Popular Speakers Return to Meeting House with Advice for After the Storm

Preservation architects Walter Sedovic and Jill H. Gotthelf were a sensation in spring 2013 at the Rye Meeting House, when they spoke on lighthouses as Beacons of Sustainability.  This year, they have won more praise for restoring the Meeting House roof and clerestory, an important means of releasing heat and conveying cooler air into the building in summer.

Sedovic and Gotthelf returned to the Meeting House on Saturday, May 31, as speakers in the Bird Homestead nonprofit’s lecture series, “After the Storm: Towards a More Resilient Shoreline.”

The two architects’ talk, “Before the Seas Rise or the Sky Falls: Disaster Preparedness and Resiliency for Shoreline Buildings,” offered specific ways that a Sound-shore community like Rye could minimize damage to homes and small buildings of any age during extreme weather like Super Storm Sandy.

Their attentive audience included former Rye City Council member Carolyn Cunningham, who announced a Westchester Climate Change Summit for municipal leaders at Pace University Law School in White Plains on September 12, co-sponsored by Federated Conservationists of Westchester.

Sedovic and Gotthelf want “a more measured approach” to natural disasters that Sedovic described as a combination of “applied codes and common sense.”  Their approach includes lessons from historic buildings.

Sedovic pointed to the Meeting House as a building that thanks in part to its clerestory, “sheds wind, water, and snow.”  He called New York State “the new Carolinas,” in that hurricanes now “crash land” here.  But New York does not have southeastern states’ codes that help minimize damage.

For example, Sedovic and Gotthelf strongly advise homeowners not to seal buildings or to replace older windows with ones that don’t open. Why? The difference between a low-pressure front, like a hurricane or tornado, outside a sealed building and the higher pressure inside can cause the structure to explode  -- “like blowing into a balloon until it pops,” said Sedovic.

To protect your home against strong wind and differential pressure, the best measure is to open windows slightly on the house’s leeward side.

Gotthelf recommends disaster planning that “steps back” and takes “a holistic view,” combining individual and community efforts.  Homeowners should check that gutters aren’t blocked, that trees, chimneys and foundations are secure, that cheap and flexible connectors plug in stoves and driers to prevent fires, and that a one-way valve or back-flow preventer is in place to keep out flooding sewage. (“It’s no secret,” Sedovic added, “that every single sewage treatment facility in the region is overloaded.”)  If you want to install a back-flow preventer at home, check local codes or talk to municipal officials.

At the same time, shoreline communities should have a disaster plan covering “ingress and egress”: how residents can leave in the case of natural disaster, and how first responders can get in. 

While FEMA and insurance companies may mean very well, the brand-new materials and techniques they offer for repairs may not be the best solutions.  For example, “dehumidifiers,” Gotthelf pointed out, “are quick, but not good for the building. A building has an innate ability to be resilient – let’s work with it.”  She favors promoting dehumidification, but through a more natural, slow process – by opening windows. Dehumidifiers, most notably the industrial ones, dry the buildings quickly and cause damage.

The speakers recommended learning from New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, where even in the 9th Ward, many buildings that had been condemned are still standing and have reverted to their pre-Katrina state -- woodwork, plaster, flooring, and masonry intact.  Gotthelf and Sedovic believe patience is the best approach. The reward will be repairs that are more appropriate and less costly. 

The “After the Storm: Toward a More Resilient Shoreline” lecture series is funded, in part, by a grant from the National Trust for Historic Preservation.  The Bird Homestead nonprofit operates two adjoining properties, the Rye Meeting House and Bird Homestead, for environmental, historic, and educational purposes.