Summary: Not only was the Florida Building Code not fully effective in buildings damaged by Hurricane Michael, but neither were mitigation efforts designed to fortify our homes and businesses, according to a new FEMA report. A team of building experts conducted an assessment of 350 structures affected by Michael’s Category 5 winds that reached upwards of 160 mph. They paint a dismal result. Buildings with wind retrofits, such as stronger windows or doors, suffered significant damage, even when those windows and doors held up. The FEMA report notes people were injured as a result. Expensive mitigation upgrades were for nothing. And entire buildings, including multi-million dollar local government facilities, now have to be rebuilt from scratch. What happened? Isn’t mitigation supposed to be a smart investment? Host Lisa Miller, a former deputy insurance commissioner, asks her guests, including a former state legislator who had a hand in creating the Florida Building Code and the Panhandle’s wind standards, and two noted structural engineers. Show Notes This podcast is a follow-up in part, to the August 31, 2019 podcast Is Florida’s Building Code Protecting All of Us? A University of Florida engineering school report found that the Florida Building Code wasn’t tough enough to withstand Michael’s Category 5 winds. Not even in some newer structures, although they did fare better than those built before the 2002 code was enacted. But almost two-thirds of those buildings built after the code had some roof cover loss, according to the report. Although there is a single state building code, it has different wind standards depending on where you live. The eastern Panhandle, where Hurricane Michael struck, has some of the weakest wind standards in the state, at 130 mph on the coast and 120 mph slightly inland. Former state Senator Charlie Clary was involved in the creation of those wind standards in 2002. “We tried to come up with some ways of helping, as we made the codes tougher and more uniform throughout the state, but still be somewhat affordable as they constructed these homes, because we were in a very intense growth mode at that time. There had never been a Category 4 or greater hurricane to impact NW Florida at that time,” said Clary, who is founding principal with DAG Architects in Destin, Florida. “We have to just learn lessons from Michael and make the changes necessary.” In Bay County, ground-zero for Michael, officials estimate nearly 75% of its 68,000 households were impacted. The UF report noted roof and siding loss was common in both pre-code and post-code construction. Dr. Arn Womble, Research Engineer with the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety, said roofing products themselves need improvement and that aging effects seem to play a big role in how the roofs perform. “We are frustrated as well as I think everybody in the industry in that the standard test for shingles – and we run them in our lab and they pass a certain test and then when they get subjected to reality out there in the field, they don’t perform like the laboratory test indicated that they might, so we’re realizing there’s a big disconnect there,” said Dr. Womble, who led a field survey team after Michael struck. He added that siding products haven’t gotten as much attention as roofing, but need to going forward. The conversation moved to the newest set of post-Michael reports from FEMA. Its recovery advisory Successfully Retrofitting Buildings for Wind Resistance, resulted from FEMA’s Mitigation Assessment Team survey of Hurricane Michael damage. It found that buildings and homes with wind retrofits suffered significant damage—even in cases when the retrofit itself performed well&(continued)
