Disaster Safety Blog

Clean up and damage assessments begin in coastal states

Damage assessment teams will be out in force today in North Carolina and Virginia, after a powerful storm combined a Nor'easter with the remnants of Tropical Storm Ida, USA Today reports.The storm raked the coast on Thursday and Friday with winds of up to 75 mph and drenching rain.

Several hundred homes were damaged in Virginia coastal towns such as Norfolk, Hampton, Virginia Beach, Portsmouth and Poquoson, according to the newspaper's interview with Bob Spieldenner, director of public affairs for the Virginia Department of Emergency Management.

"The streets are filled with the debris," Rob Shapiro, spokesman for the American Red Cross of Southeastern Virginia, told the newspaper, as he helped distribute hot meals, snacks, toys and cleaning materials in Norfolk, Va. "Along all the curbsides, you see rows and rows of carpeting."

Many residents lost their cars to tidal floods, Shapiro said. Low-lying neighborhoods were still surrounded by water on three sides, and the first floors of houses and apartment buildings were damaged.

Congressman Glenn Nye, who represents Virginia's 2nd District, estimated that floods affected up to 20 percent of the city of Norfolk, and power outages affected many more.

The storm washed out the northern portion of the lone highway that runs along North Carolina's Outer Banks, cutting off motor vehicle traffic from Hatteras Island to the mainland, the newspaper reports. On Sunday, residents regained road access after road crews created a one-lane sand road where N.C. Highway 12 used to be, said Dorothy Toolan, spokeswoman for Dare County, N.C.

"As far as damage assessments, our teams will be out in the field beginning tomorrow morning," Toolan said.

Research by the Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS) indicates using more water-resistant materials, such as wood, instead of drywall and opting for wood or tile flooring are just some ways to minimize the risk of flood damage. Learn more in the IBHS report Hurricane Ike: Nature's Force vs. Structural Strength.

For insurers finding the right mix of green and durability is crucial

Can a building be designed to be both environmentally responsible and durable? It may sound like an easy enough question, but it's actually the subject of extensive discussions among engineers. Among the leading voices is Dr. John Straube. IBHS is fortunate to have Dr. Straube as the keynote speaker at this year's annual conference Going Green and Building Strong on Dec. 1 in Palm Harbor, Fla. Register for the conference.

Check out Dr. Straube's two-part discussion on this intriguing topic, which is offered in text and podcast versions at GreenBuildingAdvisor.com. The discussion offers a preview of the kinds of challenges insurers can expect to keep talking about for possibly years to come.

Here is an excerpt:

There’s a whole bunch of agendas that are being satisfied by a green-building label, but a sustainable building or sustainable society is one that can be sustained or continued to be produced for the long term without adversely affecting the conditions necessary to support the same activities in the future. That’s a real definition. Green we can argue about; sustainable, it’s right in the dictionary. We know what it means. And we’re nowhere near building sustainable buildings. When I hear that term, it’s like, “My god, are we going to dilute that brand as well?” The green brand has already being diluted, and a lot of people are skeptical. But don’t screw up what is actually a well-defined term called sustainable and say, “I’m making a sustainable building.” No, I’m building a more sustainable building. My building is net-zero energy or something like that, but it sure ain’t sustainable. But what we could do is minimize nonrenewable energy and resource use, and that might be a greener building than our current buildings. Who knows? What we do know is that green buildings are durable, because if they last twice as long, they use half as many resources over their life. Pretty simple. That’s an easy one. But, of course, to be able to be used for 50 years they also have to be functional. If you don’t design a building that is able to be functional, what’s the sense of having it in the first place? 

New hurricane-resistant strategy being tested in Louisiana

Leaders in Plaquemines Parish, La., have developed a novel way to protect the area from storms: by usurping federal plans and barricading the region with barrier islands, marshes and cypress trees, according to USA Today. That approach could change the way coastal experts and engineers strategize hurricane protection.

Here is an excerpt from today's USA Today story. Read the full article.

Coastal restoration and hurricane protection remain enormous challenges for Louisiana's coastal communities and could be key topics of conversation when President Obama visits the area Thursday, the newspaper reports. Local leaders hope the Plaquemines plan — which promises to do things cheaper, faster and more effectively than the Army Corps of Engineers — gains Obama's attention.

"They're demonstrating how this could effectively be done," Garret Graves, director of Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal's Office of Coastal Activities, told the newspaper.

