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Florence could hit the Carolinas harder than any hurricane since Hazel packed 130 mph winds in 1954. That Category 4 storm destroyed 15,000 buildings and killed 19 people in North Carolina. In the six decades since then, many thousands of people have moved to the coast.
So what do hurricane-force winds do to a home? The IBHS Research Center in Richburg, South Carolina, tests just that.
The center was built in 2010 and it aims to advance building science. It evaluates the strength of specific building material by testing in realistic situations.
One part of the building has 105 fans that can simulate up to a Category 3 hurricane.
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One thing the center has already found is that closing your interior doors during a hurricane can lower your risk of losing your roof during a tropical system.
SEE ALSO: How to prepare your home for high winds
How to prepare your home for high winds
When the wind comes into a house it wants to push up and push out on the building; by closing your interior doors you limit the upward push to a small area minimizing your risk of losing your roof.
The facility can even accurately portray the size of raindrops; they've tested what wind-driven rain can do to a house, and through these experiments, they recommend that people have a sealed roof deck.
That means you can seal the seams of your roof to prevent water from getting into your house.
You can watch the storm demonstrations on IBHS' website.