Episode Transcript
[00:00:09] Speaker A: Welcome to the Clear Impact Podcast brought to you by PGTI University. Thanks for joining us today. My name is Sherry Connor and I am your host.
[00:00:24] Speaker B: Good morning. We are here on the Clear Impact Podcast and we are in the middle of a series called windows and doors 301. And this is an episode I've been looking forward to the entire time we've been putting this together. And today we're going to be talking about post storm assessment. And our guest is Dean Roark. Welcome.
[00:00:43] Speaker C: Hey. Thank you, Sheri. Glad to be here.
[00:00:44] Speaker B: Yeah, actually, welcome back. You've done several with me, but you're the first person live in our new studio.
[00:00:50] Speaker C: That is exciting.
[00:00:51] Speaker B: It is. It would have been more convenient for you if we were in the old studio, but that's okay. So one of the things that I'm excited about is that we're bringing this to people's attention post storm evaluation is something I had never even thought about that or realized that we did that. So tell us a little bit about that.
[00:01:12] Speaker C: Yeah, sure. So the company history, PGT's history goes long back into the idea of this, really starting with Hurricane Andrew. And we've talked about that in several episodes past of Hey 1992, Hurricane Andrew devastates South Florida Miami and the Florida Building Commission and others understood that our code really needs to be improved and we have to understand why buildings fail, how buildings fail and where to put our resources and dollars to protect lives and protect buildings in subsequent storms. And so PTT was really involved in that. Not from a traditional damage assessment standpoint, but they were there from a community standpoint just helping others in need and while doing so really understanding that buildings were failing in that storm through internal pressurization. It was a heavy wind storm versus a surge storm. An opening was failing, pressurizing the envelope and blowing the roof off. Catastrophic failure from there. And so our history goes way back with the idea of hey, impact windows in that instance would have really protected a lot of lives and a lot of buildings. And that's really our story of impact windows. Fast forward your next really active hurricane season where there was just a lot of damage, a lot of people affected was in that 2004, 2005 hurricane season, you know where it was Hurricane Charlie heavily in this area. And then 05 was just a very active season where there was storm after storm. And in those efforts, I was not part of PGT yet. I was in college still. But I certainly knew PGT and knew their impact in the community specifically where they really just helped others out Chainsaws, generators, providing goods to the people around, but in that they're on the ground. Also looking at how buildings are failing and why buildings are failing and where our products really help those cases. Fast forward to my time here. You almost have to fast forward to. I joined the company in the beginning of 2008. The next really active hurricane or major hurricane that damaged Florida in a big way was 2017, Hurricane Irma. And through that I really wanted to be involved from our structural engineering community kind of partnered with National Science Foundation, FEMA and universities that were doing these damage assessments and we reached out to understand what the need was. One of the needs was to really better understand the fenestration and window systems that were involved in these buildings. There's a lot of structural expertise, but there's less expertise on, hey, did this house even have impact windows? If so, what was their design pressure rating? And so it really started from needing some help in that to start doing these damage assessments.
[00:03:44] Speaker B: Wow, that's an amazing history and I love that. It started with us helping the communities, you know, and going in to supply the critical things like tarps and chainsaws. That makes my heart happy. But also it's important to always improve what we're doing. And so what are some of the specific things that you're looking for?
[00:04:03] Speaker C: Yeah, sure. So when we do a post storm damage assessment, we're really working with the scientific community. You know, one I talked about a little is we bring expertise into the fenestration systems to make sure we appropriately document what's there. But essentially what you do is you're going to the hardest hit areas of the storm. You're canvassing different streets pretty much at random, and you're trying to understand in a given building how the storm impacted it. And you're categorizing what type of construction the building was, what year of construction the building was under, so you can understand what code it fell fell into. And then you're categorizing the damage. Is it catastrophically damaged? All the way to look, this looks like a new house that was untouched. And what you're finding is there's a wide variety of damage in an area that is commonly on the same street that really went through the same effects of the storm. And what you're triangulating are what are the building elements and key features that made one building survive while another one was devastated.
