Glaze under pressure

The storm system that dropped 2-plus inches on us in the last few days -- a big, slow trough of rain, but not much wind, and not enough intensity to be a (capital-T) Tropical (capital-S) Storm -- was supposed to peter out as the day went by.

So when I rounded the corner at Fleming and saw a crew putting up the big aluminum rails for heavy hurricane covers on the windows at Banana Republic, I wondered if I'd missed something in the morning weather briefing.

But no. They were just getting the framework in place for the next time they need to put up their big, new armor. That's happening all over town.

Our armor -- and we won't have to put it up and take it down -- comes in the form of impact-resistant windows and doors now mandated by the building code. Here's a label from one of the panes. (And you have to keep the labels on the windows till your final inspection, by the way.)

What the numbers tell you is that the pane is about half an inch thick, a sandwich of glass and plastic designed to meet the tough Monroe County requirements for resistance in winds up to 155 m.p.h.

To certify the design, first they fire a 9-pound 2-by-4 at the window at 50 feet per second. Then they fire it again, and then the fun begins. Different sizes of openings have to pass different load tests, but in this case, they subject the impacted window to air and water pressure of 75 pounds per square inch from the outside, and then 75 from the inside (hurricane pressures can be like that). Then they repeat that pressure test -- for 8,999 more plus-and-minus cycles. If the maximum crack after 9,000 cycles is 1/16th of an inch or less, the system passes. They tape the whole shebang for the certification process.

A second test fires 10 ball bearings at 80 feet per second at a fresh window a few times, and then goes through the pressure stuff. If the window system passes both tests, it's good to go.

All of this, of course, is meant to give us a great sense of security while justifying the immense cost, and I do mean immense.

There are some savings, though. Because the windows are so tough, I'll get to subtract the $9.95 "breaking glass" burglar sensor that I'd been planning for the alarm system.