Disasters and Dreams: "One clear, blue-sky day in June 1999, a giant oak crashed into Julie and Robert Breon's little ranch-style Winter Park home.

"One year and seven months later, they moved back to the same address into a Mediterranean-style house twice as big as the house the tree had made uninhabitable. Only two walls and two rooms of the original home remained in the new house.

"The Breons did what many residents now faced with hurricane-damaged homes may be considering—instead of just repairing their old house, rebuilding it differently or bigger and certainly more hurricane-resistant.

"With interest rates low and the workers already on site, it makes sense. Making the improvements all at once can be cost effective, say builders, and you already have been inconvenienced and may be out of your house anyway."