PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — When the weather turns bad, Richard Blumsack can count on his son's dog, Davey, to lead him back home.
"When I take him out for a walk, if he looks up at the sky and he sees the storm clouds rolling in, he'll tug at the leash and walk home," said Blumsack.
Blumsack, a Floridian since the 1990s, lived through Hurricane Andrew.
"Andrew was the scariest thing I ever went through," he said.
That experience also had him wondering about his son's safety during storm season. His old apartment was wood frame, despite being built only a few years ago.
"I thought you had to build out of concrete block," he said.
We took that question to the city of Port St. Lucie.
A spokeswoman told us that wood frame construction is allowed as long as the builder is in compliance with the Florida Building Code.
Based on the most recent county emergency maps, all properties west of the Turnpike in Port St. Lucie are not in an evacuation zone.
The city spokeswoman added that Florida Building Code requirements do not go by evacuation zones and that, "a building shall be designed and constructed to withstand the required wind speed of the site as determined by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE 722) standard."
Blumsack said his son recently moved into a new concrete block home.
"With impact windows and the whole nine yards. I'm very happy," he said.
