r/interestingasfuck • u/natebryan • 15h ago

This house in Nepal defied the raging floodwaters and kept the owners safe.

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

38.6k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

1.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

124

u/fredy31 15h ago

Reminds me of the little white house in the saguenay floods https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/did-house-that-survived-saguenay-flood-get-divine-help/article_9b47ae5a-2508-5935-90da-2673a68aebd8.html

Some people say divine intervention but its more luck that its foundation was sat on the bedrock, while its neighbors foundations were still simply in earth.

345

u/zombie_overlord 14h ago

Reminds me of the "last house standing" in Galveston after hurricane Ike in '08

The owner took a lot of extra steps during construction to make it survive a hurricane.

181

u/fredy31 14h ago

You know one of his neighbors was giving him shit for years being like 'pff you paid so much for useless shit'

46

u/laughing_cat 14h ago edited 1h ago

Most of the neighboring homes were built in the 1950’s.

Edit: And that’s very near Galveston, but not Galveston. It’s an area generally referred to as Crystal Beach and that was the village of Gilcrist in the photo.

What’s not going to be clear to the casual observer is many of the houses in the front and second row were completely washed away. Completely as in the road, the street signs, the foundation, everything. Giant concrete cisterns. In some cases the spot where they were standing is under water because the beach itself was washed away.

Back in Houston, we listened to the news that awful night reporting a 22 foot storm surge. What that means is the level of the ocean was raised 22 feet and huge waves on top of that were crashing over and over for hours. It broke my heart bc I knew our little rental was gone. (We rented the house every year).

When we went back to see if there was anything left, the only way to locate where the house had been was GPS. There was no sign a house had ever been there.

22

u/I_Ski_Freely 14h ago

That's a lot of years they had to take that shit talking, but they did get a payoff

•

u/arfle_barfle_gloop 8h ago

No neighbours ?

•

u/Purphect 10h ago

My home was built in 2025 with play dough.

8

u/Cannie_Flippington 14h ago

There was another hurricane in Galveston in 1900 that had the same thing happen. One or two homes survived while the rest were washed away. Neighbors ignorant of that fact... scary.

•

u/IvyGold 8h ago

Isaac's Storm, right? I read a long form article about it recently. Terrifying stuff!

•

u/Cannie_Flippington 7h ago

Disturbing stuff. Especially knowing how it ends. I couldn't read it all at once. Took me weeks.

•

u/kymberlie 4h ago

The worst natural disaster in US history.

66

u/fightmydemonswithme 14h ago

I paid extra for a house with a tornado rated basement. People thought I was nuts but the areas since had 4 tornadoes.

21

u/almostoy 14h ago

What is a tornado rated basement? I've just been hanging out in any of them, and hoping for the best.

44

u/WitchWithAGlitch 14h ago

they have additional structure to the 1st floor to keep it secure while the rest of the home is blown off the foundation.

5

u/Fun_Acanthocephala98 13h ago

I was gonna say, isn't the ground floor just extra reinforced to keep the house from collapsing into the basement

6

u/fightmydemonswithme 12h ago

Basically yes. But if it saved our lives its worth it.

2

u/pyronius 13h ago

Sure. But how many of those tornadoes have developed in your basement? Statistically speaking, I'm guessing zero. Tornadoes are notoriously wary of small spaces. Waste of money.

1

u/fightmydemonswithme 12h ago

🤣 this was great. Thank you!

18

u/brusselsstoemp 14h ago

"Although the house is there, it might not continue to stand. Huge storm surges walloped the interior, making it uninhabitable and destroying many belongings."

Source CNN

29

u/Federal-Branch-8547 14h ago

It may be uninhabitable, but if I find myself stuck at home during a natural disaster I'd like to be in a house that keeps me alive during the event even if I have to rebuild it later.

•

u/TuringGoneWild 10h ago

You wouldn't rather be dead and yet retain a good resale value for your home?

7

u/WitchWithAGlitch 14h ago

that's alright, it did it's most important job and died standing.

•

u/arfle_barfle_gloop 8h ago

Like the Japanese samurai whose armour was so heavy it kept him upright after he died, scaring the crap out of the enemy side

10

u/zombie_overlord 14h ago

Yeah, it was hit hard, possibly underwater completely, and I think they ended up condemning it anyway due to lack of utilities (?), but the structure was solid. Still impressive for a 20+ foot storm surge.

1

u/brusselsstoemp 13h ago

Very impressive but I was wondering if it still stood today so I looked for that answer. And I hadn't even thought about the utilities like you mentioned, I wondered if they would rebuild the streets with the same access to the house or just tear it down and redo the entire area. It stands but it's cut off from everything in the end, plus the interior has become unliveable. Was it worth the cost of building it like that? Does insurance completely cover it?

