Jean-Marc Ram­per­sad

Cli­mate Change Ed­i­tor

jean-marc.ram­per­sad@guardian.co.tt

Struc­tur­al en­gi­neer and pres­i­dent of the As­so­ci­a­tion of Pro­fes­sion­al En­gi­neers of Trinidad and To­ba­go (APETT), Lendel Bethelmy, is urg­ing cit­i­zens to pay close at­ten­tion to the con­struc­tion and struc­tur­al in­tegri­ty of their homes.

He made the com­ment yes­ter­day, in the af­ter­math of Tues­day’s tor­na­do strike in West­moor­ings that dam­aged 16 homes.

Point­ing out that res­i­den­tial con­struc­tion in T&T re­mains poor­ly reg­u­lat­ed, Bethelmy said, “The res­i­den­tial mar­ket is not a very heav­i­ly reg­u­lat­ed mar­ket. The re­al­i­ty is that a build­ing in­spec­tor or the re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion can’t be every­where, every time, in their re­gion.

“They may not even know cer­tain con­struc­tion is tak­ing place. So, a lot of times, res­i­den­tial and small com­mer­cial build­ings are erect­ed with­out prop­er due care.”

He ex­plained that struc­tures built with bank fi­nanc­ing tend to be bet­ter reg­u­lat­ed, since fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions usu­al­ly re­quire cer­ti­fi­ca­tion by qual­i­fied pro­fes­sion­als.

“For ex­am­ple, one of the re­quire­ments would be to have draw­ings pre­pared by reg­is­tered pro­fes­sion­als—ar­chi­tec­tur­al, struc­tur­al, me­chan­i­cal, and elec­tri­cal en­gi­neers,” Bethelmy said.

Ad­dress­ing the roof dam­age seen in West­moor­ings, Bethelmy said most af­fect­ed homes ap­peared to have light­weight or poor­ly pitched roofs, which are gen­er­al­ly more sus­cep­ti­ble to strong winds.

“With these types of events, pres­sure in­creas­es in­side the build­ing, caus­ing roof struc­tures to lift and sep­a­rate from their base or par­ent struc­ture,” he ex­plained.

Ac­cord­ing to Bethelmy, the weight of roof­ing sys­tems plays a sig­nif­i­cant role in their re­sis­tance to wind dam­age. Light­weight roofs, typ­i­cal­ly made of gal­vanise sheets, are more vul­ner­a­ble, while heav­ier ma­te­ri­als—such as clay tiles and con­crete slabs—of­fer greater sta­bil­i­ty.

For ex­ist­ing home­own­ers, Bethelmy said im­prove­ments can be made with­out ma­jor ex­pense.

“With tim­ber-type struc­tures, en­sure that the hur­ri­cane straps run over the rafters or beams rather than bor­ing straight through them,” he ad­vised.

“Make sure the spac­ing be­tween rafters or purlins is ap­pro­pri­ate—the clos­er they are, the less sus­cep­ti­ble the roof will be to wind dam­age. Screws should al­so be used in­stead of nails, and with prop­er spac­ing.”

He strong­ly rec­om­mend­ed that prop­er­ty own­ers seek pro­fes­sion­al as­sess­ments of their build­ings be­fore dis­as­ter strikes.

“If you can have a pro­fes­sion­al as­sess your struc­ture and give you re­as­sur­ance that it’s up to code or stan­dard, I would in­vite every­body to do so as rea­son­ably as pos­si­ble,” he said.

“Don’t wait un­til you have a prob­lem to do the as­sess­ment. Try to be a lit­tle more proac­tive and not re­ac­tive in your ap­proach to safe­ty.”