Mississippi observes the highest storm surges in the Western Hemisphere. Scott Sundberg, a structural engineer who lives in this hurricane-prone area, educates us about how to build better in this region.

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Transcript:

00;00;02;17 - 00;00;31;23
Hal Needham
Coastal Mississippi experiences some of the most severe storm surge inundations on earth. Storm surges are massive saltwater floods that are the deadliest, costliest natural disaster on the planet. The shallow offshore water and proximity to the near right angle along the coast at Louisiana's Mississippi River Delta traps water in this region and officially piles up coastal flooding. Hurricane Katrina's 28 foot storm surge and Hurricane Camille is 24 and a half foot storm surge.

00;00;32;13 - 00;00;55;21
Hal Needham
Both peaked at Pass Christian, Mississippi, close to the body of water known as Bay Saint Louis. These are the two highest coastal floods generated by a hurricane on record in the Western Hemisphere. I recently drove around coastal Mississippi with a structural engineer named Scott Sundberg. He educated me about how to build better for both strong wind and high floods in this region.

00;00;56;00 - 00;01;18;19
Hal Needham
As we drove around and looked at examples of both good and bad construction, this podcast is a recording of our conversation as we explored the coast. My background is geography and climate science. Sometimes he had to clarify terminology for me. I left many of these teaching segments in the podcast as I saw them as opportunities to educate our listeners.

00;01;19;11 - 00;01;41;16
Hal Needham
You'll love this episode if you live in a place vulnerable to extreme storm hazards like hurricanes or tornadoes. This episode is also very valuable for professionals working in architecture, design, construction, as well as those involved in flood mitigation. If you're new to the podcast, Joe Track travels the world to find stories about the relationship between people and nature.

00;01;41;28 - 00;02;02;13
Hal Needham
Our stories investigate the impact of extreme weather disasters and hazards on individuals and communities. Our goal is to help you better understand how the world works so you can take actions to make yourself, your family and your community more resilient to all the extremes that Mother Nature can throw at us. Hey, before we start this episode, we have a favor to ask of you.

00;02;02;18 - 00;02;25;20
Hal Needham
We'd really appreciate if you'd subscribe to this podcast on your favorite podcast platform. Your subscription helps us mark progress, which enables us to make more professional partnerships moving forward and ensures many more episodes of the Geo Trek podcast in the future. Well, let's jump in the truck with Scott Sundberg and explore how we can build better in a disaster prone place like the Mississippi Coast.

00;02;26;15 - 00;02;32;01
Scott Sundberg
Yeah, I'm trying to find this concrete home. It was built his great place.

00;02;32;12 - 00;02;42;01
Hal Needham
Scott Let's talk a little bit about concrete, what we're doing that I asked you before we started this interview why we don't see more concrete in the U.S. It seems very resilient. I mean, you had shared a few thoughts.

00;02;42;11 - 00;02;57;25
Scott Sundberg
About that with me. Yes. It's it's actually a you know, a good bit more expansive. It it really does need to be engineered. And then you have the challenge that up until recently. You'd have hell to pay to find a residential contractor that could handle the job.

00;02;58;12 - 00;03;00;27
Hal Needham
So would based is so much more common, right?

00;03;01;04 - 00;03;23;25
Scott Sundberg
It has been. Now, over in Bay Saint Louis and Waveland, along the coast, you can see where a lot of contractors have picked up on it. And hopefully they have had it engineered and it actually will perform well for all that extra effort and time and money.

00;03;25;07 - 00;03;29;17
Hal Needham
You think as we see more floods and things like that, we'll see more concrete proportionally?

00;03;31;00 - 00;03;42;13
Scott Sundberg
I think it's coming on strong and, you know, especially when you look at, you know, how much people spend for homes. I think it's growing said.

00;03;43;10 - 00;03;58;25
Hal Needham
Locale made a good point. Even if you pay a little more upfront for some of these mitigation measures, if you're saving a lot of hassle and a lot of time and a lot of stress and a lot of money in the cleanup after a big storm, it may really pay off.

00;03;59;06 - 00;04;06;05
Scott Sundberg
Oh, most certainly. I mean, why pay to build a wood house twice when you can build a concrete house once?

00;04;07;08 - 00;04;11;28
Hal Needham
And I've heard people argue you're actually going to come out better in the long run by building.

00;04;11;28 - 00;04;13;23
Scott Sundberg
Better like that. Oh, absolutely.

00;04;14;11 - 00;04;19;03
Hal Needham
What about these houses here are we see a lot of those break away down below.

00;04;19;08 - 00;04;52;06
Scott Sundberg
They should be. They should be. And by and large, most of them are. And therein lies another problem, of course. But unfortunately, some builders don't pay attention to details and they don't really make sure they can break away. In other words, they make those walls and those lattice works continuous across the column without openings. So what can happen is as the hydraulic load, the wind and I mean the waves in the water will hit it and actually cause lateral load to the structure.

00;04;52;07 - 00;05;20;09
Scott Sundberg
Now, when I designed my home, we were in an 11 zone. And when you look back in the flood insurance study other than Camille, that was more than adequate. But our community chose to put a minimum of a three foot three board in. So we were actually in a 14 zone. Now, this home here was built somewhere around 1900 or so.

00;05;20;09 - 00;05;43;03
Scott Sundberg
And the legend I've always heard is, is that it was built by a grandfather and his granddaughter. It's it's very rugged. You can see the wood formwork exposed in the relief pattern and the walls. But this puppy is survived Camille and Katrina, both of which would have put water into the second floor.

00;05;43;03 - 00;05;52;14
Hal Needham
It's a concrete design, right? Yeah. I've heard people say even if your concrete home gets flooded, you can to some degree, muck it out. And it's it's good to go.

00;05;52;26 - 00;05;53;25
Scott Sundberg
It should be nice.

00;05;53;25 - 00;05;57;27
Hal Needham
Yeah. Is it true that in other countries, you see a lot more concrete proportionately than here?

00;05;58;07 - 00;06;07;04
Scott Sundberg
That's what I've heard. And unfortunately, I've not been a world traveler. But, you know, part of that has to do with in some other countries, they don't have as many forests.

00;06;07;18 - 00;06;09;14
Hal Needham
Right. I've heard like Bahamas, for example.

00;06;09;14 - 00;06;10;11
Scott Sundberg
You know, you can build.