[00:05:06] Speaker B: So you're walking around the building and going, hey, that's one of our windows and the building is still intact versus hey, that's one of our windows and the entire wall is down, but the window's still intact. Do you ever see that?
[00:05:18] Speaker C: Yeah, so you find all kinds of things. And so one of the things we've learned through this is we bring our structural engineering team. I'm a structural designer that's done whole building design. Lynn Miller as well has done over a decade of whole building design for hurricane winds and extreme weather conditions. And so we're really looking somewhat agnostic of our window or not in the science part, really just looking at whole structure and what were the key impacts or elements that caused failure or not. So we'll see interesting things and we'll pick it out whether it's our window or someone else's window in terms of, wow, the windows are intact but the whole building collapsed anyway because it was a surge event. We'll also find instances where, you know, a home with non impact windows, those failed and were impacted by debris and a house with impact windows withstood it. So we find all kinds of conditions and you know, one of the things that we'll find is sometimes depending on the event, if it's a heavy wind borne debris impact, those are pretty critical for impact windows. A lot of the storms we've seen recently are major surge events. And in those, you know, it's kind of a different failure element and a different set of mitigation that you want. Where windows and doors aren't mainly the driving factor for the reality of what happened to your home or structure.
[00:06:32] Speaker B: What is something, maybe a story or two of field evaluation that was surprising?
[00:06:39] Speaker C: Yeah, no, it's one of those really interesting ones. And so it's always heartbreaking, devastating to go to these hard hit areas. One of the things, from the very first time I did it, doing this after pretty much every storm. Now one of the things I learned is people that have been through really hard events, most of them do want to talk about it. So if it was an occupied home, you know, sometimes I would just like, let's leave them be and not go to the empty home to do the damage assessment. I've started to gravitate more and more toward just talking to people who have fascinating stories and a very personal account if they were there. Yeah, you know what happened. I remember in Hurricane Michael there was a guy, you know, he's older, gentleman, you know, his head was bandaged, his nose was bandaged and his house was destroyed and he was in his yard and we were walking by and we just, we had several supplies along with us. We had water that kind of stuff and, you know, just kind of understood his needs and helped him out a little there. And he really just wanted to talk about what happened. So when we told him who we were of, hey, we're an expert team that wants to understand buildings performance through hurricanes. He said, well, can tell you a lot about my house. He said, so all these bandages, you know, my front door blew open during Hurricane Michael. I had the couch and some other things in front of it. And so I went because it just felt like it was going to go, you know, it was the wind direction. And so I went and put myself up against it. I have an elderly wife, you know, I was worried and I thought I was going to hold this thing closed. And that was not successful because that door blew open. His roof subsequently blew off in the home. But you really got to see the account and hear the account firsthand of witnessing this thing. We talk about a lot of internal pressurization in a real home. There was one in Hurricane Irma down in the Keys that was on Little Torch Key. There was a guy in a truck, you know, just looking at his home. And from one side, the home looked like it was intact, but about half of the home on the other side was completely gone. And it was definitely a tear down. And he was sitting in the truck and just kind of staring. And we made contact with him. Same thing of, hey, what can we get you? And he said, you know, kind of devastated here. He said it was interesting what happened. We had evacuated for this storm, so we weren't here. But I saw my street on the news and it was the good side of my house. And so I said, wow, my house, my house made it. I was excited to get back onto the island and I'm sure there was going to be cleanup and that kind of thing. And I came in, you know, from that side and sure enough, it looked good. And as I pulled into the driveway, literally half of the house, I mean, just sheared straight off. Where this is definitely a tear down house. And it was just that kind of rise and fall of heartbreak. And him, you know, this was his