spend to rebuild people's houses. If they build their houses themselves, they can build them however they want, and if they want to take on the risk of building a wooden house because it's cheaper, than who are you to make them pay for concrete?

__________________

"You are just stuck in a box."

--Zaro

Studying countries like Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore,Hong Kong[China], Malaysia... those countries are surrounded by ocean and averaging 3-5 strong Typhoons will be landed in those countries a year. Their per capital income is much less than us, if they can afford to build concrete houses then what's the problem with us?
Only the undeveloped countries like the Philippines, Indonesia, and Burma Cannot afford to build RC concrete structure houses and that's why we hear this kind of disasters news from those region quite often.

No one is stopping anybody here from building concrete houses. The government shouldn't have to pay for people's mistakes. They should pay for it themselves and then learn from the experience.

__________________

"You are just stuck in a box."

--Zaro

That's the problem; tax money is being used to bail these people out and it shouldn't be. In the wake of Katrina, not one dime of federal money should've gone down there to help any citizen or business.

If these people want federal and/or state assistance, then strings should be attached and they should be forced to comply with stricter building codes and relocation if need be. If that's too much to ask of someone, then they can forget government help.