00;06;10;12 - 00;06;20;20
Hal Needham
A lot with concrete. It makes sense. They probably have more sand available than trees, right? Yeah. So and then it may help them out. I've heard people say that they weather a Category four and five hurricanes pretty well.

00;06;21;01 - 00;06;45;19
Scott Sundberg
Absolutely. And their infrastructure is designed far better to handle it. Instead of having power poles up in the air, they probably have more underground. But, you know, you think of poorer countries, I guess, Turkey, Pakistan, and, you know, but the Middle Eastern countries where predominantly you'll see nothing but concrete homes, much smaller, much more stylish, I suppose. But they're built to last.

00;06;46;07 - 00;06;49;27
Scott Sundberg
Uh, you know, they might build them piecemeal to get there, but they. They build.

00;06;50;00 - 00;07;04;19
Hal Needham
Yeah. There is this concept that in a lot of other countries, people live in the home that their parents grew up in and their grandparents grew up in, and their homes are passed down from one generation to the next, maybe more frequently. And I think in the states, it's less frequent.

00;07;04;24 - 00;07;13;11
Scott Sundberg
Absolutely. You know, we build McMansions to to be sold to the highest bidder. When you can upgrade to something even bigger.

00;07;14;00 - 00;07;18;26
Hal Needham
So, Katrina, did the water start coming in your house? Was it all at once or was it a slow rise over time?

00;07;19;07 - 00;07;45;27
Scott Sundberg
Huh. We were renting a home over in Long Beach and it was adjacent to a home that had survived Camille. And as the water came up, at first I thought, you know, my wife was the first noticed water in the yard. And then we started noticing it coming up inside the house. So it came up in a very quick but just a vertical fashion.

00;07;45;27 - 00;08;11;20
Scott Sundberg
The waves didn't come until water was quite high. And then we had a portable greenhouse in the backyard. And as the waves started to come, it acted as a battering ram and took out the seaward wall, which started the collapse of the house. However, the water came up quick enough in the waves such that we knew we had to abandon ship.

00;08;11;20 - 00;08;13;19
Hal Needham
So there was some depth to the water and time.

00;08;13;29 - 00;08;32;27
Scott Sundberg
Oh yeah. I mean, there was, like I say, eight, eight plus feet of water inside as we exited and we swam out and got in our little sailboat that we had on a trailer. And then we tried to get back to the house to break into the second floor to see if we could get our catch. Sure, sure.

00;08;32;27 - 00;08;47;16
Scott Sundberg
And we could not. And then the house began, and then more of the the waves came and pushed us away from the house into a tree. And then we watched it just totally disintegrate. The house disintegrated.

00;08;47;17 - 00;08;53;17
Hal Needham
Yeah. You were in the sailboat that was getting close to the tree and then the trees and helped almost.

00;08;53;17 - 00;09;07;10
Scott Sundberg
Overturn the boat. You did? Yeah. We sort of got caught in it. And then the waves capsized and it was actually a very stable trimaran. But since it was on a trailer, the arms were thrown in and so it wasn't that stable.

00;09;07;10 - 00;09;10;29
Hal Needham
So you could find some stability and some refuge in the tree for a bit, right?

00;09;11;08 - 00;09;32;20
Scott Sundberg
Yeah, we did. And then we noticed that the trimaran was floating right quite well upside down. So we clung on it for a while to the water, receded enough that we could wait to do like shore and then the neighboring house where the waves had knocked out the entire first floor and then went inside it until the wind subsided.

00;09;33;04 - 00;09;36;07
Hal Needham
And, uh, did your house completely disintegrate?

00;09;36;17 - 00;09;39;21
Scott Sundberg
Oh, absolutely, yeah. Down to the down to the slab.

00;09;40;16 - 00;09;49;02
Hal Needham
Post storm assessment. When you look around, are you surprised? Sometimes or is it pretty much what you expected? The houses that survivor, the ones you would have expected to survive?

00;09;49;09 - 00;09;59;14
Scott Sundberg
Pretty much what I expected. My wife and I would go through an exercise about, you know, and the next hurricane hits here, you know, that's gone. I tell her, that one's gone. That one's gone and that one's gone.

00;10;00;14 - 00;10;04;00
Hal Needham
And you think the people that live in there know that or do not?

00;10;04;00 - 00;10;06;06
Scott Sundberg
No, no, no, no. There was no clue.

00;10;07;00 - 00;10;14;04
Hal Needham
So for a lot of people, probably just assume all construction is the same and then they don't really differentiate it. The way you.

00;10;14;04 - 00;10;39;25
Scott Sundberg
Would see were a little higher. And I know that one had survived. And now we're going into some commercial structures again, we're pretty high and that structure survived. That one did. It's an old theater. They're not yet done anything to it, but whatever was here was gone. Everything on that side of the street was gone. And there's another Hancock Bank made out of concrete that one survived.

00;10;40;18 - 00;10;41;24
Hal Needham
Are they all made out of concrete?

00;10;42;12 - 00;10;56;08
Scott Sundberg
Their original ones were, you know, way back when that was the thing. Build it to last. Build an asset, you know, self-insure, build it as. So you're going to insure yourself. It's amazing how much different you.

00;10;56;17 - 00;10;58;09
Hal Needham
Know, when I think about it. Very different, right?

00;10;58;17 - 00;11;13;22
Scott Sundberg
Absolutely. And I'm dragging it down this area because it's it's really bizarre to see how different the construction, the reconstruction has been. This area was hit just tremendously hard.

00;11;14;26 - 00;11;16;00
Hal Needham
A lot of what's action, right?

00;11;16;01 - 00;11;44;26
Scott Sundberg
Oh, absolutely. Wave action out the wazoo. We're we're coming off. What is the only physical relief here on this area? And, you know, this is an old Catholic church. So, I mean, it was built out of masonry. It survived, uh, and then we come to a reinforced concrete structure here that was designed and built. Health was out and I actually had worked for the firm that had done that way back when.

00;11;44;27 - 00;11;54;23
Scott Sundberg
I wasn't there when they did it. That's how all of this. But they really did things strong, you know, see how low that one is? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Now that one's higher.

00;11;54;24 - 00;11;55;18
Hal Needham
Yeah, look at that.

00;11;56;21 - 00;12;20;10
Scott Sundberg
And then you get a medium. So like I say, the reason I wanted to take you down this area is just to show you just. It's bizarre. You have people building on wood columns, have some concrete, some steel up, down, just all over the page. Yeah.

