Relationship between Residential Losses and Hurricane Winds: Role of the Florida Building Code
Publication: ASCE-ASME Journal of Risk and Uncertainty in Engineering Systems, Part A: Civil Engineering
Volume 4, Issue 1
Abstract
The effectiveness of the Florida Building Code (FBC) against the impacts of wind speed, duration of strong winds, and wind directional change is quantified. For seven historical hurricanes that impacted Florida during 2004 and 2005, wind speed, duration, and directional change are significantly correlated with insured wind loss. Loss increases loglinearly with wind speed, loss has a step-function relationship with directional change, and duration effects are only important for minor hurricanes. Loss is most sensitive to major hurricane wind speeds, followed closely by minor hurricane wind speeds, and is less sensitive to duration and directional change. A multiple regression analysis finds that homes built after the implementation of a statewide FBC in the early 2000s experience significantly lower losses than homes built in the previous decade, in agreement with previous literature. The total effect of the FBC in reducing losses appears to be effective against wind speed, wind duration, and wind directional change effects. Understanding the importance of different wind parameters in driving loss, combined with assessments of how building codes perform against those parameters, may inform effective building code development.
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Acknowledgments
The authors acknowledge the assistance of the Insurance Services Office, the Florida Division of Emergency Management, Florida International University, and the Willis Research Network for data and research support. The National Center for Atmospheric Research is sponsored by the National Science Foundation. Author Done wrote the manuscript and conducted the initial data analysis, author Simmons conducted the regression analyses, and author Czajkowski interpreted the regression results.
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Published In
ASCE-ASME Journal of Risk and Uncertainty in Engineering Systems, Part A: Civil Engineering
Volume 4 • Issue 1 • March 2018
Copyright
©2018 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Feb 24, 2017
Accepted: Aug 4, 2017
Published online: Jan 16, 2018
Published in print: Mar 1, 2018
Discussion open until: Jun 16, 2018
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