BATON ROUGE, La.—Hurricane-battered Louisiana will have stronger building codes in place for next year’s storm season.
State legislators passed S.B. 44 in the final hours of a special session that ended Nov. 22, mandating the creation of a uniform building code that must be adopted by all parishes and municipalities to ensure that commercial and residential structures can better withstand hurricane winds. The code will make some distinction in building standards that must be adhered to in the southern, more wind-prone part of the state and those in areas farther from the Gulf of Mexico.
The bill was sent to Gov. Kathleen Blanco, who was expected to sign the measure.
Creating a uniform code will be a big move for a state in which “numerous jurisdictions had no codes prior to Katrina,” said Jeff Burton, building code manager at the Institute for Business & Home Safety, a Tampa, Fla.-based nonprofit association.
Except in the southeastern Louisiana city of Slidell, where buildingcode enforcement has been stringent, “everything else was, in one way or another, inadequate to the task,” said Mr. Burton, who helped draft measures within the Louisiana bill.
With the law’s passage, Louisiana will have building requirements comparable to those in Florida and other states in which hurricanes are a threat, he said.
Glen Daraskevich, assistant vp for research and modeling at AIR Worldwide Corp. in Boston, agreed there is room for improvement in Louisiana building requirements. “Since Hurricane Andrew, Florida has made a number of updates” to its building code that have kept losses down in subsequent storms, he noted. “In Louisiana, those same building code standards aren’t in play.”
The legislation calls for the creation of a 19-member Louisiana State Uniform Construction Code Council, appointed by the governor to review and adopt the uniform construction code. The council’s duties will include providing for the training and education of officials to enforce the codes.
All Louisiana municipalities and parishes must enforce at least the minimum requirements of the uniform code, which applies both to new construction and to repairs to existing structures. Those minimum statewide standards governing residential and commercial construction in Louisiana include the International Building Code and the International Residential Code, as amended by the new legislation.
In the southeastern parishes, where hurricane exposure is greater, the law requires particularly stringent construction standards; buildings will have to withstand greater wind speeds and adhere to flood mitigation requirements. Those parishes are Orleans, Jefferson, St. Bernard, St. Tammany, Plaquemines, Terrebonne, Lafourche, Calcasieu, Cameron, Vermillion and Iberia.
Those parishes must begin adhering to the new standards 30 days from the governor’s signature if they have code enforcement procedures already in place. Those that still must develop such procedures have 90 days.
Parishes in less-exposed areas, which are not required to implement the more stringent wind-resistance measures, have until Jan. 1, 2007, to comply with the legislation.
A stringent building code with different requirements for the southern and northern parts of the state is a good idea, said Denny Borne, risk manager at Bollinger Shipyards Inc. in Lockport, La.
North Louisiana “doesn’t get the kind of wind and flooding that we get in south Louisiana,” said Ms. Borne, whose company lost a ship repair facility in the eastern part of New Orleans to Hurricane Katrina. Bollinger facilities in other southern Louisiana cities sustained much less damage.
Insurers, meanwhile, are praising the bill’s passage.
“Stronger building codes result in the construction of safe and durable structures, which will reduce economic losses to homes, businesses and cities, and, more importantly, they will save lives,” said Greg LaCost, assistant vp, regional manager and counsel for the Des Plaines, Ill.-based Property Casualty Insurers Assn. of America, in a statement.
Insurers have some responsibility under the bill to ensure that their rates reflect the savings expected from the more-stringent code. The bill states that insurers must detail in their rate filing applications “as to what discount or reduced rate will be given to insured who comply with the State Uniform Construction Code.”
Mr. Daraskevich said there is plenty of evidence from Florida to show how strengthened building codes can mitigate property damage. For example, requiring the use of impact-resistant glass or storm shutters in wind-prone areas of Florida has significantly reduced storm damage, he noted.
Garage doors in commercial properties in Florida have to be built to more-stringent standards after Hurricane Andrew, Mr. Daraskevich pointed out, making another type of loss less common during storms there. Conversely, damage to garage openings in Louisiana at automotive oil-change businesses was particularly severe after Hurricane Katrina, he said.
Mr. Daraskevich also noted that when Katrina tore away roofs in Louisiana, there was no “secondary moisture protection,” because that wasn’t required, as it is in Florida. “In Louisiana, once you lose shingles, you’re getting water” into the structure, he explained.