00;12;20;10 - 00;12;30;13
Hal Needham
Built in different levels. I'm seeing some elevators outside. People have those outdoor elevators. Yeah, I'm seeing some elevated air conditioning units that are at least ten feet off the ground.

00;12;30;22 - 00;12;31;03
Scott Sundberg
Yeah.

00;12;31;27 - 00;12;36;09
Hal Needham
Things you wouldn't see in a lot of other parts of the country.

00;12;36;09 - 00;12;47;19
Scott Sundberg
Yeah. They like those elevators outside that are involved in that. They're technically only for groceries and therefore they don't have the same manufacturers as don't have the same liability problem.

00;12;47;20 - 00;12;52;23
Hal Needham
I see. So people in theory put their groceries in that and send them up and themselves. But yeah.

00;12;53;18 - 00;13;17;10
Scott Sundberg
Say as long as they're classified that and the manufacturers off the hook they feel and then they don't have to pay as much for liability insurance that um yeah but you see there is just brand new construction and you know it's basically wood, it's on a basically a stem and it appears to be a stem wall type of foundation because it looks pretty solid from here.

00;13;17;10 - 00;13;44;02
Scott Sundberg
No breakaway portions, no columns really visible. But see what's happening is, is that you have a lot of these enclosures at Gray that are just going to be utilized for all sorts of things. Outdoor kitchens. And now, thanks to FEMA, our 2.0, they can be used as bedrooms. Oh, really? Okay. Now see there you see an entire living level at virtually grade.

00;13;44;19 - 00;13;46;09
Scott Sundberg
Beyond that, you see something that's elevated.

00;13;46;09 - 00;13;51;22
Hal Needham
Six, ten feet policy with risk rating 2.0, that you can build the lower enclosure and have it.

00;13;51;22 - 00;14;28;09
Scott Sundberg
Habitable downstairs. That's what's going to happen by the insurance. Now, you might run into a problem with your local cordon code enforcement if you're presently a vessel, but part of what the risk rating 2.0 is, is that they can enforce or rate to new flood elevations without having to do a new firm. Sure. Sure. Now, a couple of years ago, yeah, a couple of years ago, they went through and modernized all the maps to a digitized version.

00;14;28;18 - 00;14;50;27
Scott Sundberg
But to go through and do a flood insurance study and do all of the hydrodynamic studies and the field reconnaissance to get the transects and so on and so forth, to guesstimate these firms takes a lot of money and time, but then they run up against opposition from locals. You know, there you see concrete construction elevated fairly high.

00;14;51;05 - 00;15;21;01
Scott Sundberg
So they can change your flood policy without going through the design. So what will happen, oddly enough, is you're going to have older structures that were in an 80 zone and half bedrooms and other things at a lower elevation. But there are some instances where they get these breaks and the insurance rates and won't be risked and they are rated at a higher risk level.

00;15;21;01 - 00;15;30;28
Scott Sundberg
So in essence, there's going to be a problem where FEMA, I mean, actually NFIP is actually in subsidizing weak construction.

00;15;30;28 - 00;15;33;16
Hal Needham
I see where people are more at risk than what they're paying.

00;15;33;27 - 00;15;41;19
Scott Sundberg
Yeah. And because of the way they've collected data and restricted what data they actually use in all of this.

00;15;41;26 - 00;15;42;29
Hal Needham
These are concrete piles, right?

00;15;43;12 - 00;15;58;12
Scott Sundberg
Well, columns. Not piles. Not, not necessarily the sea. That's just it. Unless you're actually watching the construction, you don't know if they drove concrete piles, which if you have or that they put into something of a foundation and then started up with a column, they say.

00;15;59;22 - 00;16;16;10
Hal Needham
Oh, I see, too. It could be the foundation. Maybe it goes below ground to two feet above. And then the column goes above the starts on that right. And the footings on the foundation and maybe the column or the pile doesn't even go into the ground.

00;16;16;10 - 00;16;26;08
Scott Sundberg
Right? Column. Yeah. When when it's above ground, it's just a column. A pile technically is really something that is into the ground. So you might continue above it, but it's definitely in there.

00;16;26;08 - 00;16;38;21
Hal Needham
And so so a pile would really go below the ground. A column is above the ground, right? So I'm guessing that piles are much more resilient than columns. Is that true in general? No, it's a different purpose.

00;16;38;21 - 00;16;57;00
Scott Sundberg
I mean, technically, a pile is a driven into the ground. And typically, more often than not just a foundation support. Now you can get long enough piles. It will protrude above grade and become columns. And so that's a driven pile column. It's a hybrid.

00;16;57;14 - 00;16;58;25
Hal Needham
And how does not perform.

00;17;00;07 - 00;17;24;29
Scott Sundberg
Well unless it's extremely deep and it has some sort of a grade beam system near the surface or just slightly below, it won't have the same moment capacity as other type systems. Now take a look how high these are. Well, and then they have an independent little enclosure there. All of them do and see it has a steel floor system.

00;17;24;29 - 00;17;51;00
Scott Sundberg
Now, here you have a wood column system sometimes, and that looks to be now that looks to be a driven type pile. Now, unless they got an inordinately long piles, it's hard to imagine that those piles have much of an embedded share. You're getting 60 foot long piles is very costly and very rare. So chances are the environment on those is very, very light.

00;17;51;19 - 00;17;59;24
Hal Needham
So when we see Shanghai houses on on high piles above ground, there's a good chance that the embankment isn't tremendous below ground.

00;18;00;02 - 00;18;30;16
Scott Sundberg
Right. Especially with wood. Now you can you can get 100 foot long concrete piles. But whether or not they're driven to that extent Now here you get into yet another display of the variety here where you have these homes that are extremely elevated and then they have these interstitial floors. Now, how would hazard a guess that that one right there, maybe near or above the the the BFD, if you will.

00;18;31;04 - 00;18;35;05
Scott Sundberg
But if it isn't, then that becomes at best debris.

00;18;36;04 - 00;18;37;02
Hal Needham
I mean, that middle layer.

00;18;37;02 - 00;18;40;13
Scott Sundberg
That middle Yeah. Level where it's just an open deck.

00;18;40;17 - 00;18;42;26
Hal Needham
That could be lodged out as debris, right.

00;18;42;29 - 00;18;54;02
Scott Sundberg
Yeah. And depending on how it's connected, it could actually have a detrimental impact on those very slender columns. There's a lot of them a lot of columns. They're closely spaced in the rows.

