How did the monolithic dome in Florida survive four consecutive hurricanes? A monolithic dome home in Florida withstood last year's barrage of severe hurricanes while everything around it was destroyed. That year, NBC chose that dome as the site of its report on spending the night in the eye of the storm.
Monolithic dome homes are totally unharmed by weather, no matter how extreme. Even the hurricanes that have battered Florida in recent years haven't been able to do any serious harm, because a hurricane's mere hundred pounds per square foot of pressure just is not powerful enough to challenge the dome's structural limits of 2000 pounds per square foot. There's no better example of this than the dome home in Florida owned by Mark Ziggler.
David South, the founder of the Monolithic Dome Institute, tells the story. "NBC had a crew who wanted to spend a night in the eye of the hurricane. They were told by the locals, "Well, if you want to spend the night in the eye of the storms, then you want to spend it in that dome." Matt invited them to stay in his home, and they used the dome as their base of operations for reporting on the devastation the hurricane left behind.
"It was on the news regularly there for a while because it was the only thing left standing while literally everything else around it was destroyed. That area really got the full fury of the hurricanes," says David.
NBC was amazed at the durability of the home, and invited David to an on-air interview. They asked him "why doesn't everyone have one of these?"
David answered, "Well you've asked a really good question. They are not fashionable and the Middle American house wife wants nothing to do with something that isn't fashionable." After the interview, one of the co-hosts commented that she felt his comment was a sexist one, claiming that women were fashion conscious,but then she proved his point, by saying "well, it might be good for hurricanes but I wouldn't want one."
According to David, women make all the decisions about the home the family live in. "In the late 80s early 90s," he explains, "if a man walked in here by himself, I would ask him if he was married. If he was under 50 and married, I'd tell him to go home and get a note from his wife because I wasn't going to waste time talking to him. It irritated some of them, but the reality is that she is the one who makes all the decisions about the home."
Time and again, dome homes have held their ground while entire neighborhoods are flattened by hurricane and tornado winds all around them. The curved surface of the dome deflects winds across and around, and the concrete construction of the dome is sturdy enough to hold out against anything nature can throw at it. Even if something did hit hard enough to poke through the shell, it still wouldn't have a serious impact on the structural strength of the rest of the dome; it would simply require a patch job to repair the hole in the roof. This combination of resistance and resilience make monolithic dome homes the perfect design for any area dealing with tornados, hurricanes, monsoons, or any other extreme weather phenomenon.
