The future after Hurricane Ian? Some buildings are not ready for new storms
As Southwest Florida reels from the devastation of Hurricane Ian, residents can look to recovery efforts after other recent major storms for a road map.
It could take years, experts say — and as hurricanes grow stronger and buildings nationwide remain outdated, it could be the norm.
Hurricane recovery can take at least a decade and sometimes longer, said Tracy Kijewski-Correa, a professor of engineering and global affairs at the University of Notre Dame who has worked on several major disasters, including the hurricane. Harvey of 2017 in Texas.
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“We worked in communities after Sandy, they were still trying – and still trying – to recover,” Kijewski-Correa said, referring to the “super storm” that hit the New Jersey shoreline in 2012.
A similarly long timeline could be in store for Ian survivors, said Elizabeth Dunn, a professor at the University of South Florida College of Public Health.
“Having to rebuild all these homes, these grocery stores, this infrastructure, it will take years for this recovery process to occur,” she said.
The cost of a hurricane
Taking into account individual payments, federal disaster funds allocated to affected states, and agricultural losses, NOAA’s National Environmental Information Centers lists Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which hit the coast of Louisiana and Mississippi as a Category 3 storm, as the costliest hurricane to hit the United States. over $186 billion in damages.
As of August 10, more than 73,000 Katrina survivors were receiving assistance through FEMA’s Housing Direct program, spokeswoman Jaclyn Rothenberg said.
More recently, a 2022 University of Houston study found that 82% of Houston households have recovered from flood and wind damage from Hurricane Harvey in Texas, but more than 18% of respondents – mostly in marginalized communities – reported difficulties with ongoing recovery five years later.
Hurricane Harvey is the second costliest hurricane on record, hitting Texas for $148 billion in damage.
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Andrew Barley, disaster recovery manager for West Street Recovery, a Houston-based nonprofit, called the weather events that plagued the city after Harvey, including an ice storm in 2021, ” perpetual chain of disasters”.
“The year after (Harvey) we had another storm that flooded a lot of the same areas,” Barley told USA TODAY, adding that in 2022 the organization would continue with related repair work. in Harvey in the marginalized neighborhoods of Houston.
Tropical cyclones over the past 41 years have each caused an average of $20.5 billion in damage, according to NOAA’s Office for Coastal Management.
FEMA: Outdated building codes put lives at risk
A 2020 FEMA report showed that 65% of US counties, cities, and towns have not adopted modern building codes.
“Building codes generally don’t provide the level of protection a family needs to be able to return to an occupyable home after a hurricane,” Kijewski-Correa said.
The FEMA study found that updated, hazard-resistant building codes could avert at least $32 billion in losses from disasters, including hurricanes, which accounted for most losses from all disasters on a period of 20 years.
Hazard-resistant upgrades include improved roof construction standards such as fasteners and roof coverings, mandatory use of impact-resistant windows and window coverings, and reinforced walls, according to FEMA.
Communities that are not built to modern standards are left “exceptionally vulnerable,” Kijewski-Correa said.
“(Experts) routinely communicate the risks communities face and the steps they need to take to protect themselves, but we’re not seeing uptake,” she said. Engineers update model building codes about every four years, leaving it up to each community to adopt the latest recommendations, Kijewski-Correa said.
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A 2021 report from the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety ranked eight states along the Gulf and Atlantic coasts prone to hurricanes – Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Delaware, New York, Maine and New Hampshire – with poor ratings on a zero to – 100 scale based on their adoption and application of modern building codes.
Mississippi and Alabama had the lowest scores at 29 and 30, respectively, and none of the eight lowest-ranked states has a mandatory statewide building code, according to the report.
According to the International Hurricane Research Center, Florida — the hurricane capital of the United States — and Virginia were ranked highest for having the most up-to-date building codes against loss prevention, according to the study.
“Reactive” vs. “Proactive” Investing
The United States will never be on track if it remains a “reactive country,” not proactively investing in measures to make hurricane-prone areas safer, Kijewski-Correa said.
“We let things break and the insurance pays for it; we let the communities be destroyed and then FEMA comes in and we rebuild them,” she said. “We rarely come in and say, ‘we’re going to come and reinforce these things before the storm,’ a proactive investment.”
According to the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety and the Florida Housing Finance Corporation, new structures across much of Florida, especially in the south, were built to stricter codes after hurricanes like Andrew in 1992 and Charles in 2004.
The Insurance Institute’s post-Charley study found that Florida building code improvements in 1996 reduced residential property damage claims by 60% and decreased the severity of building damage by 42%.
However, parts of the Florida Panhandle decimated by Category 5 Hurricane Michael in October 2018 were under building code exemptions that made them vulnerable. Some buildings in the Mexico Beach area were not designed to withstand winds from a Category 5 storm, according to a report from the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation.
“Poor location and elevation” also led to the extent of Michael’s damage in the area, according to the report.
The area’s building codes had been given exemptions because they hadn’t been hit by a major storm before, said Kijewski-Correa, who added that the storms took paths they hadn’t. historically.
“In a changing climate, I don’t know how long these historic precedents will hold,” she said.
When an area hasn’t fully recovered from previous storms and is hit by other natural disasters soon after – which researchers call aggravating disasters – Kijewski-Correa said an area’s vulnerability decreases to every impact.
“Now we get hit more often,” she said, and it’s not just hurricanes. Floods, heat waves, tornadoes and cold snaps all weaken a community’s resilience, according to Kijewski-Correa.
Better building codes? Or more consumer education?
Along with adopting updated codes, Kijewski-Correa recommended a societal shift toward performance-based building standards where homeowners can choose how safe their homes are.
“I could tell my builder, ‘I want a house that will withstand a Category 4 hurricane,’ and they would design the house to that standard,” she said.
The Life Safety Code applied to buildings in the United States and around the world is designed to get people out alive, and does not mean that the building will not be significantly damaged in an event such as a hurricane, which could “overshoot” building codes, Kijewski-Correa said. Performance-based designs would allow owners to build above code standards, she said.
Building codes are not retroactive and only apply to new construction, she noted. The delay in catching up with code standards is why the engineer said she doesn’t believe building codes are necessarily the answer.
“I actually think the answer is to educate consumers about their risks and to bring them products to market that empower them to make choices to better protect their families, and empower them to voluntarily improve their homes or to renovate it,” said Kijewski-Correa.
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