Known as the "speed bump" for storms rolling off the Gulf of Mexico and into Louisiana, Plaquemines Parish has been punished repeatedly by hurricanes, said P.J. Hahn, Plaquemines' coastal management director. In 2005, a 20-foot storm surge from Hurricane Katrina ravaged the southern half of the parish, causing $450 million in damages. Last year, Hurricane Ike, which made landfall 300 miles away in Galveston, Texas, again flooded the parish and drew millions in disaster dollars from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Since Katrina, parish leaders have scrambled to prevent a repeat battering and protect the parish's residents, oil refineries, fisheries and orange groves. Around 5% of the nation's oil and gas and half of its domestic seafood come from Plaquemines, Hahn said.

Last summer, parish leaders ran 38 projects planned for the parish through computer simulations at the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center in Vicksburg, Miss. That's the research and development arm of the Army Corps. The results, Hahn said, were stunning: the projects would lower storm surge by only less than a half-foot in most places, leaving the parish vulnerable to storms.

The Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS) know it's possible to build structures that can withstand hurricane-force winds and wind-driven rain. Is your home Fortified...for safer living®?

Celebrating a milestone and looking toward the future

 It has been nine years since the Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS) open its headquarters in Tampa, Fla., and the organization is doing more than ever before to help individuals and communities become more disaster resistant.

Since IBHS relocated to Tampa from Boston in October 2000, the Institute has tranformed from a program-based organization to one dedicated to creating original research. As this milestone is recognized, another major accomplishment is on the horizon. The ongoing construction of the IBHS Research Center in Chester County, S.C., will lead to even more opportunities to advance building science research. Take a virtual tour of the new lab.

Learn more about all of the IBHS resources designed to help protect homes, businesses and agricultural operations at www.DisasterSafety.org. Enter your ZIP code to find out what natural hazards threaten the places where you live and work.

Resources to help protect Colorado properties from wildfire

Firefighters in Colorado are continuing to battle a wind-driven wildfire that forced the evacuation of hundreds of homes Wednesday.

Winds gusting up to 60 mph drove a dangerous wildfire across open grasslands near homes and horse barns in rural Larimer County on Wednesday, forcing the evacuation of residents southeast of Livermore, the Denver Post reports.

As night fell and the winds calmed, residents were allowed home. No structures were burned.

The Granite Ridge fire had blackened about 100 acres of dry meadows near Cherokee Hills and Bonner Peak subdivisions along U.S. 287 between Laporte and Livermore, 21 miles northwest of Fort Collins. Conditions are right to fuel the wildfire into a much larger blaze and fire officials remain onguard.

Protect your home or business in the Colorado area with the Rocky Mountain Edition of the Institute for Business & Home Safety's Wildfire Retrofit Guide. Download a free copy and assess your property's risk of wildfire damage. Then, follow the easy steps to help reduce that risk through affordable projects - many of which you can do yourself in a weekend.

New study finds government elevation requirements woefully inadequate

Government minimum flood elevation requirements for properties vulnerable to storm surge throughout the Gulf Coast region are woefully inadequate, according to a new study of property damage caused by Hurricane Ike, which struck the Bolivar Peninsula near Galveston, Texas.

The study, HURRICANE IKE: Nature's Force vs. Structural Strength, reveals that significantly more Gulf Coast homes and businesses are imperiled by disastrous flooding from storm surge than previously recognized by property owners or policymakers. The report was issued by the Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS), which is an independent, not-for-profit applied research and communications organization supported by property insurers and reinsurers.

“Lessons learned from Hurricane Ike, which is the third-costliest hurricane on record, should be used by vulnerable communities from Texas to Maine to effectively reduce property damage in all hurricane-exposed areas,” said IBHS President and CEO Julie Rochman.

“Simply put, the study found that many properties are not built high enough to withstand storm surges, tightly enough to prevent water from causing interior damage or strongly enough to prevent damage when high winds strike.”

The IBHS study questions the current basis for elevating properties along the Gulf Coast and urges the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) to provide greater incentives for building well above the minimum elevations now in place. More than 50 percent of the nation's population lives within 50 miles of the coast, with more than $9 trillion of insured coastal property vulnerable to hurricanes. The NFIP, which is the federal government program that provides flood insurance to homes and businesses, also establishes base flood elevation (BFE) levels for properties.

