What Does It Take to Build a Disaster-Proof House?


By Candace Jackson, The New York Times. 

Excerpt: When a massive wildfire swept through Paradise, Calif., three years ago this week, it killed 85 people and destroyed more than 13,000 homes. ...The Petersens are now rebuilding on the same site — but not the way Ms. Petersen’s grandparents built. They’re putting up a Q Cabin, a 1,400-square-foot structure made from a half-circle of noncombustible steel. ...As much as a third of the housing stock in the United States — some 35 million houses — is at high risk from natural disasters related to climate change, according to information from CoreLogic, the real estate data analytics company. ...Others are looking further into the past than World War II for solutions — a lot further. Michele Barbato, a professor of structural engineering in the department of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California at Davis, is studying compressed earth block construction, a 10,000-year-old technique for making bricks from tightly compacted dirt and mud, mixed with cement, limestone or a chemical stabilizer to make it water-resistant.…

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