00;18;54;26 - 00;18;59;13
Hal Needham
That's why we often look at that lower half lowest horizontal memory that can really make a difference.

00;19;00;27 - 00;19;30;21
Scott Sundberg
If you can. But that's actually a really complicated subject. The lowest horizontal member goes back to the velocity zone designations, where you could get wave action on that. And it's actually the structure. This is sort of a new problem that is his cropped up with elevating. It has become popular in Florida and Alabama where, you know, they'll elevate that high, but they want to have an outside deck to utilize their spaces.

00;19;31;08 - 00;19;41;06
Hal Needham
So the living space is elevated higher, but then they're putting a deck, lower deck. I mean, it is it is debris. Would that change the designation of the first world?

00;19;41;18 - 00;20;08;11
Scott Sundberg
No, actually, as I understand it, and I've tried my best due to self interest to continue reading on the newest rating procedure. It's supposed to be simpler. Digression would be is the old system you when we had to look up to rates, you know, it was simple. You know what flood zone you know and you were there and if you were elevated, you had free board.

00;20;08;15 - 00;20;26;04
Scott Sundberg
So you in 2 minutes you could open up the old manual and figure out what your rate should be. Now, it's extremely difficult and that is not really covered. They have it's not addressed at all. It's an open deck.

00;20;27;20 - 00;20;29;22
Hal Needham
So so it doesn't quite fit any.

00;20;30;02 - 00;20;36;00
Scott Sundberg
And so and there would be no factor for that. It would be totally ignored in the rate computation.

00;20;36;00 - 00;20;42;25
Hal Needham
You're saying that open deck would be ignored in the rate computation obviously would have a big impact on the performance of that. How it could.

00;20;42;25 - 00;21;01;28
Scott Sundberg
It could you could have a extremely detrimental impact in that if the wave action you know, we talked about wave uplift. Well, the wave if it I'm not sure the elevation of that, but let's say that's in the floodplain, the wave action lifts that deck up just as it will a concrete deck on a bridge. Yeah.

00;21;01;29 - 00;21;04;11
Hal Needham
If it's lifting a concrete deck, you can certainly left.

00;21;04;11 - 00;21;25;20
Scott Sundberg
Little of that. So what does it do? Depending on how it's connected, Does that how does that impact the column? I see. And since those columns are so high, it is an important question to me analytically, because when you look at the top of that column, it's only pin connected to the wood beam. I could swear that that from here, that looks to be a wood beam down center.

00;21;25;21 - 00;21;30;17
Scott Sundberg
Yeah. And I'm imagining that that's only a single sided metal clip holding that.

00;21;30;29 - 00;21;33;20
Hal Needham
Thing to not a lot of connection there.

00;21;33;22 - 00;21;34;05
Scott Sundberg
Right.

00;21;34;08 - 00;21;35;17
Hal Needham
Just from the column to the beam.

00;21;35;18 - 00;21;55;10
Scott Sundberg
Yeah. Hopefully that'll work for uplift, but it won't do anything for lateral load. So what happens is, is assuming that they have a wood floor or some other type of diaphragm action going it, it can distribute the lateral load of wind or if the waves got to the upper floor to the top of the columns, and then it would be shared more or less equally.

00;21;55;20 - 00;22;15;18
Scott Sundberg
But now the question is, is how are those columns really connected to the foundation at grade? And then in turn, is that a just a, you know, four inch slab? Is it a four inch slab in between a great beam grid? In what capacity does that have.

00;22;16;04 - 00;22;27;08
Hal Needham
Would one of your concerns be that the open deck gets pushed up with the wave action and basically pushes on the the that beam area, that the first floor area?

00;22;27;22 - 00;22;30;07
Scott Sundberg
Well, more it would impact the columns. It would.

00;22;30;16 - 00;22;30;27
Hal Needham
It could.

00;22;30;27 - 00;22;58;19
Scott Sundberg
Put a lateral load on the columns that they may not be designed for. And again, they're fairly slender for that vertical height. How are they reinforced then? Engineer actually calculate calculate that you know, did they and will it does the foundation actually have the capacity to develop that moment? And then as far as overturning and other factors, does it overload the soil?

00;22;58;26 - 00;23;00;24
Scott Sundberg
It's not that that simple.

00;23;00;26 - 00;23;03;16
Hal Needham
I see what you're saying. It's so complex. There's a lot of different factors.

00;23;03;16 - 00;23;11;20
Scott Sundberg
And that's why I wouldn't want to have just a CAD operator, if you will. Yeah, you know, don't get me wrong, I enjoyed doing CAD drafting. I have nothing against it.

00;23;11;20 - 00;23;12;16
Hal Needham
But that.

00;23;12;16 - 00;23;12;29
Scott Sundberg
In and of.

00;23;12;29 - 00;23;16;12
Hal Needham
Itself doesn't. Yeah, that doesn't go into a controller and.

00;23;16;29 - 00;23;19;11
Scott Sundberg
And you know that doesn't qualify you to be an engineer.

00;23;21;00 - 00;23;43;17
Hal Needham
I wanted to break up my conversation with Scott to clarify a few things. We were talking about flood zones and Scott mentioned that he's in a flood zone called A11, but that the community has three feet of something called free board. So he was changed to a flood zone called A14. What do these numbers mean? Well, Scott's referring to FEMA as a flood zone, which essentially places him inside the 100 year flood zone.

00;23;44;03 - 00;24;05;10
Hal Needham
The 100 year flood zone is a flood level, so rare it is only equaled or exceeded on average one time every hundred years. So if you're in this 100 year flood zone and you are expected to experience rapidly flowing water or wave action, then you're actually in his own called the V Zone or the velocity zone. Scott was saying he was with.

00;24;05;11 - 00;24;29;29
Hal Needham
He was within the 100 year flood zone, but not in a velocity zone. What about the number 11 that refers to the base flood elevation, which is FEMA's estimation of the 100 year flood height? It means that in a study at one geographic location, FEMA estimated the 100 year flood level to equal 11 feet above a datum or a vertical reference called the North American Vertical datum of 1988.

00;24;30;14 - 00;24;50;09
Hal Needham
This is not quite the same as mean sea level, but in a lot of areas it's fairly close. It basically means in this area, homes on ground lower than 11 feet were in the flood zone and needed to be raised to the 11 foot mark for new construction. There's one more nuance to this story, however. Scott said his community requires three feet of free board.

