" We're in front of 113 Calhoun St. here in Charleston. A house that's 125 years old and which was heavily damaged a decade ago when hurricane Hugo swept over Charleston. Now in the last 5 years, the house has been reconstructed and reconfigured, and really rebuilt as a demonstration house to let people and builders understand better ways of mitigating the effects of flood and high winds and even earthquakes in this part of the country. Beth Judge is an associate in Clemson University who's an expert in all these different areas and she's going to help us understand some of the features of the house. Hi Beth! How are you?"

" Hi Bob!"

" Tell me a little bit about the collaboration here. There's a number of different groups involved in creating this, right?"

" That's right Bob. We've got the South Carolina Sea Grant Consortium, Clemson University, the city of Charleston who donated the house, Charleston country, the emergency management agency here in South Carolina and we've also had substantial funding from FEMA."

" Great. So, it's a long-term education tool that you've created here. What are some of the objectives?"

" Well Bob, we're helping that not only can we promote this hazard-resistant building techniques to builders, and architects, engineers, home owners but we're also using the house as a lab. We are bringing in some technologies that aren't quite tested and we're going to see how they perform here in downtown Charleston."

" And the concept of sustainability. Can you tell me a little bit about that?"

" Well Bob, sustainability really means that we of this generation meet our needs and showing that a dozen of future generations meet their needs as well."

" So that means using certain materials judiciously and bringing in new materials. Looking at the house, it looks like something out of the mid 19th century with those beautiful double porches in the columns. What kind of changes has been made here?"

" Well Bob, down here what we've done is we actually elevated the house during the construction progress,"

" Uh huh."

" And we've rebuilt the foundation."

" Here, we've got the seismic sense so we've got a poured concrete footing. Concrete block to reinforce is all vaulted together to the house seal."

" So the brick veneer is just hiding a concrete here that supports the house."

" That's exactly right. And that's why see the sort of interesting feature right here."

" What about the level of the house?"

" Well, you know, it's about a foot higher than it was originally."

" Uh huh."

" One of the master's degree students of Clemson, one of those engineers, she did a lot of research, and she found that by just elevating a mere 7 inches."

" Uh huh."

" We could eliminate 60% of the footing events here in downtown Charleston."

" And that of course is the source of a lot of damage and a lot of billions of dollars, right?"

" Absolutely. There is no question about that."

" And what about some of the material are we looking at here. Is it all wood?"

" Well, most of it is wood because our board of architecture really likes to stick to the original materials."

" In the historic district, right?"

" In the historic district so most about a Cyprus citing, we've also got a HardiPlank. Back here on the back part of the house, that's a cementitious material that we're using on the back part. We've all said got here, these are sort of a fiberglass."

" Uh huh."

" that makes a look like wood."

" Right."

" This is actually really wood."

" Right."

" And in here we're tying everything together. You can see this right here."

" So that many years of the house you've left, items exposed that show us how everything gets tied together?"

" That's exactly right Bob."

" Can we look inside?"

" Sure."

" Bob, here in the house, we've used the blown cellulose insulation. That's basically a recycle newspaper."

" Uh huh."

" But down here,"

" Oh!"

" We've got a flood zone and so what we're using is rigid foam insulation that to be re-used."

" That's a very good tip so that you don't have to totally re insulate the entire house if you should have some partial flooding."

" That's exactly right."

" What about structural things that you can do to make the house stronger?"

" Right here Bob, we've got a lot of different things being used. We've used some metal strapping to reinforce some of the old wood."

" Uh huh."

" And occasionally we have had to sister the older floor joist with some newer ones. We've also use an epoxy that will strengthen the old wood where there were rotting problems."

" So that you can preserve some of the antique elements of the house and still make them structurally viable."

" That's right."

" And the windows, they get strapped in."

" The windows are also strapped in all the way to the building screen."

" Now Beth, this is all fine and good in new construction, but what do you do if you're retrofitting?"

" You know Bob, there are some retrofit products and this particular one we're demonstrating here was invented up a Clemson by Backwood student and his professor. They are calling it the high-wind retrofit brackets."

" How does it work?"

" Well, what you do is actually you could put it over"

" Oh you've got it up there!"

" Yeah, over your sheet rock and actually lag screw it into the upper story floor joists and your wall studs here."

" And then you can just take some crown molding and dressed it up."

" That's exactly right."

" And so that's a good way of doing it?"

" Uh huh."

" Well thanks Beth. This is all very edifying."

" Well, Thank you!"