Using Live Oak Trees as a Blueprint for Surviving Hurricanes

[Narrator] We know more about how the natural world

works than ever before.

It's kind of a perfect storm

for nature inspired innovation.

During hurricane Katrina

you would've thought that the live oaks

on St. Charles street would have died,

when actually only four out of over 700 trees died.

Why is that?

Well, the trees, it turns out,

the whole thing is a blueprint

for how to survive hurricanes.

Their trunk is spiraled, so they flex

in the wind, and their branches are spiraled, so they flex.

And their leaves, when wind hits them, they curl

into the shape of a Fibonacci sequence,

which allows the wind to flow through with minimal friction

so that the leaves don't get torn off easily.

And even more importantly, under the ground, it's roots

are actually entwined with the roots

of the trees next to it.

So when a hurricane hits a live oak in New Orleans,

it's not hitting one tree, it's hitting a whole community.

So perhaps in rebuilding New Orleans to be more

hurricane resilient, instead of our individual

peer foundations, we may think about foundations that have

horizontal components that twine together with

the foundations of the buildings next door,

so that you've got the wind hitting an entire community

of buildings and not just one.

Architects and engineers are beginning

to explore this in other places.

They're starting to think like a live oak tree

to design buildings and homes

that are safer and more resilient.

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