Strongs stronger flood protection standards for new hospitals, schools and apartments are approaching.
The International Code Council has approved stronger construction codes to protect hospitals, schools and other flood structures
The Barker reservoir and the Buffalo Bayou dam are shown on August 30, 2017 in Houston, Texas. The city of Houston experienced serious floods in some areas due to the accumulation of historical levels of rain.
Climatewire | Many new hospitals, schools, apartment buildings and other structures would be built with additional flood protection under an important review of an international construction code approved on Friday.
A nonprofit organization that writes model construction codes widely used in the US tok. A step to require that some newly built structures are built well above the level of local flood, and expand the areas where elevation is required.
“This is transformative,” said the engineering professor at Oregon State University, Daniel Cox, who directed a panel of experts who wrote and proposed the new flood standards. “It will change how we mitigate floods in the United States”
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The standards were approved by the conspiracy that came out at an audience in Orlando by a committee of the Code writing group, the International Code Council, despite the opposition of the construction industry.
The Council will take a final vote in 2026 and the new standards would take effect in 2027.
The standards would apply only to the states and other jurisdictions that adopt them. The states are or slow to adopt new buildings standards. Some face pressure from the construction groups to reject updated standards that would modernize new buildings while increasing construction costs.
“At this time, a hospital and a fire station are built with the same level of protection as a hot dog stand.” – Rob Moore, Senior Policy Analyst
The approval of the Council Committee was a victory for flooding, environmental and insurance groups specialists, who say that additional construction costs will be more paid to themselves by reducing future flood damage.
“This representative is a very necessary critical leap in flood resilience,” Aaron Davis, deputy executive director of Buildstrong America, on Friday, said on Friday. The group is a coalition of consumer groups, architects, insurance groups and other defenders of modernized construction codes.
Chad Berginnis, executive director of the Association of Managers of the state of the Planning of the Allan, said that flood standards would stop the growing flood damage worldwide as climate change intensifies storms and development increases in flooding areas.
The standard was opposed by the National Association of Housing Builders, the National Council of Multifamily Housing and the American Society of Medical Care Engineering.
“Our concern with this is that this will increase the cost of construction for the new construction,” Jonathan Flannery, associate director of regulatory issues of the company, told the Committee.
East Houston Medical Center and González Family & Occupational Medicine in the I-10 still has Harvey Water Hurricane, Wednesday 30, 2017.
Juan Deleon/Icon Sportswire through Getty Images
One of the standards approved on Friday would expand local flooding areas so that more structures are subject to lifting requirements.
Flannery said the requirement would discourage medical care facilities to be located within flooding areas, where the elevation requirements would increase construction costs.
“If a community is looking to build an installation … and can be built for 1 percent less outside the flooding zone, they will do so. However, the need can be in the flooding area,” Flannery said.
The construction expert at Louisiana State University, Carol Friedland, told the committee that flood standards would increase the number of buildings in flooding areas by five percent. They would also impose “modest cost increases” or between 0.5 percent and 2 percent in construction.
But the standards would drastically reduce the chances of a building being damaged by floods, Friedland said.
The standards would apply to basic buildings such as residential or commercial structures and “somewhat critical facilities”, such as schools and “critical facilities”, including hospitals. Flood standards would be higher for buildings that are more critical.
“At this time, a hospital and a fire station are built at the same level of protection as a hot dog stand,” Rob Moore committee, a senior policy analyst of the Natural Resources Defense Council.
The Committee approved flood standards three days after a separate council committee rejected a proposal to increase standards for newly built housing.
The Association of Housing Builders was strongly requiring a greater elevation of more homes due to the cost of additional construction.
The association has opposed similar efforts in the states and by the federal government under former President Joe Biden. President Donald Trump canceled a Biden era policy that required the elevation of structures built with federal disaster aid.
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