FEMA Reviews Hurricane Damage at New Life Family Church
September 27, 2005
by Freda Parker
Immediately after Hurricane Katrina finished battering the Gulf Coast, Dennis Quan, Hazard Mitigation Engineer with FEMA's Region IV Joint Field Office in Jackson, Mississippi, contacted Monolithic.
"He asked us to send him a list of the Monolithic Domes we had that were in the path of Katrina and this season's other devastating hurricanes," said David B. South, president of Monolithic. "Actually, we were already working on such a list, so we sent it to him immediately."
Approximately three dozen people, mostly structural enginners and architects, are currently assessing hurricane damage done to various types of structures in Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana.
One of those structures was the 150-foot diameter Monolithic Dome at New Life Family Church in Biloxi. The report on it stated that the church's Monolithic Dome shell survived the hurricanes extremely well. The dome was "structurally sound", but its airform did get sheared off.
According to Pastor Jeff Ulmer, the dome at New Life Family Church was constructed nearly twenty years ago, using an airform that was never secured [and was not constructed by Monolithic]. And over the years the airform got little care and gradually began showing more and more wear.
"Years ago some dome builders purposely left airforms unsecured," David South said. "They depended on the airform adhering to the shell and not coming loose. It doesn't work that way. In all probability, if that airform had been properly secured, by bolting it to the foundation, Katrina would not have sheared it. That was a very unusual occurrence. We have not heard it happening to any other dome."
Related Links:
- New Life Family Church: Now the second tallest building in Biloxi
- Maranatha Church Members Call Hurricane Rita "Eerie"
- Dupont and Katrina: The Category 5 Dome
- Dome of a Home and Katrina
- Before and After Katrina: Monolithic Customers Share their stories
- After Ivan Came Dennis: Dome of A Home fairs well and Florida Residents start to clean up
- Pensacola Beach virtually destroyed, but Dome of a Home still stands!
- "Dome of a Home" featured on the Travel Channel
- "Eye of the Storm" on Good Morning America
- Surviving Hurricanes and Tornadoes
- Wind, Water and Monolithic Domes
- Monolithic Domes Protect 30 Humans and 800+ Pets from Hurricane Frances
- There’s a “Dome of a Home” Going Up On Pensacola Beach!
- Progress Report: Dome of a Home in Pensacola Beach, Florida
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