According to the study's findings, the BFE requirement for homes on Texas' Bolivar Peninsula ranged between 13 feet for homes built in the 1970s and 17 feet to 19 feet for homes built beginning in 1983. All but a handful of properties within the first few rows of houses from the coast, built to even the highest elevation requirements, were washed away during Hurricane Ike.

By contrast, the study found that 10 homes on the Bolivar Peninsula designed and built under IBHS's building code-plus new construction program, Fortified…for safer living^®, survived the storm sustaining minor damage. The Fortified homes had outdoor decks at 18 feet that were destroyed, but the homes, which were elevated to 26 feet, survived.

According to IBHS Senior Vice President of Research and Chief Engineer Dr. Tim Reinhold, most homes in coastal areas are built to or slightly above 100-year base flood elevations. “A 100-year flood means that the level of flood water has a 1 percent chance of being equaled or exceeded in any single year. However, it is well recognized in the engineering community that coastal homes built to this level have a 26 percent chance of being flooded or demolished over the life of a 30-year mortgage. This chance increases to about 40 percent in a 50-year period,” Dr. Reinhold said.

“All it takes is a breaking wave about 2 feet above the base of a house to knock out the bottom floor or destroy a frame house,” explained Reinhold. “The chances of destruction can be significantly reduced by employing what has been learned about the importance of proper elevation, which can be relatively inexpensive when building a coastal home,” he continued. “For example, building to a 500-year base flood elevation reduces the chance of storm surge exceeding the base elevation to about 10 percent in a 50-year period.”

In addition, the IBHS study achieves the following:

· provides a detailed, real world performance evaluation of superior construction techniques when tested by a truly extreme weather event;

· sets the course for rigorous laboratory testing to explore and resolve remaining issues with specific building materials and systems;

· proves (once again) the importance of enacting and enforcing strong, appropriate building codes – and proper elevation requirements in storm surge-prone areas; and,

· showcases the leading edge of construction and real estate markets, i.e., developers choosing to design buildings to the highest standard, because they understand the favorable cost/benefit ratio and want to meet consumer demand for safety and durability.

“Beyond the actual findings, our report includes a very practical, easy-to-follow retrofit guide for Texans in coastal areas to use. The guide takes into account the current Texas building code requirements and outlines specific retrofit options that homeowners and residents can use to harden their property by doing things such as strengthening their roofs,” Ms. Rochman said.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Download a copy of the full report. View a low resolution video of the Fortified homes that survived Hurricane Ike. To request a broadcast quality version of the video, please contact Candace Iskowitz, Public Affairs Manager, at ciskowitz@ibhs.org or (813) 675-1047.

Farm buildings at a higher risk of wind and tornado damage

Farm buildings and homes in northeastern Pennsylvania are the latest casualties of the summer storm season, after an EF2 tornado ripped through the Cherry Valley area Wednesday leaving behind heavy damage, the Pocono Record reports.

Extensive damage was reported to Blakeslee Farm in Cherry Valley, including the destruction of three large barns and the top floor of a three-story farmhouse. Other homes and businesses in the area also received damage. View the Pocono Record's photo gallery of the destruction.

Research by the Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS) shows that many farm buildings are more suspectible to damage from high winds because they do not have to comply with building codes. Most jurisdictions exempt agricultural buildings from the code and therefore they are not constructed to the same higher standards required for homes and other types of commercial businesses.

While only a few specialty buildings are designed to withstand the direct impact of a severe tornado, good construction choices can give added protection and increase the likelihood that at least part of a building will remain standing to provide some shelter. Strengthened homes and commercial buildings near the storm's edge would have a good chance of surviving intact or with minor cosmetic damage.

Homes and agricultural buildings in inland areas of the United States are typically held together only with nails, instead of straps connecting the roof, walls and foundation. This type of construction should be considered by anyone who wants to increase their property's protection from other severe windstorms.

Conduct a relatively quick inspection to determine how well the structure is built. Depending upon what you find, it may be a wise investment to add strapping to help tie the building together.

• Look at the connection between your roof system (rafters or trusses) and the exterior walls.

  •     Pay specific attention to whether there are any straps used to connect the two. Older buildings and those located in inland areas are less likely to have straps. 

• If the building has unfinished interior walls or a crawl space, try to determine whether the walls and floor system are anchored to the foundation.
  • Look for bolts with nuts and washers that attach the bottom of the wall to the floor slab or foundation.
  • Also check for any additional strapping tying the walls or wood-frame floor to the foundation. 

