Storage batteries have supported American families during hurricane season for decades. They provide a glimmer of hope when grids are down by recharging phones, and powering emergency lighting after dark. But global warming is making these storms more intense, and literally flattening whole communities. Could stronger batteries in hurricane-resistant homes be part of the solution to the direction our weather seems to be going?
Building Hurricane-Resistant Batteries in Smarter Homes
Batteries could be the easier part of the post-climate-change solution. We already build our deep-cycle lead-acid batteries into stout cases. Moreover, their electrolytes cannot burn because they are water based solutions. Homeowners could reinforce them further by keeping them in robust cellars underground.
However, we are assuming that homes above ground remain intact, so their owners’ phones and emergency lights can survive a storm. Perhaps The Press Democrat is on to a good idea to help people with batteries in hurricane-resistant homes survive. They were after all founded in Santa Rosa, California in 1857, and must have witnessed more than a few severe storms themselves.
Stronger Buildings Protect Families and Batteries
The Press Democrat newshound describes how one next-gen home has a rounded shape that looks “something like a ship”. Apparently it “shrugged off Category 5 winds that might otherwise have collapsed it”. And when the storm was over, it was one of a few survivors standing with “just a few shingles missing”.
Hurricanes are like giant hands with powerful fingers, seeking weaknesses in buildings so they can tear them apart. We have learned how abutting solar panels tightly together deprives hurricane fingers of opportunities to get behind them. And having garage doors swing outward helps relive wind pressure.
When the storm is over and the sun shines again, then solar panels can resume feeding power to emergency batteries. Folk can emerge from their shelters, and recharge their phones. Then they can call their relatives, and share how batteries in hurricane-resistant homes reconnected them to their world. Where on earth would we be without our batteries…
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Why Are Hurricanes Getting Worse?
