Wind Mitigation Center "Hurricane House"

Information about St. Johns County Windstorm Mitigation Center.

Regional Training & Demonstration Centers

The construction of a series of four Regional Windstorm Damage Training & Demonstration Centers across Florida was begun 1997, as a joint effort between the Florida Department of Community Affairs and Department of Insurance.  The locations for training centers were chosen in coastal counties near interstate highways for easy access.  The centers are located in:  Broward, Escambia, St. Johns and St. Lucie Counties.   Funding for the St. Johns County Regional Training Center has been secured from a cooperative effort between the State of Florida's Department of Insurance, Department of Community Affairs, the University of Florida's Shimberg Center for Affordable Housing, the Cooperative  Extension Service, and St. Johns County government.  The St. Johns County training center was completed in October of 2001.

Classes and Training Programs

This regional center houses classroom facilities and demonstrations for educational and certification programs to aid builders, developers, Real Estate personnel, building inspectors and other builder related enterprises.  The training room has a capacity of 40 attendees.   The building itself serves as a model and as has become an interpretive display.  Educational programs are developed in coordination with local advisory committees, local educational institutions, homebuilders associations, and others interested in residential home construction.

The Building

The building contains 3,126 square feet.  The interior of the one-story building is divided roughly in half between a display area and a training area. Construction Photo's

Central Display

A series of large-scale cut-away wall section models    demonstrating alternative building systems and illustrating internal construction.

Training Room

A wood-framed wall section, concrete block wall section, garage door and cut-away section of wall and ceiling, demonstrating reinforcing and wall-roof connections appropriate for existing housing inventory.

Desktop Models

Show products and materials that influence the structural
integrity of the building, but are concealed once installed in place.

Wind-resistant Materials

• walls built of an insulating concrete form (ICF) system, consisting of hollow poly-styrene blocks stacked, reinforced with rods and filled with concrete.
• windows with wind resistant frames and glazing.
• three different shuttering systems:  roll-up, accordion-style, and manually installed panel sections.
• skylights made of two-layer impact resistant polycarbonate.
• reinforcing device for garage door.
• spray adhesive applied to trusses and seams to minimize leakage from roof damage.
• fiberglass roofing shingles rated to withstand 110 mile per hour wind speeds; and spray polyurethane adhesive foam for tile roofs.

For more information, please contact

Joanne Cooper,
Family & Consumer Sciences Agent
St. Johns County Extension Office
(904) 209-0430
jgcoop@ufl.edu

• Back to Families and Consumers