States, cities look to building codes to help stem windstorm losses
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Population booms in coastal areas are increasing vulnerability to potential losses caused by windstorm activity, but building codes have been enhanced in certain states to mitigate the damage.
South Carolina, which has a population of more than 5 million and was heavily affected by Hurricane Florence, received a score of 92 in the Tampa-based Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety’s Rating the States: 2018 Report released in March, thanks to the state’s use of an updated residential building code and the amending of design wind speed maps to align the wind contour lines with physical boundaries such as streets and streams.
“There are a lot of good stories in terms of the leadership we’ve seen in the Carolinas, but clearly the impact of Florence has enough of a terrible bent to it that even that great work only gets you so far,” said Roy Wright, Richburg, South Carolina-based IBHS president and CEO.
North Carolina, projected to reach a population of 10.6 million by the end of 2020, received a score of 83, down one point from its 2015 score, because it is enforcing 2009 building code amendments and changed its adoption cycle of the state residential code from three years to six years, according to the IBHS report.
“At the state level, it’s a little bit of a mixed bag,” but cities such as Wilmington, North Carolina, have been “trying to blaze the path forward and be a leader in the space of resilience,” with a 2013 pilot project to reduce the vulnerability of the city’s water and wastewater infrastructure to rising sea levels and flooding, and by developing a flood risk mitigation plan, said Forbes Tompkins, officer, flood-prepared communities initiative of the Pew Charitable Trusts in Washington.
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