first time back to the house and we just happened to be walking by at that same time. Oh gosh, where we were walking it with him. We were also trying to give him some guidance for areas that you should absolutely not go for fear of further collapse of the structure. And really just gathering belongings with him, rescuing what you could for possessions. And so there's all kinds of personal stories. Those are the ones that stand out there's some pretty interesting things that take the personal side out of it and just the building science side. We've seen debris impacts that are multiple strikes to a window or glass system, which kind of lead us to that more stringent Miami Dade code that we test to our Miami Dade set of standards, where we're seeing glass get struck multiple times. We're also seeing size and speed of impacts that are sometimes greater than what the ASTM standards would be. And so really learning a lot about that. And what we find is if you're downwind or in the wind field of a home that is lesser, that's really fallen apart, and you have a more substantial structure, your structure takes all of the debris from that home. So you're seeing we impact with a 2x4. We're seeing missiles as large as a 2 by 10 or something like that hit the home or whole sections of roof truss. And through that you see some pretty catastrophic impacts that would say, hey, there's some opportunities to be even more stringent in that regard. The other one that stood out was Hurricane Ian on Fort Myers Beach, Margaritaville. So it was a brand new construction project right in the heart of where, you know, the huge surge, you know, 16ft plus of surge hit on Fort Myers Beach. Everything was pretty much devastated. This was a build that was still under construction. It used our product and it used several other companies for storefront and, you know, kind of curtain wall sections and that kind of stuff. And it was interesting to go through. So we assessed all of our product while we were there. All of the other manufacturers that were on that job asked that they tear out all of the existing products that had gone through that and replace. And as we looked at our sliding glass door systems, you know, several had been inundated by surge and there were a couple things we wanted to do on hardware and that kind of stuff to better protect it. But we didn't require a tear out of those products. There was no deformation, no permanent set, no issues. They withstood that storm, you know, phenomenally well, where we were confident and the only manufacturer on a huge site that said, yeah, absolutely, you don't need to tear out and replace all of your product.
[00:12:00] Speaker B: Right.
[00:12:00] Speaker C: They were really surprised by that. They were almost assuming, you know, hey, let me put a new order in. I guess I need all new product. And we were the only manufacturer that stood behind our product even though it gone through that storm.
[00:12:14] Speaker A: We are sharing our expertise around all topics relating to the window indoor industry, whether you are a customer selling our products Or a homeowner doing research. The Clear Impact podcast provides helpful content that makes an impact. Subscribe today wherever you listen to podcasts.
[00:12:33] Speaker B: That is super impressive. So with that, how does this benefit our customers and the industry?
[00:12:39] Speaker C: Yeah, sure. You know, I think from both a customer and industry perspective, I think to be there in the real world firsthand, you know, it's one thing to design, product and test it in a lab and know how it performs. Where the rubber meets the road is to go to these hard hit areas and see how the whole building and our products as a component of that, how those perform and where codes need to be going in the future. Because again, homes need to be affordable as well. And so you want to put the dollars and the hardening elements in the places where those make the most impact. And I think really seeing that firsthand and also seeing how our products are performing firsthand, just help us and our engineering team create better products for the future of these very impactful storms.
[00:13:25] Speaker B: Yeah, we drove through Fort Myers beach actually this past weekend. I hadn't been down there, which is kind of sad. I have not been down to Fort Myers beach, but drove through there and it's still a mess and there's still a lot of work to be done down there. And it makes you wonder if they're even going to bother rebuilding. Like they're so vulnerable right there, so close to the water. Especially when we're talking about more and more surge events. You know, it's just like, okay, I'm going to build this $10 million structure just to have it be wrecked again. So it's tough. It's a tough spot.
