Environment + SUSTAINABILITY
Download the Natural Hazard Mitigation Saves: 2017 Interim Report at www.nibs.org/page/mitigationsaves.
Natural hazard mitigation saves
Council (ICC). The 2017 Interim Report demonstrates that investing in hazard mitigation measures to exceed select code requirements can save the nation $4 for every $1 spent. The project team estimated that just implementing these two sets of mitigation strategies would prevent 600 deaths, 1 million nonfatal inju- ries, and 4,000 cases of post-traumatic stress disorder in the long term. In addition, designing new buildings to exceed the 2015 International Building Code (IBC) and International Residential Code would result in 87,000 new, long-term jobs, and an approximate 1 percent increase in utilization of domestically produced construction material. The public-sector mitigation strategies the project team studied include the following: • For flood resistance, acquire or demolish flood-prone buildings, es- pecially single-family homes, manufactured homes, and two- to four- family dwellings. • For wind resistance, add hurricane shutters, tornado safe rooms, and other common measures. • For earthquake resistance, strengthen various structural and nonstruc- tural components. • For fire resistance, replace roofs, manage vegetation to reduce fuels, and replace wooden water tanks. The strategies to exceed minimum requirements of the 2015 I-Codes include the following: • For flood resistance (to address riverine flooding and hurricane surge), build new homes higher than required by the 2015 IBC. • For resistance to hurricane winds, build new homes to comply with the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS) FORTIFIED Home Hurricane standards. • For resistance to earthquakes, build new buildings stronger and stiffer than required by the 2015 IBC. • For fire resistance in the wildland-urban interface, build new buildings to comply with the 2015 International Wildland-Urban Interface Code (IWUIC).
National Institute of Building Sciences report shows how society benefits when buildings can withstand natural disasters.
The National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS) issued Natural Haz- ard Mitigation Saves: 2017 Interim Report, more than a decade after releasing its original report on the same topic and only days after the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) declared 2017 the costliest year on record for weather and climate disasters. Sixteen events in 2017 had losses exceeding $1 billion, with total costs of approximately $306 billion, eclipsing the record losses in 2005 by $100 billion As NOAA exemplified, natural hazards present significant risks to many communities across the United States. Fortunately, there are measures governments, building owners, developers, tenants, and oth- ers can take to reduce the impacts of such events. The 2017 Interim Report highlights the benefits of two such mitigation strategies. During the ongoing study, the NIBS’s project team looked at the re- sults of 23 years of federally funded mitigation grants provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), U.S. Economic Development Administration (EDA), and U.S. Department of Hous- ing and Urban Development (HUD) and found mitigation funding can save the nation $6 in future disaster costs for every $1 spent on hazard mitigation. In addition, the project team looked at scenarios that focus on designing new buildings to exceed provisions of the 2015 International Codes (I- Codes), the model building codes developed by the International Code
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