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    Is the world becoming uninsurable?

    (charleshughsmith.substack.com)
    476 points spking | 15 comments | 17 Jan 25 00:32 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source | bottom
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    Animats ◴[17 Jan 25 04:28 UTC] No.42734092[source]▶
    Not uninsurable, but buildings are going to have to become tougher.

    It's happened before. Chicago's reaction to the Great Fire was simple - no more building wooden houses. Chicago went all brick. Still is, mostly.

    The trouble is, brick isn't earthquake resistant. Not without steel reinforcement.

    I live in a house built of cinder block filled with concrete reinforced with steel. A commercial builder built this as his personal residence in 1950. The walls look like a commercial building. The outside is just painted cinder block. Works fine, survived the 1989 earthquake without damage, low maintenance. It's not what most people want today in the US.

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    _tariky ◴[17 Jan 25 06:24 UTC] No.42734644[source]▶
    In Yugoslavia, in 1969, one of the biggest earthquakes occurred, destroying several cities. After that, the country’s leaders decided to change building codes. Even today, although Yugoslavia no longer exists, the countries that adopted those codes have homes capable of withstanding earthquakes up to 7.5 on the Richter scale.

    My main point is that if we face major natural disasters, we need to take action to mitigate their impact in the future. As a foreigner, it seems to me that Americans prioritize building cheap homes over constructing better and more resilient ones.

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    Panzer04 ◴[17 Jan 25 06:40 UTC] No.42734751[source]▶
    Why bother building a better home when it's cheaper to buy insurance and rebuild later?

    This is why prices are important - sometimes it's sensible to build cheaper houses without these safeties if the risk isn't there, but if the risk does exist then it needs to be priced right to provide that incentive.

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    1. Almondsetat ◴[17 Jan 25 08:35 UTC] No.42735305[source]▶
    How about the cost of your life? If the house resists the earthquake and you are inside it, you don't die.
    replies(3): >>42735542 #>>42737876 #>>42740792 #
    2. ZeroGravitas ◴[17 Jan 25 09:13 UTC] No.42735542[source]▶
    Building to protect occupants and building to make the structure salvageable afterwards may be two different goals. Think crumple zones in cars.
    replies(3): >>42736435 #>>42736759 #>>42737260 #
    3. earnestinger ◴[17 Jan 25 11:29 UTC] No.42736435[source]▶
    Nice point. Still, in wast majority of cases, house keeps standing -> habitant survival chance goes up.

    Cars being on the move, makes that distinction much much more relevant

    replies(1): >>42741858 #
    4. llm_trw ◴[17 Jan 25 12:20 UTC] No.42736759[source]▶
    Where is the crumple zone in the burned out buildings in California?
    replies(1): >>42737143 #
    5. HPsquared ◴[17 Jan 25 13:09 UTC] No.42737143{3}[source]▶
    Evacuation. Hardly anyone died in these fires.
    replies(1): >>42740112 #
    6. Almondsetat ◴[17 Jan 25 13:25 UTC] No.42737260[source]▶
    This is not a good analogy.

    Crumple zones in cars exist under the assumption that they will not be occupied by humans. In a house, on the other hand, any place could have a person inside of it during an earthquake, meaning that basically the entire house would need to stand to avoid any human being hurt.

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    7. ZeroGravitas ◴[17 Jan 25 13:38 UTC] No.42737379{3}[source]▶
    I'm not an architect and don't live in an earthquake zone, but I was under the impression that wooden homes flex in earthquakes and if and when they do fall on you, do less damage than concrete homes which are stiff up until a point and then crack and fall.

    So the human surviving may come at the cost of more houses collapsing.

    replies(1): >>42742038 #
    8. wiredfool ◴[17 Jan 25 14:20 UTC] No.42737743{3}[source]▶
    It absolutely happens in steel and concrete construction in earthquake loading, when loading past the smaller earthquakes.

    Plastic/non-linear deformation is intended in shear panels of steel connections and the core of well confined concrete beams/columns. The idea is to provide a lot of energy damping due to the nonlinear nature of the f*D hysteresis curve. This works long enough for the earthquake to go away and the people to get out of the building, at which point, you need a new building but hopefully no one has died.

    9. Panzer04 ◴[17 Jan 25 14:32 UTC] No.42737876[source]▶
    We were speaking in the context of fires previously - in which case it's usually more about preserving the neighbourhood and land than anything else, you have to evacuate regardless.

    Earthquakes are different and you'd need a house that stood anyway (though I'd guess most houses don't have a problem with earthquakes insofar as not collapsing on inhabitants, though they'd probably be damaged)

    replies(1): >>42744158 #
    10. llm_trw ◴[17 Jan 25 16:50 UTC] No.42740112{4}[source]▶
    That's traffic lights, not crumple zones.
    11. s1artibartfast ◴[17 Jan 25 17:28 UTC] No.42740792[source]▶
    Loss of life from fire and earthquake isnt really high enough to be a concern. This is primarily a cost and inconvenience question.
    12. hnaccount_rng ◴[17 Jan 25 18:47 UTC] No.42741858{3}[source]▶
    For inhabitant survival a sifficient goal is something like “remains structurally intact for ~30 minutes after the end of the earthquake”. Which is significantly leas than is required for staying habitable
    replies(1): >>42743557 #
    13. onlypassingthru ◴[17 Jan 25 19:06 UTC] No.42742038{4}[source]▶
    Can personally confirm. Wooden houses do flex and often survive unscathed. The only major damage is usually due to any masonry attached to the house (see: chimney) or the house moving off of the foundation (see: before ties were in the building code).
    14. earnestinger ◴[17 Jan 25 21:39 UTC] No.42743557{4}[source]▶
    Makes sense.

    I was fixating on the opposition of goals in the car (if car doesn’t bend/deform, then death risk increases).

    15. bgnn ◴[17 Jan 25 23:03 UTC] No.42744158[source]▶
    Not true. In the 2023 earthquake in Turkey 10s of thousands of apartment buildings collapsed. Official death toll is 60k or so but it's widely known that the actual number is at least twice that.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Turkey%E2%80%93Syria_ea...