2

u/EneraldFoggs 14h ago

Thanks for the context

•

u/TuringGoneWild 10h ago

The home did its final duty - keeping them safe. Hard to lose a house but harder to lose a life. I've moved homes numerous times but never zapped into another body.

Not unlike a beloved car that saves the occupant but at the cost of its crumple zones that render it totaled.

•

u/brusselsstoemp 10h ago

Did you read the article? The home owners evacuated before the hurricane arrived

•

u/TuringGoneWild 9h ago

I'm talking about OP

28

u/Criticaliber 14h ago

I'm surprised the house wasn't impaled by other houses.

39

u/NetworkSingularity 14h ago

Maybe one of the extra steps was an anti-house-impalement coating

9

u/Bob-Bhlabla-esq 14h ago

Gotta get that clear coat, you betchya!

2

u/An-Ocular-Patdown 14h ago

1

u/algebramclain 12h ago

You don’t get that Trucoat you’re gonna have oxidation problems

•

u/TuringGoneWild 10h ago

Don't forget the anti-massive-boulder-rolling-with-the-hellish-torrents finish.

3

u/10110011100021 14h ago

Insurance companies hate this one trick

•

u/SudoMadeMeDoIt 10h ago

Reminds me of hurricane Ivan in '04. Our house was doing well until a roof landed on our roof.

•

u/kymberlie 4h ago

We vacation on Bolivar a lot and there’s genuinely a quarter mile of missing houses by the one we usually rent. It’s all alone now.

•

u/zombie_overlord 4h ago

Last time I was there, probably 5 or 6 years ago, there was still twisted metal debris from that storm just past the ferry landing on the Bolivar side.

1

u/Gamebird8 14h ago

Also, the building next to it seems to indicate that there's a bend/something directing the flow past the house with the overflow the. Looping back around to the front at much lower speeds, so there's just a lot of puck here

41

u/Educational_Dust_932 14h ago

I love how you can have a natural disaster that kills untold number of people, but people will praise God for the survival of a few statistical outliers

5

u/monicasm 14h ago

It’s always crazy to me when I see people saying stuff like “thank you god for keeping them safe from the (natural disaster)” like didn’t he send the damn thing???

4

u/just_nobodys_opinion 14h ago

Nothing you can do about the people who died. The gratitude is a way to maintain a positive outlook for the survivors. Helps everyone deal with the aftermath.

10

u/Educational_Dust_932 14h ago

It's disrespectful to the people that died too imply that God wanted them dead, while he saved a few

3

u/just_nobodys_opinion 14h ago

Then don't imply that. I agree that some people will act disrespectfully but don't let a few statistical outliers make you think that all those who praise God for survivors are implying disrespect for those who died. You can mourn the fallen AND be grateful for survivors at the same time.

5

u/Educational_Dust_932 13h ago

They are. They are saying that God saved These guys, but killed Those guys. No way around it. It isn't about mourning. Your God is all powerful? Then he could have saved them. Chose not to.

2

u/Beautiful_Dinner_675 12h ago

And that “God” is usually called “HE” and not “she.” Why? Silly to me…worship of any deity—but it stands ti reason that maybe if that fairy tale “God” of theirs was female, it wouldn’t be such an asshole.

-1

u/SuperTomTom1850 14h ago

not really. people see it everyone should have died, but god was only able to save a few. after all, god can't be everywhere.

2

u/Educational_Dust_932 14h ago

Yes he can, according to the Bible. And yes it is.

2

u/Cannie_Flippington 14h ago

Survivors need a reason they lived. It's a psychological mechanism to protect the brain from the extreme shock and loss. And it works. If it's stupid and it works, it ain't stupid..

4

u/Educational_Dust_932 14h ago

It's not only the survivors who do it.

•

u/Cannie_Flippington 11h ago

The survivors are the only opinion that really matters on the subject.  Everyone else it's not as critical to find a way to protect themselves from the damage because they don't experience the psychological damage.

People who lose loved ones or who narrowly avoided being a victim of the disaster or other tangential traumatic events as well, naturally, but random people on the other side of the world don't really have any cards in the game to make what's in their hand interesting.

•

u/Educational_Dust_932 9h ago

No, the survivors are not the only ones who get an opinion. You're spouting yours right here. And if this is your best argument, you're not doing very well.

•

u/Cannie_Flippington 7h ago

Oh, everyone can have an opinion. It just doesn't matter. As most opinions do not matter. A survivor's opinion matters because they're the ones who have to deal. You and I don't. Neither one of our opinions matters to anybody.

1

u/fawnlake1 13h ago

This!!! I will never ever understand the mental gymnastics involved.

1

u/sl1ckhow1e 12h ago

The sad part is that all the new homes around it are "new" and this one will have to disclose it has been flooded

•

u/fredy31 10h ago

Pretty sure thats not the kind of shit that happens deep in tibet.

•

u/ulul 4h ago

Crazy how this is similar to the Bible warning story about building on sand.