[00:13:58] Speaker C: Yeah, it's interesting. One of the silver linings is that we're finding that homes built to the newer Florida codes do very well, even in, I'd call the most extreme circumstance I've seen right there. Right. Fort Myers Beach, Hurricane Ian. The whole island was obliterated. Vast majority of homes were gone. However, if you look at that on an aerial map and kind of triangulate which year of home built, what we found is it did wipe out the older housing stock. Those 1980s, 70s, 60s and even 50s homes, which is obviously terrible. However, if you looked and contrasted that with a home built in 2008, 10 or after, those homes performed very well. They're built on pile and grade beam construction with breakaway wall systems. They're designed for surge. They're hardened envelopes with impact resistant products to avoid internal pressurization. Because that storm, you know, surge was the primary effect. It also had very high winds there and a debris field. And so we found that those homes perform very well. The unfortunate piece is a lot of those that were older homes, they were insured for the older home value. And so what you're finding in the communities is, wow, you know, to rebuild, you can't really. FEMA often won't let you patch your house back up if it's been totally destroyed. And you've got to spend, you know, a certain percentage of the assessed value. So you really just got to rebuild. You can't put this back together with insurance dollars because you do have that vulnerability that, hey, this is inevitable, that it will happen again. But again, the silver lining is that if you do build that new structure on elevated piers, you know, designed with breakaway walls, piles, and grade beams so that even when there's wave action and the soil kind of, you know, and sand move and erode from your foundation, your home's still standing with very minimal or cosmetic damage, comparatively.
[00:15:58] Speaker B: Yeah. Cause I mean, isn't that everybody's dream, to live on the beach?
[00:16:02] Speaker C: Everyone wants to live on the beach. And I think what we're finding is, again, I think the number one element, and you see it through this recent one, Hurricane Helene, where this was for west coast of Florida, this was 150 miles offshore. And so I think the majority of Floridians that are just used to these storms, myself included, was really thinking there could be some surge. But where this is going to be a real issue is, you know, in the Panhandle or Big Bend, kind of right where, you know, Adalia and some of the others have struck. It's just gonna be a much stronger storm there. What was a little bit surprising to a lot of folks, as I talked to them, is that, you know, from Naples all the way up through, you know, Sarasota, St. Pete, Clearwater, Tampa Bay, up through Cedar Key, that would have been the most impacted. There was tremendous surge from a few feet of surge down in Naples where ground floor homes were flooded all the way up to, you know, almost 15ft of surge at Cedar Key. Tampa Bay had 10ft of surge. And so you saw, you know, tremendous flooding. And barrier islands have a very long road back. Not to the level of destruction of Ian, but pretty darn close where almost every home on those islands or those barrier islands are affected in a big way.
[00:17:13] Speaker B: Yeah, Anna Maria is a mess.
[00:17:14] Speaker C: Yeah, it was under six to seven feet of water. The amount of sand that moves is in homes. They have a long road back, and it's, you know, all these places that are near and dear to all of our heart, and some of them with older housing stock where they just haven't had that surge and talk to them before, and it's like, it's crazy how we have to build up so high. My house has been fine for 50 years. When these events happen, it's eye opening of, wow, this is why we build on pile and grade being construction for the last, I don't know, 20 years or so along the coast when it's new construction. And I think that's what this will turn over to, where you'll see that type of home being the only type of home that's rebuilt in these areas.
[00:17:55] Speaker B: Right, that makes sense. So outswing doors impact products. And there's no such thing as hurricane proof. It's always hurricane resistant. We've had some debates. Homeowners have fussed about, I want hurricane proof. And it's like, well, there's no such thing.