00;24;50;18 - 00;25;15;27
Hal Needham
This is the amount of additional elevation his community requires above and beyond FEMA to be raised really to the required elevation. Three feet of free board increases the required building elevation from 11 feet to 14 feet. This is why he said his flood zone was changed to a 14. He was providing the letter of the flood zone, followed by the elevation of the required building.

00;25;16;14 - 00;25;27;13
Hal Needham
As we continue to drive, I asked God about his Hurricane Katrina story. He had quite a tale of survival when quick thinking saved the lives of himself and his wife.

00;25;27;13 - 00;25;32;09
Hal Needham
So, Katrina, did the water start coming in your house? Was it all at once or was it a slow rise over time.

00;25;33;25 - 00;25;59;11
Scott Sundberg
That we were renting a home over in Long Beach and it was adjacent to a home that had survived Camille? And as the water came up, at first I thought, you know, my wife was the first noticed water in the yard. And then we started noticing it coming up inside the house. So it came up in a very quick but just a vertical fashion.

00;25;59;11 - 00;26;25;03
Scott Sundberg
The waves didn't come until water was quite high. And then we had a portable greenhouse in the backyard. And as the waves started to come, you acted as a battering ram and took out the seaward wall, which started the collapse of the house. However, the water came up quick enough in the waves such that we knew we had to abandon ship.

00;26;25;03 - 00;26;27;03
Hal Needham
So there was some depth to the water in time.

00;26;27;13 - 00;26;46;11
Scott Sundberg
Oh yeah. I mean, there was, like I say, eight, eight plus feet of water inside as we exited and we swam out and got in our little sailboat that we had on a trailer. And then we tried to get back to the house to break into the second floor to see if we could get our cats. Sure, sure.

00;26;46;11 - 00;27;00;29
Scott Sundberg
And we could not. And then the house began, and then more of the waves came and pushed us away from the house in the tree. And then we watched it just totally disintegrate. The house disintegrated.

00;27;01;02 - 00;27;07;02
Hal Needham
And you were in the sailboat that was getting close to the tree, and then the trees had helped almost.

00;27;07;02 - 00;27;20;23
Scott Sundberg
Overturn. It did. Yeah. We sort of got caught in it and then the waves capsized and it was actually a very stable trimaran. But since it was on a trailer, the arms were thrown in and so it wasn't that stable.

00;27;20;23 - 00;27;23;25
Hal Needham
So you could find some stability and some refuge in the tree for a.

00;27;23;25 - 00;27;46;02
Scott Sundberg
Bit, right? Yeah, we did. And then we noticed that the trimaran was floating right quite well upside down. So we cling on it for a while to the water receded enough that we could wait to do shore. And then the neighboring house where the waves had knocked out the entire first floor and then went inside it until the wind subsided.

00;27;46;17 - 00;27;49;19
Hal Needham
And the. Did your house completely disintegrate?

00;27;50;01 - 00;27;53;03
Scott Sundberg
Oh, absolutely, yeah. Down to the down to the slab.

00;27;53;27 - 00;28;01;12
Hal Needham
Post storm assessment. When you look around, are you surprised sometimes or is it pretty much what you expected, the houses that survived or the ones.

00;28;01;12 - 00;28;12;29
Scott Sundberg
You would have expected to survive? Pretty much what I expected. My wife and I would go through an exercise about, you know, in the next hurricane hits here, you know, that's gone. I tell her, that one's gone. That one's gone, that one's gone.

00;28;13;29 - 00;28;18;01
Hal Needham
And you think the people that live in their know that or do not? No, no.

00;28;18;02 - 00;28;19;21
Scott Sundberg
No, no. There was no clue.

00;28;20;15 - 00;28;27;20
Hal Needham
So for me, a lot of people probably just assume all construction's the same and then they don't really differentiate. The way you.

00;28;27;20 - 00;28;53;10
Scott Sundberg
Would see were a little higher. And I know that one had survived. And now we're going into some commercial structures again, we're pretty high and that structure survived. That one did. It's an old theater, not yet done anything to it, but whatever was here was gone. Everything on that side of the street was gone. And there's another Hancock Bank made out of concrete that one survived.

00;28;54;02 - 00;28;55;08
Hal Needham
Are they all made out of concrete?

00;28;55;27 - 00;29;08;12
Scott Sundberg
Their original ones were, you know, way back when that was the thing. Build it, the last building asset, you know, self-insure, building it. So you're going to insure yourself. It's amazing how much different you would.

00;29;08;12 - 00;29;10;01
Hal Needham
Oh, sure. When you think about it. Very different.

00;29;10;01 - 00;29;24;01
Scott Sundberg
Right? Absolutely. And dragging you down this area because it's it's really bizarre to see how different the construction of reconstruction has been. This area was hit just tremendously hard.

00;29;24;16 - 00;29;26;09
Hal Needham
On a lot of what's right.

00;29;26;11 - 00;29;55;06
Scott Sundberg
Oh, absolutely. Wave action out the wazoo. We're we're coming off what you see physical relief here on this area. And, you know, this is an old Catholic church. So, I mean, it was built out of masonry. It survived, uh, and then we come to a reinforced concrete structure here that was designed and built, helped first out. Yeah. I actually had worked for the firm that had done that way back when.

00;29;55;07 - 00;30;14;20
Scott Sundberg
I wasn't there when they did it. That's how all of this. But they really did things strong, you know, see how low that one is? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Now that one's higher. Yeah, look at that. And then you get a medium. So like I say, the reason I wanted to take you down this area is just to show you just.

00;30;15;00 - 00;30;28;22
Scott Sundberg
It's bizarre. You have people building a wood, columns have some concrete, some steel up, down, just all over the page.

00;30;28;22 - 00;30;31;20
Speaker 4
You know, built in different levels.

00;30;31;20 - 00;30;35;09
Hal Needham
I'm seeing some elevators outside. People have those outdoor elevators.

00;30;35;14 - 00;30;36;05
Scott Sundberg
Yeah, I'm.

00;30;36;05 - 00;30;46;17
Hal Needham
Seeing some elevated air conditioning units that are at least ten feet off the ground. Yeah. Things you wouldn't see in a lot of other parts of the country.

00;30;46;17 - 00;30;57;28
Scott Sundberg
Yeah. They like those elevators outside that are on wall in there. They're technically only for groceries, and therefore they don't have the same manufacture or don't have the same liability problem.

