These guidelines, updated in 2018, aim to explain in a simple way key solutions to prevent wooden houses from being damaged in the event of a hurricane. The target audience is both building professionals and community members interested in safer buildings. 

This publication explains through sketches the main vulnerabilities of light buildings facing strong winds and rains and proposes some low-cost technical improvements to make houses more resistant and safer. 

The recommendations given here are useful for both the construction of new housing and the retrofitting of existing ones. The concept of resilience is about adaptation, and it goes beyond building resistant homes. Resilience is also about how to quickly recover from damage. The final pages of this manual propose some tips about what to do just before the storm, in case our house is still not safe enough.

Edition 

The first edition of these guidelines were produced for the urban disaster risk reduction project BRACED (Building Resilience and Capacities for Emerging Disasters) implemented by HFHI in Portmore, Jamaica from 2014 to 2018. The guidelines have been updapted during a post-disaster project (Shelter and Settlements response to Hurricane Maria in Dominica, 2018) implemented by Habitat for Humanity Trinidad and Tobago, funded by Lutheran World Relief.