You won’t find a more eager group of students, or a class of quicker learners. These “students” get it because they all teach construction at high schools and technical colleges across the state.

Most of the instructors know each other. They’ve been through conferences and workshops together before.

“This is more fun than what we usually end up doing,” said Mark Corkern, from LTC Sullivan in Bogalusa. “We actually get our hands on something instead of sitting in a big conference room all day long.”

And what they learned Monday at Southeastern University in Hammond has applications across south Louisiana. It's how to build a house to withstand a hurricane to the latest FEMA recommendations.

Instructor Ed Rose expects a greater impact across the area by teaching the teachers.

“By hitting the teachers, then they go back and hit 10, 20 students. And then it mushrooms from there,” Rose said.

The people at Southeastern University built one house last year to the latest FEMA recommendations. In fact, FEMA has used that house as a model of how things should be built. And the biggest difference in that house is the level of connectors.

“More tie-ins from the roof system all the way down to the foundation,” Rode said. “More tie-ins diagonally, vertically, horizontally; the plywood roof system is tied in with more screws than normal.”

And they're not just building to code; they're building way beyond code.

The further south you're building a home, the more connectors—and stronger connectors—you need. It's a little more expensive to build a house this way, but you're also far more likely to keep your roof on in a storm.

Lessons learned here will trickle down to the students of these students, with the hope being that it leads to much stronger homes across Louisiana.