One of our favorite words – resilience, is something we all need to think of. Building resiliency in every aspect of our lives and society is crucial to combat climate change.
When petitioning our elected representatives on this issue, we have used the acronym RESIL to highlight the positive goals that can be achieved through a smart and aggressive climate policy, where:
R = Resilience; in a world with stronger hurricanes, larger downpours, firenados, polar vortex freezes etal.
E = Employment; creating well-paying, clean, local jobs that can’t be outsourced.
S = Security; building local security through local actions, as well as global security through foreign policy
I = Infrastructure; that is currently crumbling and investing in it will last us for several decades
L– Lead; “Make America Lead Again”, in science, innovation, technology, clean energy and all the good stuff. This can be our generation’s “Man on the Moon” moment, if we take this challenge head-on!
Examples of Resilience in Construction
A simple component called a “hurricane-tie” can make a building much more resilient when it comes to wind uplift. We have added hurricane ties whenever and wherever we have opened walls to renovate. In the photo, you can see that various kinds of hurricane ties have been used to join the roof to the walls. So, the wind can’t lift just the roof off without lifting much more weight for eg. the weight of walls and even the foundation!
