Disaster Resistance

The extent to which disaster resistant is high on your list of attributes is likely to depend on the characteristics of the geographic region your building is located. To a certain degree, the building codes identify and address high-risk areas. Evidence of significant property damage certainly exists in areas that are not necessarily formally associated with high risk, such as the severe flooding in many Upstate New York towns as a result of Hurricane Irene. Although not natural disasters, widespread power outages or blackouts can also create significant issues for residential and commercial establishments alike. Depending on the nature of your facility and the demographic of the occupants, consider whether some measures to mitigate effects of a disaster might be warranted. Measures can range from the very basic, such as elevating equipment above floor level, to the more costly, such as installing backup generator capability.

The FORTIFIED Home™ Program developed by the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety (IBHS) is designed to strengthen new and existing homes against hazards that they may experience. The program identifies a set of mandatory measures, based on the location of your property, that must be implemented to receive the designation. A trained and certified FORTIFIED™ evaluator provides third party verification that your project has been designed and constructed to meet the hazard- mitigation standards appropriate for your area. The program goes a step further than the building codes via a more conservative mapping of regions that are prone to high winds, severe winter weather, thunderstorms, and hail.

Resilience STAR™ is a pilot program developed by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to build and retrofit single-family homes to make them more hurricane resistant. This program employs guidelines of the IBHS and targets buildings under severe threat in the coastal regions of the South and Southeast.