Learn more about IBHS resources for strengthening your home or business.

Trimming trees can avoid costly damage to properties in storms

A strong line of storms toppled trees onto houses and into yards from Baltimore County, Md., to Central New Jersey on Sunday. Property damage assessments and clean up efforts are underway and soon will be followed by repair work to many rooftops.

The National Weather Service recorded 60 to 100 mph winds associated with the storms. In Balitmore county alone, more than 200 trees were taken down and early estimates show at least 55 damage reports from homeowners were related to tree damage, WBAL-TV reports.

It is possible to Trim Your Risk of Tree Damage, according to the Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS). And doing so could save money, time and prevent the inconvenience of costly repairs.

Most tree damage occurs during high winds related to thunderstorms or extreme weather events like hurricanes and tornadoes.

The average cost of tree trimming services is about $250 for most states, according to industry data. On average, Americans suffered $302.7 million in wind-related damage during thunderstorms from 2000-2007, according to the National Oceanic and Atmostpheric Administration.

Colorado property damages top $160 million from recent storms

A week of severe weather has caused more than $160 million in property damage in Colorado, according to the Rocky Mountain Insurance Information Association. It is the state's fifth-highest incident of insurance losses in history.

The Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS) is in the state investigating hail damage from stones that measured up to 3 inches in diameter. IBHS Senior Vice President for Research and Chief Engineer Tim Reinhold is with a team of disaster investigators examining the damage. The results will help with the recreation of hail storms in the new IBHS research laboratory that will be open next year in Chester County, S.C.

The damages in Colorado range from the tornado and hail that hit Aurora on June 7 to the tornado that touched down in Elbert County on Monday and hail in Fort Collins. The association puts the damage for property and vehicles at an estimated $161.1 million from about 34,000 insurance claims.

The majority of that damage comes from hail damage to about 21,000 cars and 13,000 homeowner claims, according to the association. Of those claims filed, a large portion are from last week's storm that hit Aurora, Centennial and Parker.

"This daily dose of wild weather isn't all that unusual for early June in Colorado when tornadoes, damaging hail and flooding most often occur and with very little warning," said Carole Walker, executive director of the RMIIA. "It's a real wake-up call that now is the time to be thinking about how much insurance coverage you have to fix your car, repair or rebuild your home and replace your personal belongings."

Learn more about how to protect your home or business from hail damage with help from IBHS.

Reduce the risk of hail damage with two new online programs

With more than 3,000 damaging hailstorms annually in the United States, it pays for homeowners and contractors in hail-prone areas to educate themselves about the benefits of impact-resistant roofing materials, according to the Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS).

To help make the process easier, the National Roofing Contractors Association (NRCA) and IBHS have partnered to create two programs. The goal is to provide relevant and unbiased roofing information aimed at reducing hail-related losses. These programs work hand-in-hand to help consumers and roofing professionals reduce the potential for damage caused by impact from hail, falling objects and foot traffic.

Consumers

Impact-resistant Roofs: Smart Steps to Reduce Hailstorm Damage is an online program that provides a free, easy way to learn about impact-resistant roof-system options. The potential benefits of installing impact-resistant roofing products include:

• Reducing roof damage caused by a hail event

• Decreasing the risk of water damage to your home and its contents, property, etc.
• Avoiding disruptions caused by roof system replacements
• Increasing the useful life of your roof, especially if you are in a high-risk area; the longer the useful life of your roof system, the less it costs you per year to own
• Increasing your home's value
• Realizing several additional financial benefits, including potential insurance premium discounts; potential Department of Insurance cash rebates; and, if your roof is damaged by hail, low-interest government-backed loans (to qualified homeowners)

Roofing Professionals

Impact-resistant Roofs: Contractor Certificate Program is a convenient online educational program that will help you and your employees better serve your customers by building basic competencies for identifying, selecting, installing and selling impact-resistant roofing products. This program requires you to complete in-depth technical training and pass a comprehensive exam before you are awarded an NRCA University Certificate of Completion. Once you have been awarded an NRCA University Certificate of Completion, you will be listed in NRCA's database of roofing professionals who have successfully completed the program. This database increases your business by allowing consumers and insurance claim adjusters to effectively search for quality roofing professionals.

Learn more about the hail risks in your area with help from IBHS.