00;30;57;28 - 00;31;00;25
Hal Needham
I see. So people in theory put their groceries in that and.

00;31;00;25 - 00;31;02;11
Scott Sundberg
Send them up and themselves.

00;31;02;11 - 00;31;03;02
Hal Needham
But yeah.

00;31;03;28 - 00;31;27;17
Scott Sundberg
See, as long as they're classified that and the manufacturers off the hook they feel and then they don't have to pay as much for liability insurance. I understand that I'm Yeah, but you see there is just brand new construction and you know, it's basically wood. It's on a um, basically a stem and appears to be the stem wall type of foundation because it looks pretty solid from here.

00;31;27;18 - 00;31;50;27
Scott Sundberg
No breakaway portions, columns really visible. But see what's happening is, is that you have a lot of these enclosures at gray that are just going to be utilized for all sorts of things outdoor kitchens. And now thanks to of our 2.0, they can be used as bedrooms. Oh, really? Okay. Now see there you see an entire living level at virtually grade.

00;31;51;15 - 00;31;53;05
Scott Sundberg
Beyond that, you see something that's 11.

00;31;53;05 - 00;31;58;18
Hal Needham
16 policy with risk rating to point out that you can build the lower enclosure and have it.

00;31;58;18 - 00;32;29;22
Scott Sundberg
Habitable downstairs. And that's what's going to happen by the insurance. Now, you might run into a problem with your local cordon code enforcement if you're presently on a visa. But part of what the risk rating 2.0 is, is that they can enforce or rate to new flood elevations without having to do any new firm. Sure, sure. Now that a couple of years ago.

00;32;30;01 - 00;32;51;02
Scott Sundberg
Yeah, a couple of years ago they went through and modernized all the maps to a digitalized version. But to go through and do a flood insurance study and do all of the hydrodynamic studies and the field reconnaissance to get the transects and so on and so forth, to guesstimate these firms makes a lot of money and time, but then they run up against opposition from locals.

00;32;51;21 - 00;33;27;27
Scott Sundberg
You know, very you see concrete construction elevated fairly high. So they can change your flood policy without going through the design. So what will happen, oddly enough, is you're going to have older structures that were in an age zone and have bedrooms and other things at a lower elevation. But there are some instances where they get these breaks in the insurance rates and won't be risked and are rated at a higher risk level.

00;33;27;27 - 00;33;51;26
Scott Sundberg
So in essence, there's going to be a problem. We're seeing actually where NFIP is actually in subsidizing weak construction. I see where people are more at risk than what they're paying. Yeah, and because of the way they've collected data and restricted what data they actually use in all of this, these are concrete piles, right? Well, columns. Not piles.

00;33;52;04 - 00;34;05;10
Scott Sundberg
Not, not necessarily the sea. That's just it. Unless you're actually watching the construction, you don't know if they drove concrete piles, which if you have or that they put into something of a foundation and then started up with a column, they say.

00;34;06;20 - 00;34;10;02
Hal Needham
Oh, I see. So it could be the foundation.

00;34;10;20 - 00;34;14;29
Speaker 4
Maybe goes below ground to two feet above. And then the column goes about.

00;34;15;13 - 00;34;22;13
Hal Needham
Starts on that. Right. And the footings on that foundation and maybe the column or the pile doesn't even go into the ground.

00;34;23;06 - 00;34;34;04
Scott Sundberg
Right there in your column. Yeah. When it's above ground, it's just a column. A pile technically is really something that is into the ground. So you might continue above it, but it's definitely in there. And so so.

00;34;34;04 - 00;34;43;01
Hal Needham
A pile would really go below the ground. A column is above the ground, right? So I'm guessing that piles are much more resilient than columns.

00;34;43;01 - 00;35;03;28
Scott Sundberg
Is that true in general? No. It's a different purpose to be technically a pile. Is it driven into the ground? And typically, more often than not just a foundation support. Now you can get long enough piles. It will protrude above grade and become columns. And so that's a driven pile column. It's a hybrid.

00;35;04;11 - 00;35;06;21
Hal Needham
And how does that perform in general?

00;35;07;04 - 00;35;31;25
Scott Sundberg
Well, unless it's extremely deep and it has some sort of a grade beam system near the surface or just slightly below, it won't have the same moment capacity as other type systems. Now take a look at how high these are. Well, and then they have an independent little enclosure there. All of them do and see has a steel floor system.

00;35;31;25 - 00;35;57;27
Scott Sundberg
Now, here you have a wood column system now sometimes, and that looks to be now that looks to be a driven type pile. Now, unless they got inordinately long piles, it's hard to imagine that those piles have much of an embedded bed You're getting 60 foot long piles is very costly and very rare. So chances are the investment on know this is is very, very light.

00;35;58;16 - 00;36;00;03
Scott Sundberg
So when we see Shanghai.

00;36;00;03 - 00;36;07;11
Speaker 4
Houses on on high piles above ground, there's a good chance that the embankment is in tremendous bloom. Right.

00;36;08;04 - 00;36;37;12
Scott Sundberg
Especially with wood. Now you can you can get 100 foot long concrete piles, but whether or not they're driven to that extent Now, here you get into yet another display of the variety here where you have these homes that are extremely elevated and then they have these interstitial floors. Now, I would hazard a guess that that one right there, maybe near or above the the the bigger, if you will.

00;36;38;00 - 00;36;47;23
Scott Sundberg
But if it isn't, then that becomes at best, debris. I mean, that middle layer. That middle Yeah. Level where it's just an open deck that.

00;36;47;23 - 00;36;49;24
Hal Needham
Could be lodged out as debris. Right.

00;36;50;19 - 00;37;01;00
Scott Sundberg
And depending on how it's connected, it could actually have a detrimental impact on those very slender columns. There's a lot of them a lot of columns. They're closely spaced in the rows.

00;37;01;25 - 00;37;06;12
Hal Needham
That's why we often look at that lower half lowest horizontal memory that can really make a difference.

00;37;07;23 - 00;37;37;18
Scott Sundberg
If you can, But that's actually a really complicated subject. The lowest horizontal member goes back to the velocity zone designations, where you could get wave action on that, and it's actually in the structure. This is sort of a new problem that is his cropped up with elevating. It has become popular in Florida and Alabama where, you know, they'll elevate that high, but they want to have an outside deck to utilize that spaces.