[00:18:12] Speaker C: Yeah, sure. You know, I always say, like, in my neighborhood, I'm the most popular guy. Suddenly when a big hurricane is coming and people have the exact same question of like, hey, am I going to be okay? Like, that answer is so difficult because again, a window and door is one element, and any of these elements are designed toward a mean recurrence interval of a probabilistic failure, which is just an easier way of saying, hey, you pick a number to design to, and if it goes beyond that number, you're going to run into challenges. And so as an instance, I think we have phenomenal testing of windows and doors that does the right thing and is more stringent than what you're going to see real world from most storms. That said, you know, you get to a Hurricane Dorian or something that just sat over the bahamas as a cat 5 for a whole day, you saw some things in there that were just beyond the design elements of what you test for. And then again, we're one component in the house. So I don't know, how good is your roof, how good are your foundations, how good are your wall connections? And so there's a lot going on there. And the right answer is generally you can always get out for a storm if you feel unsafe, do what's best for your family and leave those kind of things. If you come back and you're fine, great. But you see a lot of instances, especially in surge, where people really wish they had taken it more seriously.
[00:19:32] Speaker B: Well, and those evacuation orders are nothing to play around with. When they tell you to get out, you need to get Out. It's for your own good. But there's some old school Floridians and I guess everywhere in the country where they're just stubborn and this is my house and I'm gonna be fine. And it's just so risky.
[00:19:48] Speaker C: Yeah. And oftentimes you are like, hey, the forecast, that was the best information that NOAA in the National Hurricane center had at the time. Hey, it took a favorable jog or bounce and we didn't end up with that terrible surge or that terrible event in our specific location. You don't want to get too used to. That's always the case. And if one time you're wrong, your life or your family's life or your pets, lives, you know, or all are suddenly in major danger versus, I don't know, your possessions in your house.
[00:20:18] Speaker B: Yeah. Stuff can be replaced for sure. Dean, is there anything else you want to add?
[00:20:21] Speaker C: You know, I think that covers it. You know, our hearts go out to those affected. These, you know, continue to be terrible events. We see very strong storms affecting Florida, the Gulf coast, the Atlantic coast and areas far beyond. You know, what happened in North Carolina and some of the surrounding kind of West Carolina, east Tennessee, you know, North Georgia, mountain towns was unbelievable. And so you're seeing these impacts go far and wide. You know, Texas, Louisiana, you know, even New Jersey, you know, have had some pretty terrible impacts. And I think our hearts are with them and the long road to recovery of people coming together when the news kind of passes on. Just like you said for Fort Myers beach, you know, it's a couple years, two years ago now. Two years ago, the world moved on pretty quick. But you go back there and people are still living it two years later. And I think that's really what we have to think about in our communities nearby. Of it's a long road back and it's not a week of focus and everyone's lives go on and the area is less affected. It's still going on for years. And Helene is going to be much like that.
[00:21:25] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. All right, well, I really appreciate your time today. Thank you for shedding some light on one of the things that we do behind the scenes that people wouldn't really necessarily know about. And I'm going to do what I can to throw some images into the video. Video version of this just so we can bring some of that into a better visual for folks.
[00:21:46] Speaker C: Sure. Yeah. So one of the things we have is great imagery from those damage assessments. We're taking photos that kind of live on in a database with everyone else out there, all the other engineers doing damage assessments. And so those stories I told, photos of all of that, that kind of show and depict just what we're talking about in terms of the man in his truck that came home. And one side of the house was great, the other side was terrible. Yeah, that one's a pretty stark picture. The house that was impacted by really heavy debris from a house that fell down in front of it. That one's also pretty interesting, and I'd love to get those shared with the folks to see them firsthand, what we're talking about.
[00:22:21] Speaker B: All right, well, I've got my work cut out for me. All right. All right. Thank you, Jean. Have a great day.
[00:22:26] Speaker C: Appreciate it. You too. Take care. Bye.
[00:22:28] Speaker B: Bye.
[00:22:31] Speaker A: The Clear Impact podcast is brought to you by PGTI University. We are a part of Mitre Brands, a family of leading window and door brands united by our passion for quality and relentless pursuit of 100%. One of the missions of Mitre Brands is to unite and deliver the finest customer experience possible across the nation. Our window indoor brands deliver regionalized expertise and products. Backed by a national company, PGTI University is here to educate you, our listeners, so that you can be a more informed consumer of window indoor products.
