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| What happens to Mississippi the next time a Category 3 hurricane slams into the state’s vulnerable Gulf Coast? A new LSU Hurricane Center study released today shows that if Mississippi toughens its building codes and construction practices, the state would save an estimated $3.1 billion in economic losses while sparing nearly 20,000 buildings from Category 3 hurricane destruction due to extreme winds and wind-driven rain. The study suggests if Mississippi makes no significant changes, residents here will face the kind of devastation and economic losses that Katrina inflicted last August. The director of LSU’s Hurricane Center, Marc Levitan, unveiled the study, saying the findings call for code and construction changes that cannot and should not be ignored. Levitan offered this sobering view, “Mississippi would have fared much better in Katrina if we had a modern building code in place. Instead, the current patchwork system of no code in some jurisdictions and minimal code in others left our building stock especially vulnerable to the devastation brought by Katrina’s winds.” The study is being released as Mississippi struggles to recover from Katrina’s devastating impact on the state: 231 deaths; 65,000 buildings destroyed or severely damaged; and $45-billion in damages. All of this as the next hurricane season is only four months away. The LSU Hurricane Center study used a Federal Emergency Management Agency Hurricane Wind Model to analyze losses from a strong Category 3 hurricane simulated to strike Mississippi’s coast. Researchers wanted to see what the damage would be with and without tougher codes and building practices. The hurricane intensity was chosen to correspond generally with the design wind speed required by the International Residential Code or IRC. The IRC is a comprehensive model building code for the construction of residential buildings that are no taller than three stories in height. The differences were stunning. Without Tougher Building Codes
With Tougher Codes and Construction Practices
Levitan also noted the findings of the LSU study are consistent with the conclusions of the Mississippi Governor’s Commission report on Katrina released last Wednesday. That report carried this warning: “Local governments…must adopt more stringent building codes and requirements in order to protect its citizens and to reduce the extent of destruction from a future hurricane or other natural disasters.” Levitan and his team of researchers suggested the Katrina tragedy should be viewed as a critical opportunity to launch a massive rebuilding effort to replace the 65,000 destroyed buildings. “We could do this the right way or the wrong way, and I’m imploring the governor and the legislature to make sure we do it the right way.” The right way, according to Levitan, is to develop a uniform and up-to-date residential building code across the entire state that would require people rebuilding destroyed homes to meet the latest building code standards relating to window protection, roof construction and other requirements. “After the devastation from Hurricane Andrew in Florida, that state implemented a tough new statewide building code,” Levitan said. “Studies after last year’s Hurricanes Charley and Ivan showed that homes built to the new code fared much better, clearly demonstrating that properly enforced modern building codes are very effective tools for reducing hurricane damage. Louisiana took Florida’s lesson to heart, adopting mandatory statewide building and residential codes in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.” See the full study on the Web at www.hurricane.lsu.edu. -30- |
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