00;37;38;05 - 00;37;48;15
Hal Needham
So the living space is elevated higher, but then they're putting a deck, lower deck. I mean, it is. And is debris, would that change the designation of the First World?

00;37;48;15 - 00;38;15;10
Scott Sundberg
No, actually, as I understand it, and I've tried my best due to self interest to continue reading on the newest rating procedure. It's supposed to be simpler. Digression would be is the old system. You knew when we had the look up to rates, You know, it was simple. You know what flood zone, you know, and you were there and if you were elevated, you had free board.

00;38;15;13 - 00;38;33;03
Scott Sundberg
So you in 2 minutes you could open up the old manual to figure out what your rate should be. Now, it's extremely difficult and that is not covered. They have it's not addressed at all. It's an open deck.

00;38;34;22 - 00;38;36;20
Hal Needham
So it doesn't quite fit any.

00;38;37;01 - 00;38;42;29
Scott Sundberg
Negotiation and there would be no factor for it would be totally ignored in the rate computation.

00;38;42;29 - 00;38;48;22
Hal Needham
You're saying that open deck would be ignored in the rate computation? Absolutely. Have a big impact on the performance of that.

00;38;48;22 - 00;39;08;21
Scott Sundberg
How it could it could you could have a extremely detrimental impact in that if the wave action you know we talked wave uplift. Well the wave if it I'm not sure of the elevation of that, but let's say that's in the floodplain. The wave action lifts that deck up just as it will a concrete deck on a bridge.

00;39;08;21 - 00;39;08;26
Scott Sundberg
Yeah.

00;39;08;28 - 00;39;11;07
Hal Needham
If it's lifting a concrete deck, you can certainly left.

00;39;11;14 - 00;39;32;19
Scott Sundberg
It unless that. So what does it do? Depending on how it's connected, Does that impact does that impact column. I see. And since those columns are so high, it is an important question to me analytically, because when you look at the top of that column, it's only pin connected to the wood beam. I could swear that that from here, that looks to be a wood beam down center.

00;39;32;19 - 00;39;38;20
Scott Sundberg
Yeah. And I'm imagining that that's only a single sided metal clip holding that seems to.

00;39;38;20 - 00;39;40;20
Hal Needham
Have not a lot of connection there.

00;39;40;20 - 00;39;41;03
Scott Sundberg
Right.

00;39;41;06 - 00;39;42;01
Hal Needham
Just from the column.

00;39;42;01 - 00;40;02;09
Scott Sundberg
To the beam. Yeah. Hopefully that'll work for Uplift, but it won't do anything for lateral load. So what happens is, is assuming that they have a wood floor or some other type of diaphragm action going, it can distribute the lateral load of wind or if the waves got to the upper floor to the top of the columns and that would be shared more or less equally.

00;40;02;19 - 00;40;22;15
Scott Sundberg
But now the question is, is how are those columns really connected to the foundation at grade? And then in turn, is that a just a you know, for each slab? Is it a four inch slab in between a great beam grid? You know, what capacity does that have?

00;40;23;00 - 00;40;34;06
Hal Needham
Would one of your concerns be that that open deck gets pushed up with the wave action and basically pushes on the the that beam area, that that first floor area.

00;40;34;06 - 00;40;37;04
Scott Sundberg
And well, more it would impact the columns. It would.

00;40;37;14 - 00;40;37;23
Hal Needham
It could.

00;40;37;23 - 00;40;49;19
Scott Sundberg
Put a lateral load on the columns that they may not be designed for. And again, they're they're fairly slender for that vertical height. How are they reinforced then engineer actually.

00;40;50;24 - 00;40;51;07
Hal Needham
Calculate.

00;40;51;08 - 00;41;07;20
Scott Sundberg
Calculate that you know did they and will it does the foundation actually have the capacity to develop that moment? And then as far as overturning and other factors, does it overload the soil? It's not that that simple.

00;41;07;23 - 00;41;10;12
Hal Needham
I see what you're saying. It's so complex. There's a lot of different factors.

00;41;10;12 - 00;41;20;12
Scott Sundberg
And that's why I wouldn't want to have just a CAD operator, if you will. Yeah, you know, don't get me wrong, I enjoyed doing CAD drafting. I have nothing against it. But that in and of itself does.

00;41;20;25 - 00;41;23;25
Hal Needham
Yeah, that doesn't go into a controller and.

00;41;23;25 - 00;41;26;06
Scott Sundberg
And you know, that doesn't qualify you to be an engineer.

00;41;27;11 - 00;41;47;18
Hal Needham
I wanted to take a minute to clarify a few things Scott and I have been talking about. At one point he mentioned FEMA's risk rating, 2.0. This is an updated methodology that FEMA has launched to analyze and classify flood risk in a new way. When Scott said that FEMA's new rating system does not require a firm map, here's what he meant.

00;41;48;03 - 00;42;17;16
Hal Needham
Traditionally, a new flood rating for an area was rolled out with a robust flood risk study that produced new flood insurance rate maps. The acronym, which is sometimes called Firm. Firm Maps, would designate flood maps for a section of the coast, classifying people in zones such as the A zone or the V zone. As previously mentioned, Scott was referring to the new rating system that does not require the issuing of a new firm map for an area.

00;42;18;06 - 00;42;42;18
Hal Needham
I have participated in flood workshops where practitioners have asked a lot of deep questions about this topic. So for example, if FEMA is rating risk without rolling out brand new firm maps, every time for an area, will flood maps disappear altogether? While some people say we don't need flood maps for determining risk of one house or one building, others have countered that we still need them for regulating the flood plain.

00;42;42;27 - 00;43;05;10
Hal Needham
For example, coming up with policies on how people must build in the highest risk areas. One thing is clear many professionals want to get away from the quote unquote binary system of classifying homes in or out of the flood zone. This has caused problems before because it oversimplified flood risk to homes. Both not in the flood zone may have very different risk.

00;43;05;19 - 00;43;21;22
Hal Needham
Imagine one of them is two miles from the edge of the flood zone, while the other one is just across the street from the edge of the flood zone. Previously, they both have been designated a similar flood designation that they're not in the flood zone. But the risk of the one right on the edge is higher than the one that's far away.

00;43;22;01 - 00;43;37;27
Hal Needham
It's definitely created some interesting dialog at flood workshops and conferences. My conversation with Scott continued as we discuss more about FEMA's flood risk designation. He shared that he's concerned that they do not consider many of the nuances of construction, particularly for homes that are well-built.

