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- In the wake of Hurricane Michael, a house survived in Mexico Beach, Florida.
- The house stayed upright because it was built last year according to even stricter codes than those required by law.
- It took reinforced concrete walls, 40-foot piles deep in the ground and other factors to ensure the safety of the house during the storm.
Only one house remarkably left on Mexico City Beach in Florida after Hurricane Michael could very well become a prototype to build on the coast in the decades to come.
The image of a house still standing in the middle of an unthinkable devastation shows the hard work and forward thinking of Dr. Lebron Lackey and his uncle, Russell King. Their sand palace in Mexico Beach, built a year ago, was designed to survive a hurricane monster, and the reinforced concrete structure was supposed to be the last home to stand in the unthinkable.
"None of us has ever built a house," said Lackey, a radiologist from Cleveland, Tennessee, at weather.com. "We knew we were building a house that would be subject to a natural disaster – a hurricane."
(MORE: The latest impacts of Hurricane Michael)
Despite the work done to fortify the Sand Palace – in addition to the concrete walls of a foot thick, tall 20-foot pilings were sunk deep into the ground and steel cables have kept the roof up – Lackey, who was at his main place at home in Tennessee during the landing, looked at the images of a security camera with great concern. It was not certain that the cables would keep the roof down while winds of 130 km / h were trying to pull it off.
"I have gone through this storm with tremendous concern and concern," said Lackey. "I also had a broken heart for all those mansions around us."
Lackey, who traveled from Tennessee to Mexico Beach to examine the damage and take part in the emergency response, said he hoped that the now viral image of the surviving Sand Palace, Michael, would remind everyone that stricter codes are only half the battle.
"You're not a hero if you stay," says Lackey. "The first responders who come to clean up are the heroes."
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Mexico Beach, Florida, is photographed before Hurricane Michael crosses the city, flattening neighborhoods and killing at least 13 people in three Southeast states. (NOAA)
The main journalistic mission of the Weather Company is to report on weather, the environment and the importance of science in our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.
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