Planning tools and strategies typically stop at the building line. This section addresses some of the tools (such as building codes) outside the typical planning realm that help communities reduce risk to hazards. Tools that improve a structure’s chance of survival and protect valuable community infrastructure assets make a more resilient community. Building codes establish rules for building safely and provide engineering standards to ensure that structures located in hazard areas can withstand high winds, high waters, wildfire embers, and heavy snow load. They also protect critical infrastructure, which is the lifeline of a community during and after a major hazard event. Adopting the most current building code cycle gives a community an important boost in terms of hazard mitigation.
It is critical that land use planners work closely with building officials and emergency services personnel to coordinate the closely-related goals of planning-related regulations and building regulations. Planners can help raise and facilitate discussions of tradeoffs between competing community goals, such as historic preservation and infrastructure upgrades. Planners should strive to understand and become involved in building code issues in order to truly understand the importance of keeping the built environment resilient over time. Once buildings are erected, they may remain for many years. It is imperative that planners help educate local officials and citizens on how solid construction methodologies can help protect the community and local infrastructure from hazards.
Explore the Tools
Explore tools that communities can use to improve design and construction of structures and other important infrastructure in a community.
Residential and Community Safe Rooms
In 2014, the Natural Hazard Mitigation Association prepared the study “Hide from the Wind: Tornado Safe Rooms in Central Oklahoma” for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which analyzed tornado safe rooms in central Oklahoma—an area of the U.S. that has experienced the nation’s highest frequency of violent tornadoes. The study sought to determine the prevalence of safe rooms (by definition, a room or space that is specially anchored and armored to provide near absolute protection during a tornado or wind storm) and provide lessons learned that can be applied to other communities at risk from these natural hazards.
One of the success stories in the study highlights Moore, Oklahoma. As of May 2014, Moore reported 5,500 registered storm shelters for its city’s 23,000 residential properties; the city estimates that as many as 80 percent have been self-funded and the number of safe room installations continues to climb. A variety of financial incentives and unified messages delivered through multiple trusted sources contributed to the successful implementation of this mitigation strategy. The study also found that most people invest in safe rooms to not only protect their families but also to improve their property values. The full study includes many other case study examples.
Additional Safe Room resources from FEMA are available and include the following:
- Taking Shelter from the Storm: Building a Safe Room for Your Home or Small Business, FEMA P-320, Third Edition / August 2008. This publication provides safe room designs that show a builder/contractor how to construct a safe room for a home or small business, and includes design options for safe rooms located in the basement, in the garage, or in an interior room of a new home or small business.
- Design and Construction Guidance for Community Safe Rooms