00;43;38;16 - 00;44;16;27
Scott Sundberg
Going back to the the new flood risk rating method, some of the holes I see and that is is that they don't really have enough categorizations or and they don't really have enough factors to analyze what risk they have, as in, you know, when you fill out an elevation certificate or when you're applying for insurance, there's nothing in the form that tells the FEMA database how many square feet you have at this level, how many square feet you have at that level, How many square feet do you have on the next level?

00;44;17;01 - 00;44;19;07
Hal Needham
There is focused on the lowest level right.

00;44;19;07 - 00;44;20;01
Scott Sundberg
And well.

00;44;20;13 - 00;44;25;01
Hal Needham
That elevation is, but maybe you just have a little bit of living space down there.

00;44;25;02 - 00;44;52;07
Scott Sundberg
Yeah. And actually, you know, you get into that and then how does that actually defined? They show six basic building diagrams and various we refer to them as building diagrams or foundation types. Well, in actuality, all but one really have no depiction of what a foundation is. Just because you elevate a structure on columns, piers, or piles, as they call it.

00;44;52;17 - 00;44;59;01
Scott Sundberg
Technically, that's not the foundation. The foundation is the structure that holds up.

00;44;59;01 - 00;45;00;05
Hal Needham
I see. So there kind of.

00;45;00;15 - 00;45;02;20
Scott Sundberg
Those structural members that hold up the building.

00;45;03;06 - 00;45;04;09
Hal Needham
They're like mislabeling.

00;45;04;09 - 00;45;13;12
Scott Sundberg
This, really? Oh, absolutely. Because the vast majority of people that were involved in that massive effort are not engineers. They're statisticians.

00;45;13;12 - 00;45;15;16
Hal Needham
There's what aren't foundations, correct?

00;45;15;17 - 00;45;53;29
Scott Sundberg
You know, it's a building diagram, not as a foundation. And I guess have gotten into it so much because I fall in the cracks in between what they define as foundation. If I left things to go as they are, the new risk rating method would actually increase my flood policy by six fold, which I find a little hard to take in that structure already took twice the hydraulic loading that the design storm would.

00;45;53;29 - 00;46;00;15
Scott Sundberg
In part, it survived Katrina not only survived it, there was no structural damage.

00;46;01;04 - 00;46;11;29
Hal Needham
So this gets into being rewarded for building better. And it sounds like you're you're implying that they don't necessarily do that or don't necessarily consider some of these key components of the building structure.

00;46;11;29 - 00;46;13;05
Scott Sundberg
Yeah. Not only just.

00;46;13;05 - 00;46;14;19
Hal Needham
For the location and elevation.

00;46;14;20 - 00;46;43;00
Scott Sundberg
Then that's it. That those are the primary factors. I don't see that they're collecting enough data so that they can track what their exposure is. I don't believe they have the data to understand what they really are insuring. Are they insuring, you know, 10 million square feet in the floodplain or 1 million actually for the design flood? I have all of 200 square feet in that floodplain.

00;46;44;15 - 00;47;20;27
Scott Sundberg
I designed my home basically, what was it, about 96, 97 to a flood zone, to my understanding of a flood design then. And I came up with a structural system that is incredibly strong. I tie my grade beams and supporting our elevated carport together so that I end up with a portal frame. I have a tremendously rigid system that took on that much flood loading and did not have any structural damage.

00;47;21;03 - 00;47;31;03
Hal Needham
Do you feel like your home is so uniquely well built that for them they just almost can't include that into their system because there probably aren't that many designs?

00;47;31;09 - 00;47;54;13
Scott Sundberg
Well, then, you know, that's certainly an aspect. And then, you know, just another illustration would be is that four types of constructions, they have wood, they have masonry and they have other well, mine's concrete. So what, I should be classified as other or should that be classified at least as masonry? Another is there's some interpretation that should be in there.

00;47;54;14 - 00;48;10;05
Hal Needham
Well, in like we've said before, concrete does so well, it performs so well. It's so strong and durable and resilient. But a lot of people don't have it because it's they might view it as cost prohibitive. But if you do have it, there should be a reward for that. Right. Maybe an insurance reduction for that. It sounds like there's no provision for it.

00;48;10;09 - 00;48;33;14
Scott Sundberg
That's correct. And, you know, for the design itself, the fact that it was designed by an engineer and built by an engineer, that it has survived Katrina, it should be at least rated with the most beneficial factors that they have. But overall, my observations are that they're not really collecting enough data so that they can go forward and and rate things for the risk that's there.

00;48;33;14 - 00;48;39;19
Scott Sundberg
They're not truly evaluating for at least the coastal condition, the actual risk that they have.

00;48;40;13 - 00;48;50;04
Hal Needham
So how have you proceeded with this? If you said risk rating 2.0 was going to increase your insurance rate six fold, did you decide at some point it's just not worth it? Or how do you proceed with.

00;48;50;13 - 00;49;15;28
Scott Sundberg
Well, first and foremost, I'll try to work with my insurance to see if we can get it actually submitted correctly. And then probably no matter what, I would be contacting FEMA to give him my $0.02. And ultimately, I want to see what the private market has. Yeah, true enough with the way that it would advance, it only increases 18% a year.

00;49;16;07 - 00;49;25;04
Scott Sundberg
So it'd take like ten years before it would reach that astronomical rate, but it would impact the value of my home because it's one last selling point.

00;49;26;05 - 00;49;47;18
Hal Needham
Thanks, Scott, for taking time to drive me around coastal Mississippi and show me your perspectives on how to design well for storms in this area. Scott touched on an important point in that last section that I've heard other professionals share. I've heard people say that FEMA primarily cares about your location and elevation, but does not account enough for the type of construction of buildings in flood prone areas.

00;49;48;02 - 00;50;14;05
Hal Needham
For example, Scott shared that his home is made with concrete. But on FEMA's form, he did not have a provision to check that box. That's a shame because as we said earlier in this podcast, concrete is a very resilient building material that potentially could reduce someone's risk compared to building with wood. If you enjoyed this episode of the Go Track podcast, come online, where we discuss these podcast episodes on social media, our Facebook group is called Go Track the Community.

00;50;14;17 - 00;50;22;12
Hal Needham
Thanks again to our faithful listeners for your support. Stay strong, safe and resilient, and we'll catch you in the next episode of the Geo Track podcast.

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